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Best Poems Written by David Welch

Below are the all-time best David Welch poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Revere the Founding Fathers, Part Ii

...And Alexander Hamilton,
though know for controversy,
served alongside Washington
in the war to make us free.
Helped build up our new armed forces,
set the stage for our economics,
the prosperity we still enjoy,
he had a lot to do with it.
The man stood against slavery
when many just chose to ignore
the problem as unsolvable,
unwilling to seize something more.
He rose up from bastardry
to shape a nation not formed yet,
I think we should remember more
then the sad method of his death.

Then there is His Excellency,
George Washington earned that in full,
the only American soul
who any dare call by that title.
Stuck with an untrained army,
often outnumbered and outclassed,
he wouldn’t fight by Europe’s rules,
and the British he would outlast.
Ill-supplied and often hungry,
he kept the militas going,
and though they would have made him King
he gave it up voluntarily!
Taught us how to be a president,
was not a known thing in those days,
then even left that so he could farm,
the depths of his honor amaze…

Last is the one who didn’t arrive
until three generations later,
Lincoln, the man who finished the job,
that Great Emancipator.
Some would say he wasn’t a founder,
but I must include him within,
the nation we know traces right back
to the great deed done by him.
An ordinary politician
in a nation torn all apart,
forced to grow into a hero,
enough to test any man’s heart.
Forced to fight a murderous war
admist voices calling out for peace,
knowing defeat meant more chaos,
and millions left in slavery…

Nowadays voices spurn these men,
choosing to recall only mistakes,
forgetting that their bold ideas
are what have made this country great.
Teachers prattle on like socialists,
killers of one hundred million souls,
all of our mistakes pale next to that,
it’s a direction none should go.
But the wisdom of the founders
transcends the confines of their day,
they took on the challenge of freedom,
that’s a challenge that don’t go away.
If we take the time to heed them
then we can continue on thriving,
we should revere the founding fathers,
in truth we owe them everything.

Details | David Welch Poem

Grilling Days

My driveway is packed with the cars
of friends and family,
chips put out, and the little ones
are running joyously.

A cooler filled up with bag ice
keeps cold soda and beer,
I think half the folks I know
were able to get here.

I stand over a charcoal grill,
today it is my thing,
propane may work in a pinch,
but briquettes remain king

Coals seer some discount longhorn steaks,
bought from a friend of mine,
will turn the meat ninety degrees,
get perfect grill-mark lines.

My vegan niece sits not far off,
always looks thin and ill,
ready to tell everybody:
“It’s not okay to kill!”

As if the plants she likes to eat
didn’t go to their death,
some day she might see how it is,
but she ain’t got there yet.

The youngsters go high on the swings,
I hear metal chains squeak,
one even gets up far enough
to brush against some leaves.

Every few moments one flies off,
and lands half-stumbling,
turns back to his cousins and cries:
“That jump was amazing!”

The older kids are further back,
shagging some fly-balls down,
they mix it up with fast bouncers,
racing across the ground.

Inside men sit and watch the game,
share opinions on sports,
each convinced they know the deal,
which players to exhort.

Not a word of work goes around,
and to me that’s just fine,
Boss-man gets five days of the week,
but these two? They are mine.

Wives and sisters sit on the deck,
indulging in girl-talk,
it may be a stereotype,
but lordy, how they squawk.

Then again, maybe it’s just me,
the introverted type,
gossiping in a big circle,
not something I would like…

Take off the ones medium rare,
three more minutes—well done,
plate them up, then give a shout:
“The steak’s on, everyone!”

Details | David Welch Poem

The Bigotry That Remains, Part Ii

...But there exists a much broader hate,
half the species, you see, do not rate.
I’m talking, of course, about the men,
how we’re seen as less next to women,
that our basic masculinity
is portrayed as criminality,
save for working women on the rise,
it’s okay for girls to act like guys.
The TV and the cinema screens
portray men as fools, or sexists mean,
like we would be helpless without girls…
Even though we built this friggin’ world.
in the courts we get the rawer deal,
and the consequences are quite real.
Man sleeps with a student, twenty years,
a woman does it, probation and tears…
We can be accused at any time
of abuse and acts truly malign,
and even if there’s no evidence
we still get punished, that makes no sense!
Near half of domestic battering
is done by women fond of punching,
knowing that we can never hit back,
that most forms of real recourse we lack.
Yet we’re still the ones sent off to die,
on our taxes government relies
since we’re still doing most of the work,
and for all this we get cast as jerks?
We’re told to know the feminist cause,
when in truth they should act more like us,
so there would be rationality
and some place for commonality.
But all such thoughts seem like a fools hope,
politicos love the women’s vote,
in society man-hate ingrained,
allows this bigotry to remain.

