DREAMS OF FLIGHT

The final master-stroke at last impos'd / And now, the neat machine compleatly clos'd;
Fitting his pinions on, a flight he tries, / And hung self-ballanc'd in the beaten skies.
--Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book VIII, The Story of Daedalus and Icarus, translated into
English by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve, et al.

The hand that captured Mona Lisa's smile,
The visionary mountain scene, the light,
The shade, the garment's look of current style...
Sketches a new machine for human flight.
The wind is strong at Kitty Hawk today.
Wilbur is steadying the wing. My heart
Is racing down the track. I'm underway!
"The time! The time!" "Twelve seconds." "It's a start."
The shuttle launch has stopped. T-minus ten.
The problem's fixed. The countdown starts...three, two...
The roaring blast, the roll routine, the men
At Mission Control cheer, the shuttle's view...
The Earth, so vast, the clouds, the sea, the land,
Created by the Master Sculptor's hand.

The War on Terrorism

THE WAR ON TERRORISM

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his live for his friends. -- John 15:13

I am a Private in the army of
America. My mission is to kill
The terrorists who threaten those I love.
For now, I am in training at Fort Sill.
I long for home and you, the Outer Banks,
The blue Atlantic, hamburgers and fries,
The beach, and roasted marshmallows and franks.
Rachel remember, True Love never dies!
The helicopter lands on rugged land
And we deploy along a snowy ridge.
The bombs stampede them right to us as planned.
The fighting’s fierce. I chamber a cartridge.
Shall I defeat the deadly enemy
Or shall I join the One who died for me?

The CIA Predaror Drone

THE CIA PREDATOR DRONE

Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. --President George W. Bush, Address to the joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001

You can no longer kill Americans
Around the whole world with impunity.
When you began your heinous murder runs
On New York you lost your immunity.
There is no place you can run to and no
Place you can hide. The drone is flying just
Above. The target designator glow
Is following you, who rate our disgust.
The eyes of all America are watching
You day and night, in rain or shine or snow.
Our spies are gathering vast data, matching
The faces, names and financing. We know.
The laser designator is on you.
The Hellfire missile drops out of the blue!

Address to the Rally For America

Here is the address Thomas Newton delivered to the Rally For America at Lake Eola, Orlando, FL on 22 FEB 03. It was carried live on 540 WFLA radio, and was on all the local TV stations nightly news broadcasts. The next rally will be in San Antonio, TX, then across the nation. There was a crowd of 2,500 TRUE patriots, all waving American flags of all sizes and shouting, USA USA USA USA .... It was a sight to behold.

Address to the Rally For America by Thomas Newton
(Orlando, Florida February 22, 2003)

Normally, when a poet is introduced there is a long list of awards that he has received from his peers. But the way things are going LATELY--I am very proud to announce that I have NOT received the Nobel Prize in Literature. I am proud that I am NOT the U.S. Poet Laureate, the British Poet Laureate, or the Poet Laureate for the state of New Jersey or Connecticut. I am proud that I have NEVER been published by the magazine Poetry or the Atlantic Monthly. I am proud that I have NOT received any prizes from the Modern Poetry Association, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, or National Endowment for the Arts. I am proud that I have NOT received the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Award, or the Pulitzer Prize. I am proud that I have NOT received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation or the Ingram Merrill Foundation. I am ALSO proud that I HAVE received the Stephanie Award which states, "I just wanted to say that I've read the poems, as well as [Thomas Newton's] other posts, and I have enjoyed them very much. He's a TRUE poet, unlike so many of the tax-subsidized free-verse politicians at my university."

I intend to make you proud and happy today, and then I intend to make you sad.

I have a statement for Sam Hamill, who "was overcome by a kind of nausea" when he received an invitation from the White House for a poetry symposium. The reviews are in for the 10,000 poems at the Poets Against the War website. The garbage stench from your website has nauseated a whole nation. The stench is so bad that it can be smelled all the way over in Kuwait, and if it becomes too bad our U.S. military is equipped with gas masks.

(APPLAUSE)

I have a statement for the First Lady, Laura Bush. As Sean Hannity would say, "Let not your heart be troubled," and thank Gawd that FINALLY, we have a First Lady that we can be proud of.

