Reply to John Derbyshire’s "Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry."
The United States has not engendered so many first-rank poets that we can neglect one. --John Derbyshire
My son-in-law informed me that the National Review was seeking poetry, so I went to their website and performed a Google advanced search for poetry, and I came across your article for The New Criterion (on line) titled “Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry.” I found the article very interesting, as the ideas in the article were similar to mine, except from a different point of view, i.e., the point of view of the unknown poet seeking recognition.
The title was the first item to interest me, as I am a descendant of Longfellow on my father’s side and I have been decrying modern poetry for years. For me, Longfellow is not a “dead dead poet” as shown by the use of his quotation in my poem below:
THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY
THE CHILD
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, / Who have faith in God and
Nature, / Who believe that in all ages / Every human heart is human,
--Longfellow, “The Song of Hiawatha”
Nurtured by breasts and ancient tribal lore
And Nature's nearness and a strong male role
Model, the active child must now explore
The plains beside the twilight water hole.
The black low lines of thunderstorms attack
The milling herd and sudden thunderclaps
Soon start the stampede on a southern track.
The Great Spirit is angry now, perhaps?
Small waving hands and firebrand bar the path
To parents, friends and relatives. He smiled.
He knew how to divert a wild herd's wrath!
So much depends upon the loving child.
For where the charging, scared, lead buffalo
Is shooed, the whole, wild, frightened herd will go.
THE ADULT
Did you know that a computer can write a poem?
--Hypothesis refuted by F. R. Leavis
My Rolex watch tells me that I have lost,
Forty-one minutes gazing through the gold
Glass windows toward the lithe landscape embossed
With stores and shopping malls that I have strolled.
My Harvard law degree reminds me, "Time
Is Money." Yet I gaze. Something is wrong . . .
I seldom write my parents--no big crime.
Their parents love the nursing home--belong.
My Rolls Royce waits. The judge, jury, the press,
My client wait. And yet . . . My children off
At college wasting money, I confess.
My wife has her career. I dare not scoff.
Till now I've never stopped to count the cost
But feel . . . that something vital has been lost.
Note: The location for each poem is the same, downtown Dallas, but 500 years apart.
I consider Stevenson, Longfellow, Poe, and Frost first-rank poets, but I loathe Poe for his horror stories and his “Sonnet – To Science” to which I have replied:
SONNET TO SCIENCE
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.
Your quest to have “four lines by a living poet” quoted reminded me of a quote I used:
THE BASTIONS OF MEDIOCRITY
The poetic note I think most helpful at the moment is deliberately "minor" rather than "major." -- Denis Donogue, "Does America Have A Major Poet?"
First you espouse the current party line.
You must not show skill or integrity.
That would reveal the general decline
In what is now proclaimed as Poetry.
The universities are cranking out
The poets by the thousands. Metrical feet
Are gone. The greatest nation is without
A poet singing of its greatest feats.
True poetry today is still submerged
By jealousy and self defense, which minor
Minds exude, and excluded from print--purged
From public view. The haughty spurn the major.
So a poetic leap toward greatness starts
With one enlightened Patron of the Arts.
You asked, “But what were poets supposed to do?” My answer is presented below:
EARTHRISE
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.
That is, they were to replace Nature with Science, as advocated by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads (1800), Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse (1946), and Aldous Huxley in Literature and Science (1963).
“It is just our bad luck that none of the things tried in the twentieth century worked very well.” I take exception to that statement as shown by my poem below written in 1989:
RENDEZVOUS IN SPACE
For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live--to learn, to discover, to be free!
--Richard Bach
MARYA MOREVNA
Your art is diligent and professional, but cartlike,
And in an age of rockets it is doomed! --Yevgeny Yevtsushenko
The blasting roar of rocket motors throws
Her through the summer sky. She will endure
The waiting. Her pale-green gown gently shows
The curves proclaiming that she is mature.
She reminisces reckless youthful days,
The Vanguard-Sputnik days when she was first
In space and young Apollo only plays
At chasing her around the world--then burst!
He did not die, though he was wimpy and
Weak; and eighteen sequestered years have wrought
Body and mind--matured the plans he's planned,
The dreams he's dreamed, the power he has sought . . .
Relaxing her alluring body, she
Rests on a bed of stars and dreams of me.
APOLLO
Adornd she was indeed, and lovely to attract thy Love, not thy Subjection. --John Milton
Foes wish me, like Prometheus, chained to this
Rock they call the Earth, forever tortured by
A Proxmire vulture, so that I would miss
My only chance for you and wish to die,
But racing roaring rocket motors leave
Them all below and now the search begins.