The most pernicious is jealousy
of the people who work and succeed,
the ones who go out and innovate
get saddled with socialistic hate.
Be it a newly minted billionaire,
or a working fellow who takes care,
they get slurred as monsters made of greed,
and stolen from with loud claims of ‘need.’
Some look at them and they cry out theft,
but I’ve seen no entrepreneur yet
who got rich by taking things by force
from the pockets the struggling poor,
never seen then force these folks to buy
what they’re selling in their stores inside,
since in this county commerce is choice,
that’s a sticking point you can’t avoid.
But this fact is lost on simple finds,
and the corrupt politicians find
it’s easier to get four more years
if you lie and saw what they want to hear.
Now people go out and they attack
the folks who pay their hand-outs through tax,
and invent the tech that we live on,
and keep going until it’s all gone.
It’s the real plague hurting out nation,
this cruel merit discrimination,
to hurt the productive is insane,
yet it’s a bigotry that remains.

Details | David Welch Poem

Revere the Founding Fathers, Part I

We star it off with Ben Franklin,
American renaissance man,
whose industry and sharp wit
made him the richest in the land.
Lived out an American dream
before the country ever was,
entertained with his writings and
helped discover scientific law.
Pushed hard for independency
and helped form the Declaration,
then served us diplomatically
to get help for the new nation.
His writings still offer wisdom
that is useful to this day,
a man quite worthy of study,
even spoke against keeping slaves.

Then of course there is John Adams,
an irascible, difficult type,
but a bulldog for our freedom,
no matter the British might.
Maybe his greatest contribution
came after his reelection loss,
he didn’t war, cling to power,
Adams honorable went off
into a long retirement
where he wrote down wisdom sage,
his letters to Jefferson
are a gift to every age.
For choosing honor above power,
founding a family that served,
I think learning from his example
is something that he has earned.

Jefferson is also in the ranks,
the Declaration his finest feat,
a mind that truly understood
what it took to make men free.
Not a perfect soul at all,
he never did free his slaves,
but his words of ‘Life and Liberty’
began the countdown to that day.
The Louisiana Purchase
opened a new and vast frontier,
he said to fear a church and state,
wisdom that we still hold dear.
The man’s massive book collection
became the Library of Congress,
now the largest in the world,
I think we all can learn from this.

James Madison we owe so much,
the Constitution’s driving force,
foundation for a nation that
would known tyranny no more.
A brain that recognized the need
to put great limits on power,
would come to push the Bill of Rights,
our government’s finest hour.
What he wrote in The Federalist
is studied by serious minds
for setting out firm principles,
applicable to any time.
And though his time as president
was a checked span at best,
he’s the Constitution’s father,
to that fact we should all attest...

CONCLUDES IN PART II.

Details | David Welch Poem

Cowboys, Made of Awesome

Some modern folks, when they hear his name,
will roll their eyes and look ashamed,
thinking the cowboy is uncivilized,
with his hats, and guns, and round-up rides.
That somehow they are beyond the stuff,
to good for the wild, and the rough,
following some unwritten ‘elite’ law,
suppressing the urge to shout ‘yee-haw!’
But I think when it all is said and done,
cowboys are truly made of awesome…

Riding swift across the wide-open plains,
coat flapping behind like your horse’s mane,
maneuvering a large and panicked herd,
turning a stampede with iron nerves,
rough-hewn men cooking by the firelight,
coyote chorus yips through the night,
knowing that for all the wind and grit,
it sure beats sitting in an office.

A battered hat worth more than any pearl,
grabs the attention of the cowgirls,
boots that announce you in any room,
be you a mere hand, or fancy bride-groom.
Leather vests that dress up any shirt,
and somehow can even make fringe"work,
a bandana or a wild rag,
with a thousand uses, not a mere fad.
The tell-tale jangle comes from your spurs,
vast coat made out of buffalo fur.

Square-dance, line-dance, twirl a girl around,
to fiddle and steel guitar’s sound,
campfire songs to entertain the kids,
harmonicas to sing the blues with,
teaching the folks to throw a lasso,
then breaking out tricks with swirling rope.
Living life by a strong honor code,
one that good people would do well to know.

Wyatt Earp and his famous revenge ride,
Masterson cut Dodge City down to size,
Doc Holliday gambling with a death wish,
Billy the Kid, criminal, yet tragic,
Wild Bill holding those aces & eights,
and old Kit Carson, out blazing the way,
Buffalo Bill brought the people a dream,
and who can forget, the legend Bass Reeves?

A six-gun at ready, holster right side,
the lines of a Winchester, ever sublime.
Ranches that sprawl on mountain and prairie,
riding the trails where man can breath free,
rampaging rodeo, those guns are fun,
and damn can those barrel-racers run!
Living out of doors, by both skill and luck,
be it on a horse or a pick-up truck,
It’s clear that when all is said and done,
that cowboys are truly made of awesome.