(APPLAUSE)

And thank Gawd that FINALLY, we have a Commander-in-Chief that we can be proud of.

(APPLAUSE)

And there isn't ANYTHING we wouldn't do for him!

(APPLAUSE)

I have a statement for HollyWEIRD. You are only PRETEND heroes in movies and on television. Come back to the real White House, the real world, and the real heroes that are fighting and dying so that you can have your spoiled brat "Tinseltown."

(APPLAUSE)

Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” On Friday, January 31st, the Wall Street Journal put out an urgent call for conservative poets to counter the Poets Against the War, Poetry Day on February 12th, less than two weeks away. More than 300 e-mails were received and 45 of the Patriot Poets were chosen for publication. Quoting the Wall Street Journal, “In late November, [2001], CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann became the first U.S. casualty in Afghanistan. Thomas Newton penned this tribute to him.” The Wall Street Journal was unable to present the poem with all of its parts; the title, the dedication, the epigraph, which is a quotation from Sean Hannity, and the body of the poem; because of their format. At this time the entire Newtonian sonnet will be recited.


FAREWELL TO A HERO

Dedicated to Johnny Micheal Spann

And when we see people make these kinds of commitments—and pay the ultimate price, with the currency of their own blood—it is our duty to them, their families, those who have gone before them, and those who will follow, to honor them. –Let Freedom Ring, Sean Hannity

(APPLAUSE)

From Winfield, Alabama to the sands
Of far away Afghanistan; from strife,
To solitude and friends and grateful hands
Soothing his son, his girls and his wife;
From happy hometown football fans’ loud cheers,
To solemn ceremony, solemn praise,
All confirmed by a grateful nation’s tears
As seven polished Marine rifles raise;
From aquamarine birthstone, childish fun,
Winfield High, Auburn, and a need to roam
To stately white headstone at Arlington
National Cemetery, his new home;
From their first words and Cupid’s gentle shove,
To her last farewell, “Semper Fi, my love.”

God bless all of you for coming to the rally, and God bless America.

(Salutes the audience and does a snappy “about face,” and returns to his seat on the platform)

Let's Roll,

Thomas Newton
Conservative Poet

The Conservative Poetry Manifesto

The Conservative Poetry Manifesto

1. In light of the separation of America into “Two Nations” in the 2000 election, the attack on America on September 11, 2001, and the Silent Majority finally speaking in the 2004 election; “conservative” has taken on a new meaning.

2. Conservative Poetry is a reaction against Diana Wakoski in the Wakoski/Hollander controversy and against C. P. Snow in the Leavis/Snow controversy.

3. Conservative Poetry is a celebration of “the best of thoughts, emotions, true nobility, accomplishments, intelligence, true love, style, creativity, taste, chastity, wit, wanderlust, serendipity, and the artistic beauty of the metrical line.”

4. Conservative Poetry assumes that there can be no discrepancy between Religion and Science. Either Religion is being interpreted incorrectly or Science is wrong, since Science is just a description of God‘s creation.

5. Conservative Poetry is metrical poetry, the sonnet being preferred. Writing in verse libra is Un-Conservative.

6. God, Science, Patriotism, National Self-Defense, Capitalism, Limited Government, Low Taxes, Individuality, Strict Constitutional Interpretation, Right To Life, Right To Bear Arms, and Family Values are viable subjects to bring sanity and gravitas back to American Poetry.

7. Conservative Poetry traces its roots back to Greco-Roman civilization, then to the Judeo-Christian Ethic, to England, and to America.

Thomas Newton
Conservative Poet

The Laws of Poetics

The Laws of Poetics

1. A poem is the product of a poet plying his trade while he is creating.

2. A poem has a meaningful title and something significant to say.

3. A poem is based on 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter.

4. The meaning of a poem takes precedence over the meter, the rhyme scheme, and proper grammatical construction.

5. A poem uses enjambment, internal rhyme, and limited metrical foot substitution to mask the regular or irregular meter and rhyme scheme.

6. A poem may have any point of view or several points of
view in the same poem.

7. A poem has a couplet at the last two lines.


Thomas Newton
Conservative Poet

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.