THE RESPITE

I switch my field of view from fore to aft.
I see the plants that Taylor built recede
Behing the wide wake of my sailing craft.
I flee the way Maxwell's equations lead.
I see her expecting my "Hard-a-lee."
Her eyes are searching, hoping, drawing near;
But there's a boundry between you and me
That I've been building year by year by year;
A fortress fit to conquer loneliness
With walls of culture, knowledge, wife and child;
A sanctuary against all distress;
A harbor where I can not be beguiled.
And by the time this sinking sun has set
She will behold the fortress standing yet.

Modernism was a bad joke. We can start over.
--The New Classicists

We've had enough of Ginsberg's Howling, drugs,
Immoral living, Kesey's acid test
And filthy words, and filthy biker thugs,
And cigarettes and pot and all the rest.
We can begin again with Wordsworth's Quest,
Emotions recollected tranquilly.
Out with the weird, the ugly things. The best
Of thoughts, emotions, true nobility,
Accomplishments, intelligence, true love,
Style, creativity, taste, chastity,
Wit, wanderlust, artistic beauty of
The metrical line, serendipity...
There's still time to assuage a century
Of Modern barbarism in Poetry.

The eyes observe the sharpness of the stone,
As blood drips from the savage hand of man.
The brain perceives a puncture past the bone
And vital meat to feed his hungry clan.
The agile thumb and fingers join the shaft
And point with vines. He draws the weapon near
And feels the wood and stone--admires the graft.
Now puny man will be something to fear.
The clawless, fangless beast sets forth with hope.
He finds his prey. His triceps flexes hard.
The charging beast falls down the shallow slope.
Its charisma is now forever scarred--
There lying dying on the ancient plain
Is proof of mankind's destiny to reign.

The lifeless lunar landscape stretches out
Before my eyes in shades of grayish-white,
And only craters love the endless drought--
The heat of day--the chilling cold of night.
A rising orb dispels the black of space,
And strong emotions swell--too deep for Freud.
The Earth, so pregnant with the human race,
Is thirsting there to fill the awful void.
Will mankind propagate among the stars,
Or will some minor cosmic accident
Change Mother Earth into a planet Mars,
Or will there be a method to prevent . . .
And so as mankind walks upon the moon,
He views the planet from which he was hewn.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. --DEU 6:4

You cleared away the misty thoughts, displayed
False gods the Greeks had made, and showed the path
To find the Truth they sought. Their long decayed
And dusty ruins sink beneath your wrath.
You gave the keys to power plants and cars
And highways joining massive cities full
Of specialists investigating stars
And ocean tides and gravity's strong pull,
And earth for medicines to cure disease
And manned space flight for all humanity,
And digital machines sprouting drawing trees
And drawings, charts and data; and for me
The summer dream beneath the green "Bonsai
Poetry Tree" set free before I die.

THE BONSAI POETRY TREE

Surely here the creative battle to maintain our living cultural heritage--a continuity of profoundly human creative life--must seem worth fighting; must be seen as a battle that shall not be lost. --F. R. Leavis

Far from the University's pine trees
So watered, manicured, and tall; far from
The fertilizer's reach; where most plants freeze
And die; a true bonsai will not succumb;
Its roots: the glory, grandeur, culture, and
Perspective which the classics can imbue;
Its trunk: the ancestors who could understand
The past's worth and its every shade and hue;
Its branches: patterns of new knowledge rife
With implications forming mental fuel;
Its leaves: the current generation's life,
Enduring fashion and rebellion's rule.
An austere scene of lonely crag and sand--
America's literary wasteland.

THE NEW BARBARIANS

The songs of Homer and the fame of Achilles had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate barbarian.
--The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon

Anti-establishment, long hair, free verse,
Sex, anti-war, illegal drugs, Day-Glo
Colors, outrageous cloths and music, curse
Words, earrings, guts--a lifestyle to bestow.
Now over thirty, long locks sheared to find
Employment, kids and debts, fine houses, grass
To cut, new cars to drive, the daily grind,
No spare time, energy--now middle class.
All emulated by the next New Age
Trying to be more awesome than the past,
But still just imitation. The old sage
Sees Poetry's slow pendulum aghast!
Tenured in colleges and Government
And universities--establishment!