The Poet’s Soul with Artful Pen
Few will read with understanding
What the poet is intending.
Nouns and verbs are still concealing
Concepts with a double meaning.
Adjectives, and adverbs too,
Are used in ways that men find new.
A word familiar with strange ending
Pirouettes on what’s portending.
Misty gleams immortal time
The poet captures in a rhyme.
Feign an artifice to hide
What the poet feels inside.
Durst the poet play with fate
Or touch the latch of heaven’s gate?
A proposition juxtapose
Between an anvil and a rose?
Be ever vigilant, my soul,
For it takes two to make a whole.
The poet’s soul with artful pen
Bestows his riddles upon men.
The Sordid Socialists and Cultish Communists
The sordid socialists
and cultish communists
Are really both the same.
They come with greedy fists
Yet give you all the blame.
They blame the rich for working,
For their industry.
They blame the rich while shirking
Their humanity.
They redistribute wealth
Till everyone is poor.
They tax as if our health
Needs taxes more and more.
The pimps of socialism
Buy whores they can control.
Their short-term mechanism
Is handing out a dole.
They hate that things have merit,
Great inventions reign.
They want to know your profit,
Privacy disdain.
The sordid socialists
And cultish communists
Have focused feral eyes
On top of their hitlists:
America’s the prize.
The Commie Will Hijack a Word
The commie will hijack a word
As new vocabulary.
So if you think “How nice” when heard,
I warn you to be wary.
“Democracy” was thus misused
By Lenin as a cover,
So any sort of power abuse
Is harder to discover.
Some years ago a synonym
For happiness was “gay.”
The word hijacked was turned into
The word it is today.
Antifas say that they hate fascists—
Yet, dressed in a new suit,
You wouldn’t guess that they’re the fascists,
And communists to boot!
The leftists cloak a meaning
In ways that make hearts move.
A rainbow is redeeming,
So who would disapprove?
Once Lenin said his tyrant party,
Which beat the “Mensheviks,”
Would now be called “majority.”
The meaning: “Bolsheviks.”
Roy E. Peterson is a writer and former U.S. military army intelligence officer who currently resides in Texas.
Good work all around and, for me, one outstanding couplet:
A proposition juxtapose
between an anvil and a rose
I appreciate your comment, Joe.
Regarding ‘The Poet’s Soul . . ‘, Roy: has the word ‘misty’ got another meaning on your side of the pond? In line 12: if you’re using it as a name for someone/something, then it’d make sense to me; but if you’re using it as obscure/cloudy, then I can’t grasp the line ‘Misty gleams immortal time’.
In line 15: I just turned down the volume on my music for a few seconds; to listen to the word ‘juxtapose’ screaming out for a ‘d’?
I think the tense of “juxtapose” is carried over from the preceding couplet, which is in the present tense.
It’ll be interesting to get the poet’s take on it.
and after “heaven’s gate”
perhaps a semi-colon instead of a question mark?
. . . but the previous couplet ends in a question-mark; thus the preceding line is the start of a new question . . having it’s own tense.
As an example: if one paraphrased that question, it could read: ‘A proposition sandwiched between an anvil and a rose? Different word: same meaning. But note it was sandwichED (past tense). In the sense of the poem, this would read as: ‘A proposition sandwich between an anvil and a rose’?
My last reply was in response to your penultimate comment.
I thought he was going for a series of questions (the “anvil/rose being his penultimate?).
I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound to me like the anvil/rose couplet can stand alone as a sentence.
‘Anvil rose’ was his last question; ‘heaven’s gate’ was his penultimate.
And no, even if one added the missing ‘d’, it still don’t stand up as a sentence. It reads: ‘A proposition juxtaposed’ (as in, it’s the proposition which is being juxtaposed) . . but a ‘proposition’ is only ONE thing. A juxtaposition requires TWO things . . to juxtapose one thing with another. For example, a ‘proposition’ and a supposition can be juxtaposed; but a proposition can’t be juxtaposed with itself!
Maybe the author’s intention was for the ‘anvil’ and the ‘rose’ to be juxtaposed with each other. If that was the case, it’d make more sense if it read: ‘A juxtaposition proposed with an anvil against a rose?’ That way, the author’s question would be asking (proposing) the potential merits of juxtaposing the anvil and the rose.
Like ya said: let’s see if the author can elaborate . .
Lieutenant Colonel Peterson, Hello. My comments relate to the first poem.
1. I recommend that the poem have a consistent meter. Lines 1-5 are in trochaic meter, and this set me up to expect that for the rest of the poem. However, the rest of the poem is a mishmash of iambic and trochaic lines.
2. I don’t understand certain parts of the poem, such as S3L1&2. Also, S2L3&4 sounds beautiful, but I have no idea what it means.
3. When words like “a” or “an” or “the” are left out, typically to keep the meter intact, it sounds like unnatural speech to me and I don’t care for it. Examples would be: “with strange ending” and “with artful pen.”
4. I agree with Monty that “juxtapose” needs a “d” at the ending, i.e.:
A proposition juxtaposed
Between an anvil and a rose?
5. The last line reads as follows:
Bestows his riddles upon men.
Assuming that this line is in iambic meter, the stress falls on the first syllable of “upon.” The problem is that when we say “upon,” we normally put the stress on the second syllable. One fix is to use “on” instead of “upon.” Here are a couple options:
Bestows his riddles on all men.
Bestows his riddles on mankind.
6. I do very much like this sentence:
Durst the poet play with fate
Or touch the latch of heaven’s gate?
7. This poem is within a stone’s throw of being a strong poem, in my opinion. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Regarding the first poem, Mark: I see that you’ve highlighted certain lines/sentences which you “don’t understand”.
As you made no mention of line 9, I must assume that you’ve understood it.
Would you care to share your understanding of that line?
I really like “The Sordid Socialists and Cultish Communists”.
In my opinion, these couplets are right up there with the best of Pope:
The pimps of socialism
Buy whores they can control.
Their short-term mechanism
Is handing out a dole.
Excellent lead poem; arresting title and image.