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Best Poems Written by Hilary Barnes

Below are the all-time best Hilary Barnes poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Trumpiad Iii - Foreign Affairs

IV Foreign affairs

« Putin, I’m rootin to stop the shootin. »
« So am I ; about time you started too. »
« Started too! Me, I’m faster than you. »
« Not start too, you fool, but Start One, Start Two. »
« Start one, start two ? What the heck’s up with you ? »
« You dumped, Mr Trump. Came in on cue :
Haven’t a clue what it is you’re up to. »
« That’s it, Mr Putin ; I m sure thru with you ! »


« Rohani who ? President where ? Iran !
Thought it was neighbouring Fireawaystan ! 
So, it’s the place where Obama mucked up ;
Those canny Iranians, they sold him a pup !
Done what ? Fired off a missile ? Ballistic too !
Cancel treaty ? Gotta golf round to do !
Tell ‘em all options still on the table :
Bet that’ll make ‘em more m-n-able. 

« Hollande, of France, said to stay off his beat.
Turned up the heat and got a bit shirty
When I said Paris dead-beat and dirty,
With rats in the parks. He said my remarks
Not polite about the city of light,
Scorned and insulted, tourists in flight.
Relations with France hit by a hammer
My talking in such a rude manner. 

« You can tell that France is a load of old crap,
Don’t have a clue about what they are at :
French billionaires you can count on one hand ;
More in my cabinet than a sizeable band.
Just like the French to dilly and dally,
Moving just now to Silicon Valley
When the home grown talent’s moving away !
Well good luck to them is all I can say. »

« French bouche a Unesco World Heritage ?
Wish it was worth such a peripertetidge.
French lit ? O no, it’s one helluva bore,
Prix this and prix that and the Prix Goncourt,
But like old tale of the Goncourt brother,
Spoke at his club to a right old fossil,
Talked about this, that and the other :
« Should you wear medals when at the brothel ! 

« France like the rest of the world is a
Mess, a mess, to be honest, it’s a mess ;
We’re going to take care of it, folks, yes,
At home, abroad, it’s one terrible mess.
On one point, just as well there accord is :
Me, the people, the great Donald Trump,
The task I face, Herculean it’s true is,
But this great task in my stride I’ll confront. 

«Bully and bash, with insult’s all I’ll flay,
Same way Trump Towers got built in a day.
Soon have the whole world bashed into fashion,
All at my feet, overcome by my passion ;
The world in my own image constructed
Never again to be deconstructed,
Stable and peaceful where ever you look,
And to think – Me, D. Trump, that’s all it took. »

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Brexit Is Icumen In, May's Gone Cuckoo

Brexit Is Icumenn In, May's gone cuckoo!

No shame is poverty, if the heart by gay !
As Chaucer's Wife of Bath was wont to say;
Is this the tale that's told by May?
For Theresa's plan is surely on the way
To draining much of Britain's wealth away -
And no one's supposed to show dismay.
Though it be hateful,  poverty is good,
A great incentive to a livelihood,
To covet which seems to be the very thing,
That Britain's people in future yearn to cling,
As Chaucer's Wife of Bath did sing,
How the poor will cheer when the price of food
And heat goes up as fast as the £ goes down,
For he with nothing, the Wife of Bath did own,
Is rich though you may think they'd boude
The May refrain that accepting poverty unhurt,
I’d say, is rich, although he lacked a shirt.
Quakers, Methodists and the C of E 
Will rejoice to hear this Christian tale,
How poverty, when the heart is lowly,
Brings one to God and teaches what is holy.
But that was before the people got the vote,
And were’nt allowed to read the great Good Book ;
They had no choice but to say by rote
The words the cleric said were words  of note.…
By God, I think that Mrs May is barmy
To think that Brits will take it calmly
When they catch on that what she's at
Will mean they've not enough to feed a cat.
When that days comes, O Premiere Mrs May,
Then think of what that the Wife of Bath did say :
The truly poor are they who whine and fret
And covet what they cannot hope to get.

(The words in praise of poverty appearing in The Wife of Bath’s Tale, page 308 of Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Penguin Classics, translated by Nevill Coghill, edition 1968, are in italics).

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Trumpiad I - Work In Progress

« Fools are my theme and satire is my song. »
                   George Gordon, Lord Byron
I
Donald Trump is an ignorant man,
Put in power by a populist gang,
Property dealer of some renown
Rode with post-truth into town.
‘A living libel on mankind’,
On money likes to keep his mind,
Cabinet filled with billionaires
Huddled rich in hunt for chances
Use their office to make advances,
Increase billions by four or five,
To make them feel their still alive


II
O, Ye great bulletins of Bonaparté,
Paton’s D-Day address to the Armé,
Abe on « a nation born in liberté »,
Churchill to the House in 1940 !
And now D. Trump, 45th president,
Tweets on Twitter setting a precedent,
Policy thought conveyed with such thrift -
Surely a sign of a nation adrift.