Details | David Welch Poem

Reject the Self-Hatred, Part Ii

...They proclaimed that we ‘oppressed women,’
it’s the refrain of loud femenists,
forgetting that before birth control
nature gave us little choice in this.
That before we had technology,
when life meant brutal, physical work,
that there just weren’t all that many jobs
physically weaker women could work.
They forget that the woman’s franchise
arose on America’s frontier,
that we blazed the path for suffrage,
their equality started right here.
Now why would a nation do all that
if they cared so little for females?
If we sought to be patriarchal
then I dare say the strategy failed.
And yet the left keeps raging about
rights which women have been long endowed,
Why should we buy all their self-hatred
when there’s so much for which to be proud?

And worst of all these fools like to claim,
that we’ve learned nothing, it’s all the same,
which I think is a sure sign that they
have something dreadful wrong in their brains.
We look at our mistakes all the time,
we brood endless on our sins and scars,
America lacks no self-reflection,
if anything we take it too far!
We get so obsessed with all our wrongs
that we think they drown out all the right,
we selfishly think it’s all our fault,
then of the truth we sadly lose sight.
Many cultures can’t ask such questions,
ask the Turks about past genocides,
or see if Communist China will
own up to all the Uighurs that died.
You don’t see many Japanese kids
who know about the rape of Nanking,
yet every American does know
that Wounded Knee was a horrible thing.
Why should we regret a culture that
tries to learn rather than disavow?
Our growing should not bring self-hatred,
to be honest, it should make us proud.

In the end, these issues are smokescreens,
thrown up to keep good people off track,
the left wants us all to hate ourselves
because self-hating folk rarely fight back.
There’s no logic behind what they hate,
hell, it changes hour-to-hour,
what unifies all these self-hatreds
is whether it will bring them power.
That’s really what’s behind all of this,
like some grand Machiavellian scheme,
to make free people into peasants
they first must be cut down and demeaned.
In truth, they don’t like Americans,
they don’t like people who stand unbowed,
so reject their vile self-hatred,
embrace all the things that make us proud.

Details | David Welch Poem

Love-Hate the Internet

As a kid they said technology
would lead us to a better life,
and in many ways they are correct,
tech does many things right.
I suppose I was just naïve
to thing there would be no downside,
now I love/hate the internet,
there are a thousand reasons why…

I love that endless information
is just a single click away /
I hate that there is so much
that it overwhelms the brain.

I love that I can buy anything,
have it delivered rather quick /
I hate endless adds in e-mail,
trying to sell me something slick.

I love that every genre is there,
in every medium, and every type /
I hate that half of it hides viruses
that will steal away your life.

I love that video posting sites
bring old music to the crowds /
I hate the video ‘commentators,’
so inane, rambling, and loud.

I love that every point of view
has a place to makes its pitch /
I hate government and tech giants
always trying to censor it.

I love that every single interest
has a place to blow of stress /
I hate people acting like morons,
and then claiming they’re ‘oppressed.’

I love that you can meet others
who may share your predilections /
I hate that being ‘connected’
soon becomes a damn addiction.

I love that you can reach the world
from the comforts of your home /
I hate that this very same world
then never leaves you alone.

I love that a person can work
from anywhere on any day /
I hate that distance no longer
makes reality go away.

Of course it’s not like it is
ever gonna go anywhere,
we’re forever stuck in between
thankfulness and despair.
I guess the net will ever be
a both sweet and bitter pill,
I love/hate the internet,
and I guess I always will.

Details | David Welch Poem

Ex-Gay, Part I

My name, it is Reginald,
and I’ve got a story to tell,
some folks, they will not like it,
they’ll cry out,”Go to hell!”

You see my wife beside me?
it wasn’t always this way,
’cause for the past ten years now,
I’ve been living an ex-gay.

If this makes no sense, relax,
some days it barely does to me,
all I can say is that it started
All the way back in puberty.

In the locker rooms in high school,
I gazed with hungry eyes,
never tried to deny it,
I was attracted to guys.

My first time was senor year,
with a friend-of-a-friend,
in the backseat of his car,
where we did not have to pretend.

And when I went off to college
it was just like a vast buffet,
with professors so accepting,
good lord, how did I play…

But later in my junior year
something strange happened to me,
I found myself staring hard
at a woman of great beauty.

She was a junior professor,
and oh, the shape she had…
but I shook it off as crazy,
maybe I’d taken something bad?

And although I brushed it off,
a week later in came again,
this time an Asian cheerleader
when over she did bend.

All senior years I’d catch myself
sneaking girls a lusty glance,
but I kept seeing the fellows,
convinced I was a gay man.