Strong, sharp eyes scan the summer sky. Believe
I will find you! If I fail, no one wins.
There are no chaperones up this high. Why
Should I not stare at your posh, pale-green gown?
The plans I've planned are working well. Soon I
Am moving up and closer, closer, down
And closer. Contact! Now we can commune,
For we are mind to mind--but must part soon.
“Free verse did not work well.” I agree as shown by my three criticisms below:
THE NAKED POETS
"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
--"The Emperor's New Clothes", Fairy Tales (1835)
Hans Christian Andersen (Translated by Jean Hersholt)
They're lost in the gainsaying of the gay
Walt Whitman and the gold thread merchants who
Say only the wise and prudent scholars may
See the threads that the worms of free verse grew.
The outraged public has wished to abort,
But still their putrid product wins awards
And prizes, grants and Government support,
And obscure foreign bards receive rewards.
So human dung is being served upon
A university owned silver plate
By naked poets with their best smiles on,
And real American poets must wait,
Suffering poverty and broken hearts
Awaiting a true Patron of the Arts."
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 clothes 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!
THE CONSERVATIVE REBELLION
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.
“We have lost narrative poetry . . . any attempt to revive interest in narrative verse would be futile.” I have tried to revive narrative verse by writing a sonnet sequence on the history of technology titled The Ascent of Man, which begins with “The Spear” and ends with the exploration of space.
I would like to conclude with the following thought:
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 that 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 Criterion, December 2000, had the following article: "Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry" by John Derbyshire (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/dec00/longfellow.htm)
Here is a retort to it by Bob Grumman: (http://www.geocities.com/compoems/text0001.html)
and above is the relpy I e-mailed to John. His reply was "I think you have invented a new literary form."
BIO: Thomas Newton was born at Fort Ringgold, Texas in 1942. He received a B.S.E.E. degree from Lamar University. He is presently a civil service electronics engineer in Orlando, FL. His poetry has been published in Pulse and in Hatteras. He lives in Winter Springs, FL with his wife and the younger two of his four children.
My son-in-law informed me that the National Review was seeking poetry, so I went to their website and performed a Google advanced search for poetry, and I came across your article for The New Criterion (on line) titled “Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry.” I found the article very interesting, as the ideas in the article were similar to mine, except from a different point of view, i.e., the point of view of the unknown poet seeking recognition.
The title was the first item to interest me, as I am a descendant of Longfellow on my father’s side and I have been decrying modern poetry for years. For me, Longfellow is not a “dead dead poet” as shown by the use of his quotation in my poem below:
THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY
THE CHILD
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, / Who have faith in God and
Nature, / Who believe that in all ages / Every human heart is human,
--Longfellow, “The Song of Hiawatha”
Nurtured by breasts and ancient tribal lore
And Nature's nearness and a strong male role
Model, the active child must now explore
The plains beside the twilight water hole.
The black low lines of thunderstorms attack
The milling herd and sudden thunderclaps
Soon start the stampede on a southern track.
The Great Spirit is angry now, perhaps?
Small waving hands and firebrand bar the path
To parents, friends and relatives. He smiled.
He knew how to divert a wild herd's wrath!
So much depends upon the loving child.
For where the charging, scared, lead buffalo
Is shooed, the whole, wild, frightened herd will go.
THE ADULT
Did you know that a computer can write a poem?
--Hypothesis refuted by F. R. Leavis
My Rolex watch tells me that I have lost,
Forty-one minutes gazing through the gold
Glass windows toward the lithe landscape embossed
With stores and shopping malls that I have strolled.
My Harvard law degree reminds me, "Time
Is Money." Yet I gaze. Something is wrong . . .
I seldom write my parents--no big crime.
Their parents love the nursing home--belong.
My Rolls Royce waits. The judge, jury, the press,
My client wait. And yet . . . My children off
At college wasting money, I confess.
My wife has her career. I dare not scoff.
Till now I've never stopped to count the cost
But feel . . . that something vital has been lost.
Note: The location for each poem is the same, downtown Dallas, but 500 years apart.
I consider Stevenson, Longfellow, Poe, and Frost first-rank poets, but I loathe Poe for his horror stories and his “Sonnet – To Science” to which I have replied:
SONNET TO SCIENCE
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.
