Discussions In Contemporary Poetry

April 17th, 2010 (10) Posted By Pat Dollard.

Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is a post-modern poet from County Armagh, Northern Ireland as well as an educator and academic at Princeton University. He has published over thirty collections and won both a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 – 2004 and is currently the president of the Poetry Society (U.K.) and Poetry Editor at The New Yorker.

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  • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

    Wretched Refuse

    You have done what I have asked and done it well.
    Sadly, you seek to follow them from your own ‘wretched’ Hell
    and the ‘Wretched Refuse’ you, gloating, sent to me,
    you now come to set unfree.
    Know that my challenge flung into your teeth
    is something I certainly will bequeath
    to the sons and daughters of the tired, poor masses you sought to caste
    into the cauldron of my offer and stand, behind me, massed
    to fling your tyranny back into the sea
    crossed by the ‘refuse’ you spurned to me!
    Look upon my children and despair!
    I am Lady Liberty! Beware!

    Tim Roesch

    • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

      Who tells Americans what do?

      “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
      How could you ever undo the crack
      when Liberty’s Bell was defiantly rung
      by Her children’s undoing of the attack
      upon which our futures hung?

      In Pennsylvania there is a whole:
      “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
      Awake America! For whom does the Bell toll?
      “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
      When the time comes to bare your soul;
      “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”

      Tim Roesch

    • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

      Fight War

      (based on this photo-http://www.michaelyon-online.com/little-girl.htm)

      Good night, sweetheart, I bid thee adieu,
      and whatever God comforts you
      may you find the peace and the joy
      nothing I could muster or deploy
      could provide.
      And know that I cried
      despite the ‘foul’ accoutrements of war
      and could give you no more
      than the spare comfort of my arms
      as you left these earthly harms.

      And to those who would exchange peace and freedom for the Fools’ Gold of War’s End
      I cry out for I can only, with words, now defend
      the firm resolve I share with another Lady, cold, copper jacketed and still,
      who stands before a humble shore upon a bunkered hill
      and peers out into the hearts of men
      and demands that we bring her the Wretched Refuse and then
      Oh! and then with the religion of Liberty
      Blesses them all, each one, Free.
      And if I bring a little one who has died
      She will know I but tried
      and will forgive me my soldier’s pride
      for I do not war for glory or material gain!
      I fight for the future that once was lain
      at this sweetheart’s once clean, bare feet.
      I do not linger in the brutal deceit
      of mere Peace at any vicious, cruel cost!
      For I know I KNOW the Liberty the coin of peace has lost.
      While others might let loose the mere ‘Dogs of War’
      you, can not but fear, I fight for something more…

      I fight for a Lady called Liberty!
      And I tried, oh how I tried, to bring to Her one such as she.
      End all war? I smile at your naïve thirst.
      Here’s the cup a Tyrant filled with your peace. You drink first.

      But I warn you, it is a poisoned cup you choose
      spurned by generations of ‘Wretched Refuse’.

      Tim Roesch

    • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

      Yes, we can (never forget)

      The distant guns of history
      speak of tomorrow, plain to me,
      shouting down the impertinence
      of my self righteous countenance
      and the questions of yesterday
      mock the answers on display
      upon the soul I thought I sold
      for the precious glitter of fool’s gold
      and now I stand all alone
      watching tomorrow with eyes of stone
      I thought my soul a modest trade
      for the peace of a future I’ve now mislaid
      somewhere between Hope and Change
      that now the guns of the past disarrange
      Oh bursting shells of Realize
      against the armor of mock surprise
      you penetrate deep and erase
      the empty smile upon my face
      ‘Yes we can’ seemed so bright and gay
      So much easier to chant than say
      I now realize, I now know,
      it should be finished with ‘should we though’.
      Yesterday and Tomorrow are bookends to
      all that we are and all that we do.
      ‘Yes we can’ is an empty threat
      an idle boast, and a certain bet.

      Tim Roesch

  • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

    Now that’s poetry…

  • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

    Hello? Is there anyone out there? Is there…anyone? I guess poetry isn’t the think of the Pat Dollard crowd…oh well…

    • http://EyesOfAmerica.com Kiowah

      ‘Peon’ looking in, felt overwhelmed
      …at the same time exuberant.
      Write a little, nothing like this.
      I will be re-reading it again.

  • richwill

    Fear

    A shadow: along a wall moves
    black hat: askew, cape: flowing
    Blood-red garments: adorned
    Engulfs the unwary: iago
    Anger: inveigles all to odium
    plunges trust: a dark abyss
    Fear: strews the wreckage afar
    and stabs the bovine virgin
    dressed in white, heart of black

  • richwill

    Michelle Obama hates her native country
    Shouts to all, no one paid me due attention
    Proclaimed she is of the noble gentry

    Her college thesis complained no notoriety
    She believed not in this land, her nation
    Michelle Obama hates her native country

    On the campaign trail showed little civility
    She’d been denied a position of elaboration
    Proclaimed she is of the noble gentry

    Each commencement she cries shrilly
    life treated her unfairly in each situation
    Michelle Obama hates her native country

    About Chicago University she does cry
    It ignored her, is her loudest proclamation
    Proclaimed she is of the noble gentry

    I am first lady, she shouts so vulgarly
    When will she reach true realization?
    Michelle Obama hates her native country
    Proclaimed she is of the noble gentry

    • Tim Roesch – pseudo intellectual

      Like it, Rich.
      Maybe we should start a Conservative Poet’s Corner here on PatDollard’s site.