Philip received his M.A. in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He has published five books of poetry, Mirror Images and Shards of Glass, Dark Images at Sea, I Never Finished Loving You, Falls from Grace, Favor and High Places, and Forever Was Never On My Mind. Three novels, Caught Between (Which is also a 24-episode Radio Drama Podcast https://wprnpublicradio.com/caught-between-teaser/), Art and Mystery: The Missing Poe Manuscript and Far From Here. Philip also has a column in the quarterly magazine Per Niente. He enjoys all things artistic.

Tragedy Is A Parasitic Creature Whose Prey Is Passion

Contentment
is a half-moral cheerlessness
that numbs
what is uncomfortable.

There is an unattainable
idyllic inclination
that we accomplish
by disbelieving
because expressing is easier
than becoming.

How quaint
to defy all the risks
in feelings,
while
accepting the condemnation
of thinking.

We have invented,
creatively,
a fundamentally flawed
distinction
between passage and passing.
One is death
and the other
is admitting one is dead.
Not literally
of course
but figuratively.

A lack of eloquence
is unpitying,
insidious in its refrain
of helplessness,
accepted
helplessness,
welcomed
helplessness.

Tragedy is a parasitic creature
whose prey is passion
but whose
intoxication
is
romantic perfection.

I own guns.
I own books.
Both have
fearful
expectations.

I understand the difference between
what is borrowed
and what is asked for.
I know time
is silent
and what is pleasant
is a ruse,
a disguise to tame peril.

Yet
a beautiful illusion
is never seen
as a
divine comedy.