After college it grew slowly,
found myself going on the net
to admire the female form,
but I couldn’t admit it yet.

Predictably, my relationships
never traveled a sunny path,
and at twenty-six I met a man
but knew it would never last.

Three weeks in he was out of town,
I went down to a local club,
got real drunk, picked up a girl,
took her home and we made love.

And still I couldn’t say it,
I kept on putting up a front,
but when backs turned I went out
to get myself some…fun.

Finally that boyfriend left me,
and I spent the next two years
going to shrinks, talking to priests,
confused and full of fear.

It was only sitting in a park,
on a bright and crisp morn,
that I bumped into a woman
who’s eyes promised so much more.

At first I feared she’d run from me
if she heard the messy truth,
but then years later we stand here
still bound by a love true...

Details | David Welch Poem

Multiverse Poem

Hello, due to creative exhaustion I have invited three parallel versions of myself from different parallel universes to entertain you with poems tonight.  Please enjoy…

Dave-2:
The leaf drops slowly in the rain,
Settles atop a fern’s broad frond,
But here alas it cannot stay,
A gust of the wind blows it on,
Into a stream that rolls along.

Dave-3:
Plunging to a fern,
The wind will not let it rest,
A wet home awaits.

Dave-4:
There once was a leave that fell down,
Could not make it safe to the ground,
Got stuck on a fern,
The wind, it did turn,
Then in a small creek it was drowned.

-Hey, that was kind of fun.
-Yeah, but I’m surprised Dave-1 talked us into this.
-Surprised?  Why would you be surprised?
-We’re all poets here.
-I know, but, you know….a limerick?
-Yeah?
-Well come on, they’re like the greasy cheeseburger of the poetry world.
-Greasy cheese—oh, like haiku is better?
-They’re pretentious eastern crap, is what they are.
-Oh please, anybody can do meter and rhyme, but brevity—
-Is what failures claim when they can’t rhyme.
- all you want, I’m a better poet than me!
-Wait, you-me, me-me, or he-me?
-He-me?
-I don't know.  'Ye-me?'
-That’s not how you use ‘ye.’
-Shut up, I have an English degree!
-So de we-me! And you should’ve said ‘thee-me.’
-‘Thee-me?’
-Oui!
-Stop trying to distract with word games.  I hate it when I do that!
-Fine!  Fact remains, I’m a better poet than either of me.
-Please, with a Haiku like that you’re no better than a free-verser!
-Oh crap…
-What did you just call me?
-I called me a free-verser.  What’s me gonna do about it?
-I’ll kill me, you son-of-a-b!tch!

(Sound of fighting)

Uhm, sorry folks, this was a mistake— (Sound of breaking glass)…and shouldn’t have been attempted.  Good night.

Details | David Welch Poem

How Would You Think Without It

I hear some college students claim
they don’t stand against free speech,
all they want to ban is what’s ‘hateful,’
it will ‘improve’ society.

In truth they will do no such thing,
they serve a truly evil cause,
when they seek to take rights away
they are breaking natural laws.

That, you think, should be quite enough
to make them reconsider things,
not to mention without free speech
how would a person even think?

How could you even take in the world
without seeing something that offends?
We are annoyed by countless things,
and they bother us to no end.

I get pissed off every winter
when it’s rain instead of snow,
I get annoyed when comedians
chose their politics over jokes.

Hell, I get irked by so many things,
but I never would ban people’s talk,
to survive this world every idea
is something which you must take stock.

Whether to accept or reject,
or just peruse curiously,
if you are to learn anything new
you must broaden the things that you see.

And if you cannot talk about them
how will ideas be tested and tried?
How will you know what is the truth
and what is a damned, dirty lie?

Society’s quite Darwinian,
it destroys things that do not work,
subject our ideas to this process
and we’ll find out which go berserk

and which ones, somehow, stand the test of time,
which ones encompass a human truth,
the process may seem crazy at times,
perhaps that’s what sets off the youths.

They don’t yet know chaos is what life is,
the inspired mixed with the obscene,
they still lack the experience
to see past those Utopian dreams.

They don’t understand what censorship
does to a good person within,
death of the soul, like death of the flesh
is a prognosis lethal and grim.

They can’t remember folks in camps
who did not think the Soviet way,
or that when expression is silenced
it’s bullets that carry the day.

Or that difference, even conflict,
often is what spurs on new notions,
that speech is a ship discovering
a vast and endless mental ocean.

Though the journey can be quite rough,
it is what builds wisdom and wit,
Free Speech is never optional,
you can’t learn or grow without it.

And to those who try to drown in out,
you’re all standing upon quicksand,
sinking into a sterile group-think,
demeaned and deprived of what’s human.

If you want to really see the world,
and for your full potential reach,
let them all talk, and remember
you’ve a duty to protect Free Speech.