Your quest to have “four lines by a living poet” quoted reminded me of a quote I used:
THE BASTIONS OF MEDIOCRITY
The poetic note I think most helpful at the moment is deliberately "minor" rather than "major." -- Denis Donogue, "Does America Have A Major Poet?"
First you espouse the current party line.
You must not show skill or integrity.
That would reveal the general decline
In what is now proclaimed as Poetry.
The universities are cranking out
The poets by the thousands. Metrical feet
Are gone. The greatest nation is without
A poet singing of its greatest feats.
True poetry today is still submerged
By jealousy and self defense, which minor
Minds exude, and excluded from print--purged
From public view. The haughty spurn the major.
So a poetic leap toward greatness starts
With one enlightened Patron of the Arts.
You asked, “But what were poets supposed to do?” My answer is presented below:
EARTHRISE
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.
That is, they were to replace Nature with Science, as advocated by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads (1800), Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse (1946), and Aldous Huxley in Literature and Science (1963).
“It is just our bad luck that none of the things tried in the twentieth century worked very well.” I take exception to that statement as shown by my poem below written in 1989:
RENDEZVOUS IN SPACE
For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live--to learn, to discover, to be free!
--Richard Bach
MARYA MOREVNA
Your art is diligent and professional, but cartlike,
And in an age of rockets it is doomed! --Yevgeny Yevtsushenko
The blasting roar of rocket motors throws
Her through the summer sky. She will endure
The waiting. Her pale-green gown gently shows
The curves proclaiming that she is mature.
She reminisces reckless youthful days,
The Vanguard-Sputnik days when she was first
In space and young Apollo only plays
At chasing her around the world--then burst!
He did not die, though he was wimpy and
Weak; and eighteen sequestered years have wrought
Body and mind--matured the plans he's planned,
The dreams he's dreamed, the power he has sought . . .
Relaxing her alluring body, she
Rests on a bed of stars and dreams of me.
APOLLO
Adornd she was indeed, and lovely to attract thy Love, not thy Subjection. --John Milton
Foes wish me, like Prometheus, chained to this
Rock they call the Earth, forever tortured by
A Proxmire vulture, so that I would miss
My only chance for you and wish to die,
But racing roaring rocket motors leave
Them all below and now the search begins.
Strong, sharp eyes scan the summer sky. Believe
I will find you! If I fail, no one wins.
There are no chaperones up this high. Why
Should I not stare at your posh, pale-green gown?
The plans I've planned are working well. Soon I
Am moving up and closer, closer, down
And closer. Contact! Now we can commune,
For we are mind to mind--but must part soon.
“Free verse did not work well.” I agree as shown by my three criticisms below:
THE NAKED POETS
"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
--"The Emperor's New Clothes", Fairy Tales (1835)
Hans Christian Andersen (Translated by Jean Hersholt)
They're lost in the gainsaying of the gay
Walt Whitman and the gold thread merchants who
Say only the wise and prudent scholars may
See the threads that the worms of free verse grew.
The outraged public has wished to abort,
But still their putrid product wins awards
And prizes, grants and Government support,
And obscure foreign bards receive rewards.
So human dung is being served upon
A university owned silver plate
By naked poets with their best smiles on,
And real American poets must wait,
Suffering poverty and broken hearts
Awaiting a true Patron of the Arts."
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 clothes 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!
THE CONSERVATIVE REBELLION
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.
“We have lost narrative poetry . . . any attempt to revive interest in narrative verse would be futile.” I have tried to revive narrative verse by writing a sonnet sequence on the history of technology titled The Ascent of Man, which begins with “The Spear” and ends with the exploration of space.
I would like to conclude with the following thought:
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 that 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 Criterion, December 2000, had the following article: "Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry" by John Derbyshire (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/dec00/longfellow.htm)
Here is a retort to it by Bob Grumman: (http://www.geocities.com/compoems/text0001.html)
and above is the relpy I e-mailed to John. His reply was "I think you have invented a new literary form."
BIO: Thomas Newton was born at Fort Ringgold, Texas in 1942. He received a B.S.E.E. degree from Lamar University. He is presently a civil service electronics engineer in Orlando, FL. His poetry has been published in Pulse and in Hatteras. He lives in Winter Springs, FL with his wife and the younger two of his four children.
posted by Thomas Newton at 3:30 PM
7 Comments:
Conservative Tom Zart's
POETS ARE THE BELL RINGERS of THE SOUL
Poets as a rule are high on adventure
Like wondering bards or prophets today.
Embracing hearts and minds with wisdom
Casting through verse their visions at play.
