let's get away from rubber stamped poems
at over cheerful workshops, the pained smiles
of the resident MFAs on the back covers
the chopping off of refulgent vines and lines and lines
to our detriment
the musk rose and the eglantine
let poetry shine embroidered again
with everything the soul requires
or ever did.
I want to hear what Matthew Arnold
imagined Sophocles heard
in the retreating wave
or felt on a moonlit balcony
overhearing past imminence, the sounds of war.
you have all traded your birthrights for
no something elusive, beautiful and strange.
rearrange your priorities as they say.
I should say so, if I dared
colouring the moon a different shade.
abiding time and the political hoi poloi.
and manage to sing the red rose bordered song
the way Yeats meant: and may it soar!
music and word as one.
from an individual core.
the strings struck murmuring Thy heart,
God has lured back, no longer cold
into forever His nets of gold.
mary angela douglas 22 september 2019
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Your efforts in your poetry Mary are magnificent. James McLain