R. I. P.

A Poetic Sequence

by

Louis Phillips

Whatever subject Louis Phillips tackles, you can be sure that it will be approached with a wry philosophical stance and humor rare in American poetry. In this collection, Phillips takes on Rip Van Winkle—but with the usual Phillipian (if we may) disregard of chronology. Hence:

RIP VAN WINKLE PERFORMS
HIS SUMMING UP
How cd. I will my life into Being,
Being asleep all the time?
"...our first act of freedom,"
Says William James,
"If we are free,
Ought in all inward propriety
To be to affirm that we are free."
But what freedom cd. I have,
Being asleep all the time?
Ask me what I have learned,
I reply: The gods are no further away
Than the closing of my eyelids.