Poets have their dreams and their nightmares
Of love, life, death, faith and war.
They feel the pain and tragedy of others
Even those they’ve never met before.
They fan the flames of human compassion
With their stories of the failings of man.
Professing to follow a higher power
As they recruit whomever they can.
Poets are the bell ringers of the soul
As they depict the past, the present and beyond.
They sound their alarm of what lies ahead
As the missteps of man live on.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
One of America’s most famous writers
Was born in Boston, January of 1809.
Both his parents were failing actors
And his father was drunk most the time.
In 1810 Edgar’s dad disappeared
His mother died soon after.
A childless couple took him in
Raising him with love and laughter.
Edgar had a Negro nurse
Who brought him to her quarters.
There he listened to ghost stories
Far beyond earthly borders.
The strange tales he later wrote
May have come from her inspiration.
The words she used to describe death
Gave Poe his taste for sensation.
The Allans moved to England
Where Poe attended boarding schools.
There’s no doubt his time spent there
Sharpened his skills as tools.
Returning to Richman and back in school
He began to compose new verse.
Heavy debts forced him to leave college
As his life took a turn for the worse.
Poe caught a ride on a coal barge to Boston
Where he was unable to find employment.
A young printer agreed to publish his poems
Giving him hope and enjoyment.
Penniless, Poe enlisted in the army
And was accepted to West Point in 29.
Poe couldn’t stand not being a writer
Self-imposing his dismissal from The Line.
Afterward he became an editor and critic
And married his cousin who was thirteen.
Six years latter he discovered she was dying
Suffering once more the unforeseen.
He went through periods of insanity
Caused by grieving and functional fall.
He smoked opium and drank too much
Till at his doorstep death would call.
Edgar Allan Poe the master of verse
Still lives in our hearts today
Famous for The Raven and other great works
May his soul rest in peace we pray.
GOD’S POETS
The prize jewels of any nation
Are the philosophers of the heart.
How they think is universal
For it’s God who makes them so smart.
Most poets tell the truth of life
Though they may wrap it in beauty.
It's their passion, not their purpose
To compose is but their duty.
Poets have no reason to lie
When the truth is always so clear.
All that others say and do
Is but food for the poet's ear.
One merit of a poet's work
Which most people can’t deny.
They say more and in fewer words
To illuminate you and I.
God sent his poets down to earth
With words of wisdom and of worth.
That they might touch the souls of men
And bring them back to Him again.
A GOOD POEM
A good poem paints a picture
For both your heart and brain.
It doesn't need a second chance
To make its meaning plain.
A good poem is like the flower
The lily or the rose.
God plants it in a poet's brain
And there its beauty grows.
A good poem like a cardinal
Is pregnant with song
You can’t help but hear its message
As it sings what's right or wrong.
A good poem helps us remember
What the joys of life are for
It makes us want to love someone
Till death comes knocking at our door.
POETRY
God has always had his poets
Who He watches with love from space.
But Satan has his poets too
Who try to lead us from our grace.
King Solomon was a poet
Who spoke of love, life, death and war.
That lips were like threads of scarlet
And that breasts were roses and more.
The wild birds sing and flowers bloom
As clouds form figures in the sky.
But only humans will write poems
That shall last long after they die.
The eldest sister of all arts
Which some have called the devils wine.
Poetry is but pure passion
To stimulate the heart and mind.
POET'S WIFE
My reciting seemed to delight her
Though for me it was love at first sight.
When she found out I was a poet
She asked, what kind do you write?
Love poems, mostly, I told her
While we walked alone in the park
Love's fever became even warmer
As two shadows embraced in the dark
I'll always remember when first we met
I whispered a poem in her ear.
Ever since then how happy I've been
And other women I've no need to be near.
They say that poets are divine
Though my wife would argue, that’s not true!
For, whenever I lose my direction
It’s she who tells me what to do.
Where the city ends and the suburbs begin
We've built our home beneath the sky.
We’ll raise our babies with truth and love
Till one or both of us die.
A verse a day, I always say
Helps keep lawyers from my door
For when I'm paid for what I write
My wife loves me a little more.
ALL POETS SERVE A MASTER
Most poets have a bit of Solomon
Shakespeare and Poe within.
Constantly eager to share their visions
Of love, life, joy and sin.
Some guzzle whiskey
Some sip wine
Some prefer cola
And feel just fine.
Some smoke pot
Or suck cigarettes
Some abuse drugs
With lifetime regrets.
Some attend church
And sing of God
While others make fun
And call them odd.
