#24

One of the poems from the found and listing the caught my eye was Symposium Paul Muldoon. I just found this poem very interesting. I think because the style is playful but clever at the same time. In my opinion, the author shows a sense of humor at times throughout the poem.
Paul Muldoon
Symposium
You can bring a horse to water but you can't make it hold
its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds.
Every dog has a stitch in time. Two heads? You've been sold
one good turn. One good turn deserves a bird in the hand.

A bird in the hand is better than no bread.
To have your cake is to pay Paul.
Make hay while you can still hit the nail on the head.
For want of a nail the sky might fall.

People in glass houses can't see the wood
for the new broom. Rome wasn't built between two stools.
Empty vessels wait for no man.

A hair of the dog is a friend indeed.
There's no fool like the fool
who's shot his bolt. There's no smoke after the horse is gone.

I feel like the author does a very good job on his word play. It is full of allusion and rhyme. At times sometimes I feel like the rhymes are forced but that was not a huge problem only an opinion. This poem displays meaning that can be hidden. In other words, you have to read deep into the poem itself. You can't just read it at face value. Meanings, words, and characters fold back or feed upon each other. He is particularly good at conveying a moment or a character from his past, or following a chain of memories or incidents through unlikely twists. Texts within the poems are elsewhere, ideas and approaches are reexamined in completely different circumstances.