Excerpts from
This Roaring Nerve
The sweetened knife of love and lust, and foreheads warmly leaking
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Ode to Love
Copyright © Greg Philby
We loved with all the Love we had.
Our passions churned, unbound.
Our every human fiber played
as music without sound.
And there we were in clutch of Love;
and here we are, apart.
Is this the best that Love can do?
Just gently press a heart?
Oh Love, that bows the poet down.
Oh Love, of heav’nly might.
Where is your sword? Where is your fire?
Can you not take my life?
I watch as Love and lover fade
with soft and raveled strings.
Neither of you broke my heart
and that’s the saddest thing.
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Cold Moon
Copyright © Greg Philby
You hang above me close tonight
so silent and seductively
And you, oh moon, you take my heart
yet you return no warmth to me.
You take and take and take, cold moon,
—lovers, poets, song and dance—
But you drift on impassively
with no intent to love one back.
Oh, how can I resist your pull
your insouciant smile and brooding whim,
When every tender soul submits,
when all the stars compare so dim.
Oh callous moon, just leave me be!
in depthless dark too harsh for you.
For I don’t want to love you, moon.
I don’t want to—but I do.
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Under Verbeeck
Copyright © Greg Philby
Still-lifes hang in massive frames.
Seascapes churn in marbled halls.
We wander through the gallery,
the works of art severe on walls.
Rembrandt, stern with glowering paint.
The heavy grayness of Verbeeck.
And as you looked I came up close
and kissed your sculpted curve of neck.
And how the portraits flare with heat.
How the waves crash at the touch.
The oils shift within their eyes.
It leaves them weakened from the brush.
A soft caress on ivory nape
among the godly paints and plasters,
ires all the ranks of art.
The shape of you outshines the masters.
The canvas stares. Old World looks down.
The oils crack as time moves on.
No saints and kings. A simple move.
A turn of head. A turn of muse.
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Bar Stool
Copyright © Greg Philby
If I was that ugly bar stool over there
—the red torn vinyl one
with the tape patchwork on it
and the foam still coming out
and with that beautiful woman
straddled squarely upon it
for the past 45 minutes—
I would not have been able
to finish my last beer,
take a piss,
and make last call.
minor
blessings
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
A Little Ghost of You
Copyright © Greg Philby
There lives a little ghost of you
dressed in the trappings of your name.
There lives a little ghost of you
that taps my inner pane.
In it shifts, a wisp, a whole,
and turns each nuance, undefined.
Thin myths crack; long truths entwine
in open fields of mind.
There lives a little ghost of you
with almost flesh and almost scent
that stirs the languid spoils of time
that we have never spent.
So burn your days! Embrace yourself!
It’s this I’m thinking of:
It’s the ghost of you—and nothing more—
with whom I am in love.
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Gas Fireplace and I
Copyright © Greg Philby
Such a good girl, tongueless,
tied to her clean line,
faithfully dispassioning
measured heat.
Pretty in her tailored blue dress
cut so consistent but There! Did
You See? Sometimes
she shakes a wild Spark
from her gold hair/Did
you Wow that wantburst
of Flame?! Did you??
that deeplyburst???
?!?!
So.
So here, reliably comfortable
from our sides of even glass.
Our hours burn, steadfastly.
Such a good girl, tongueless
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
Boy with Pretty Eyes
in a Dirty Bar
Copyright © Greg Philby
Look down, boy,
look low into your ale,
look down at the bartop
beaten with hard luck,
just look down.
who did this to you,
those pretty blue eyes
soft as a mother,
the long lashes curled
like a vixen on her back.
who did this??
the sultry mess on your face
of bed legs and lifting skirt
undermine you in these
carnal bar lights.
Up and down the bar line,
the ugly hunkered wrecks,
the pocks and stains
have their low ales
and their sorrows
but they, at least,
can look up.
Copyright © 2025 Greg Philby
little bird
Copyright © Greg Philby
we sit on the patio, stirring
our drinks in silence
and watch, far above, a little bird
nipping at a larger one
that moves in a great placidness.
It makes me think of the chihuahua,
the lightest-weight wrestlers,
the small things
that are the loudest and won’t stop.
Like tiny nagging fears and ignored truths.
Like how we are not really in love, are we.
we stir our patio drinks silently
in our great placidness.