All have a purpose
Which drives them to compose.
All serve a master
Who by free will, they chose.
DIVINE INTERVENTION
I never write a poem
That doesn’t write itself.
I catch a buzz and come alive
Like a puppet off it’s shelf.
Hearing many voices
Whose words are never mine.
My pen becomes a painter’s brush
Forming visions on a line.
I seem to be a better person
When it’s time to sit down and write.
A higher power guides my hand
Sharing wisdom by day and night.
People born to create
Have no choice but to perform.
It’s the rush of sharing their gift
That elevates them from the norm.
What would our world become
Without intervention from above?
Angry beings in a revolving cage
With no sense of passion or love.
THE POWER of POETRY
Poetry is the lighthouse of life
Guiding the lost from a stormy sea.
Without it’s presence darkness prevails
Keeping us from all we can be.
Poems are used to convey passion
By poets of both good and evil mood.
Some are hateful others loving
Sharing thoughts to be consumed as food.
Verse can lead us to glory or doom
As we partake with others within.
Depicting our past, present and future
With words of man’s grace or sin.
People write poetry because they have no choice
Answering to the call of their gift.
Where some tend to pull their readers down
Others compose to give them a lift.
Always remember the power of poetry
Is used by both heaven and hell.
It’s up to us to choose our pleasure
As poetry remains alive and well.
WHISPERS of THE HEART
Poetry consumed is where wisdom begins
As we heed to the whispers of the heart.
It’s easy to blame others for our dismay
When from ignorance we refuse to part.
Verse is a beacon of hope in the darkness
To help us navigate the pitfalls of life.
Far more tend to write it, than read it
That’s why there’s endless conflict and strife.
I write poems to help fuel the light
By sharing what God has given me.
With stories of love, life, war and more
Where heroes pray on bended knee.
MASTERS of VERSE
Poetry is one of man’s oldest arts
Practiced long before words of print.
Every race had its masters of verse
In caves, huts, cabins or tent.
Stories in verse were handed down
From one generation to another.
The first told of love, war and more
And how to survive each other.
As man became more civilized
He could not help but wonder within.
Verse then took on a deeper meaning
With stories of faith, superstition and sin.
The act of reciting became in demand
As verse began to advance
Every tribe, city, town and village
Had someone who gave words romance.
Today’s poets are on the World Wide Web
Though many seem spiritually ill.
Thank heaven for all who still have God’s gift
To compose, teach, comfort and fulfill.
MY FAVORITE POET
My favorite poet is God above
Who gives Earth its rhythm and rhyme.
Not pied pipers of misguided souls
Who promote distrust, hatred and crime.
Poetry is nature serenading in song
The peaceful roar of the oceans waves.
The wind through the trees and over the hills
And the flowers in the fields by the graves.
The sound of rain as it waters the thirsty
The songs of children at play in the park.
The far off rumble of trains or thunder
As they pass through the night in the dark.
The joy of our babies first words and steps
The passion of life with its heroes and clowns.
The on going struggle to survive our sins
As we proliferate in hamlets and towns.
My favorite poet is our Father of love
Who was first to know us before birth.
His poetry prolongs every thing we love
As His deliverance gives life its worth.
THE POWER of WORDS
Words are the most powerful tools used by man
As hearts and souls reach for one another.
Sharing feelings of fear, wisdom and joy
Or our love for a significant other.
Where would we be without words
Which inspire, unite and motivate.
Songs, poems, stories, blogs, books
Wars, religion, love, lust and hate.
Jesus preached words to the multitudes
And nourish their hunger within.
The stories we tell portray our spirit
As examples of weakness, triumph or sin.
When we fail to control the rage of our thoughts
What is easy to say becomes hard to forgive.
Words are visions which portray our intent
The better we communicate, the better we live.
By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
TOM ZART’S RADIO POEMS
You can hear all of Tom Zart’s 330 poems
of love, war, faith and more 24-7 on web radio at
http://internetvoicesradio.com/Arch-TomZart.htm
Tom Zart ARCHIVES:
Global
Special
Operations
101
http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/tomzart2.html
SIR THOMAS NEWTON
Conservative Poet
He choose his opportunities
To become strong, not weak
By pulling up his boot straps
He acquires the dreams we seek.
His personal goals of well being
Will never stand in the way
Of doing his public duty
No matter what others may say.
His devotion shall prove contagious
It's the brilliance of his kind
What you find within hem
Is great character of mind.