But look on the bright side : what a relief ! 
When Trump talks at length, it’s my belief,
Anacoluthia attack him in shoals,
Grammar left full of great gaping holes,
Collapses in dire, illiterate heaps.
Something to be said for infantile tweets,
Though geo-strategy run off so quick
Speaks of a nation decidedly sick.

Trump’s got a thing ‘bout alternative facts,
Alternative lies masquerading as acts
He thinks are truer than truly true facts ;
So obsessed by media mendacity,
Loses track of simple veracity,
Disorder like this makes for confusion,
Trump KO’ed by semantic contusion,
Is he speaking the truth or spouting lies ?
Makes him a fool in everyman’s eyes.

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President Macron and the Bobos

France is now ruled by Macroniens,
A species of urban boboniens,
Passably bright,
Not too far Right,
But perhaps just the latest d….d phonyens.

To keep France in order, the PoF
Must avoid moves might put them off :
An appeal to the Centre
Is a smart way to enter,
But too motley his triumph to bring off.

Credit, and how ! where credit is due,
Macron’s talent is rivalled by few.
He’s redrawn for the times
The political lines,
Like Bonaparte, de Gaulle and their crew.

His hold on power is complete,
Jupiter with cast hyper-elite.
No proles are in sight,
Now that can’t be right,
They may come to think he’s a cheat.

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Trump's Inaugural Cabinet Briefing

Donald (Me-the-People) Trump’s inaugural Cabinet briefing :

You know what the problem with the poor is ? Of course you do. They don’t own anything. Well, we’re all billionaires here, except a brace or two of generals, and we do own something. But you know what ? We’re in power, but it’s power without ownership. That’s one of the things I’m going to change while I make America great again. That’s why all the people in my government who really count are billionaires.

I put it this way : if we’re all worth a billion now, we need to be worth at least 100bn each before November 2020. I know you will agree now, as I know that from now on you will always agree with everything I say.

Now, I am not a socialist. You are not surprised to hear that, of course. In fact, I don’t think there is anyone who thinks I am a socialist, so let me say it again : I am not a socialist. You wanna find socialists ? Just look at all those media people, especially journalists – socialists every one of them. I hate them. I expect you all to hate them too, and never never speak to a journalist. Is that clear. That’s one of the ways we’re gonna make America great again.

But there is one thing I will say for socialist rulers, in places like Cuba, Venezuela, China, Soviet Russia ….They know a thing or two about the importance of ownership. In fact, the ruling clan owns everything. The rest of the people own nothing, not if the governments are real socialists.

So, if anyone notices, if anyone dares to say out loud, that we the people, that is to say the people now sitting in this room, are getting richer very fast, just tell all the …. excuse me, the word I had in mind is best left for the bedroom…. all those goddamn awful socialists out there, that we’re doing what good socialists everywhere always do (And by the way, we don’t want any trouble from the generals, so remember to cut them in). That should shut them up.

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No Pain, No Strain With Champagne

Black coffee, hot baths and champagne,
With pleasure and without any strain,
Do you more good
Than exercise would
And save you all that running and pain.

(Says so here, so must be true : https://fee.org/articles/the-lazy-millennial-guide-to-avoid-exercise/ )

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The Old Last Act

The #Old-Last-Act, Act I, Scenes 1 - 13

Anticipation
Expectation
A flirtation
Titillation
Osculation
Masturbation
Perturbation
Copulation
Consumation
Ejaculation
Expiration
And prostration
Termination

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Health Wealth

Beans are boring
But good for your health.
Champagne's restoring
But bad for your wealth.

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Trumpiad Ii - Rant

III Rant

I’m not ranting and raving
not me that’s badly behaving
so dishonest, media people
can’t tell a Trump Tower from a steeple
you just can’t get it right 
not raving and ranting
just telling you straight
just telling you all right 
yes, you, the press, I’m talking about
very very broken system
press is out of control
tremendous disservice, 
tremendous disservice
we have to talk about it
we have to talk about it
to the American people
attacking my administration
not treating me
wonderful person
the American people
wonderful people
with proper respect
got ‘em all here at the White House
so the American people
can see me the people telling them off
telling what incredible progress
i’ve already made in just one week
so if you hear anyone squeak
saying anything else its proof
They’re not telling the simple truth

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Verse Too Terse

Verse in lines of words :-
One.
Removes all the :-
Fun.
What makes it much worse is,
It’s verse hitched to hearses