With faith and courage, he must live
For his story to be complete
With good morals and family life
He’ll triumph, even in defeat.
He was raised to participate
Within his community
With their fellow men and women
He’ll enrich life and liberty.
SIR THOMAS NEWTON
Conservative Poet
By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
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Poets And Poems
Poetry blossomed long before Shakespeare, Milton or Poe.
It thrived prior to Solomon and the languages of old.
Poetry today offers itself more often in the form of music
Then in sonnets and poems as the legends of life unfold.
Man has his fear of loneliness, death and the hereafter
As authors compose his doom, desperation and glory.
All hear the words of both good and evil
With too many that fall for the wrong story.
The falsehoods of life find it hard to hide
From the word of God’s poets and poems.
Sharing their joy, frustration and sorrow
By voice, Internet, radio, or books, in our homes.
Poets and poems help man become more human
As the storms of life proliferate their toll.
Poets and poems were put here for a reason
To help tame the savage that dwells in our soul.
By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
GULF COAST OIL SPILL POEM
Overrun by war and uncontrolled greed
Our world becomes more dangerous each day.
Dishonest politicians, criminals and the media
Survive by their falsehoods at play.
Bible believers preach, that the end is near
Our world as a whole is beyond reform.
God will eradicate all, which is wicked
By His fire of eruption and storm.
To evil’s victory, I will never concede
May its supporters anguish in hell.
By the grace of God and the power of faith
The goodness of man will prevail.
What greed has done, Heaven will measure
As patriots respond to the blunders of man.
Protect and defend what we love till death
As tar balls pollute the air, sea and land.
Free To Use To Teach
By Soldier For The Lord
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
And Your Friend Tom
Thank You For Your Friendship.
You can hear all of Tom Zart’s 358 poems
of love, war, faith and more 24-7 on web radio at
http://internetvoicesradio.com/Arch-TomZart.htm
Tom Zart ARCHIVES:
http://www.veteranstodayforum.com/viewforum.php?f=38
Our men and woman who serve in harm’s way,
Are the armor of what the free world depends on.
Without their sacrifice of body and soul,
All that we stand for is gone.
Come to Tom Zart’s Facebook friends page and unite with soldiers in field and visit with some of the worlds most beautiful women and Christians.
CHRISTIAN SOLDIER’S LOVE POEM
Humans have always had their need for love
Long before they could calculate the year.
Painting on the walls of caves and tombs
Stories of accomplishment, conquest and fear.
Life is a constant contest of struggle
Plagued by greed, love, war, work and debate.
Between all we love; those we tolerate
And some we can’t help but hate.
I’d rather be loved and love in return
Then have a rich man’s gold piled high.
Id rather be loved by someone worthy
With honor, compassion and no need to lie.
I’d rather be loved then be crowned a king
Of a vast empire of power and domain.
I’d rather be loved and never forgotten
Not alone, overwhelmed, and ashamed.
I’d rather be loved for my unselfish behavior
Eager to protect, provide and preserve.
I’d rather be loved for staying resolute
To my commitment to love and to serve.
I’d rather be loved for my awareness of duty
More then anything life can bestow me.
I’d rather be loved and receive God’s grace
As I lay down my life before Thee.
By Soldier For The Lord
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
Thank you for your friendship
http://internetvoicesradio.com/Arch-TomZart.htm
Tom Zart ARCHIVES:
http://www.poemhunter.com/tom-zart/
http://www.veteranstodayforum.com/viewforum.php?f=38
Our men and woman who serve in harm’s way,
Are the armor of what the free world depends on.
Without their sacrifice of body and soul,
All that we stand for is gone.
”Come to Tom Zart’s Facebook friends page”
and unite with soldiers in field and
some of the worlds most beautiful women,
Christians and poems.
LIBERALS ARE AVERY STANGE BUNCH,THEY EAT VEGGIES FOR THEIR LUNCH,THEY HUG THE BUNNIES THEY HUG THE TREES,THEY SING OF LIFE OUT OF THE SEAS,BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE UNBORN,THEY SHOW RESENTMENT THEY SHOW SCORN,THEY WANT TO SAVE A MAN EATING SHARK,AND SIT IN TREES WITH IN THE PARK,OF HUMANS THEY SAY THERES TOO MANY,UPON THE EARTH THERE SHOULDNT BE ANY,THEY SAY OUR POPULATION SHOULD BE ZERO,KILL US OFF JUST LIKE NERO,AND SING OF CREATURES FROM THE SEA,THEY WOULD RATHER HUG A TREE
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