Bring back REAL poetry

Just click on my photos. A painter did a painting based on my poem, “Illumination”.

Beyond the desert, where no rivers flow,
A passing cloudmass closes off the sky.
The parched Earth craves what the clouds bestow,
Before its rugged heart becomes too dry.
But the heedless clouds spend their surplus of rain
On greener fields that are fed by many streams,
Whose need can scarcely match the dry terrain
Of the desert, which in arid stillness dreams.
A desert is neither barren nor bare,
Its challenging ways still permit life to thrive.
But the clouds that pass by will remain unaware
Of the paltry endowment it needs to survive.

In ancient times, upon the Earth,
There stood a mirror that reflected the sky.
But then, at civilization’s birth
It shattered, and scattered fragments on high.
Since then, when people have found a piece,
They’ve been impressed with what they’ve seen,
So much that the quest for truth would cease.
But what can a single fragment mean?
For many, their own selves is what they see,
An image they can’t recognize or understand.
Still others feel their one shard is the key:
Mere thought of other pieces must be banned.
I wonder what wonders would be in store,
If we could see the sky unbroken, just once more.

[This was published in a major Catholic magazine. I think if they udnerstood it they might not have!]

It seems the darkness never comes on a hazy moonlit night.
The soft illumination puts our world within our sight.
The scenery glimmers dimly, but its presence leaves us blind,
As the gentle glow of moonlight drives the shadows from our mind.

Against the pale dray heavens is the swaying of the trees
That marks the restless journey of the wandering, unseen breeze,
And the empty road before me lights up plainly to the eye,
But it disappears to nowhere where its surface meets the sky.

Though I know the stars are shining, now they’re hidden from my view,
Not by glare of brilliant sunlight, but a subtle, moonlit hue,
I fail to sense their shining, or feel inspired through my fear,
As the hazy veil that hides them makes the world too safe, too clear.

When I survey my surroundings, I see them, and nothing more.
They capture scant attention, so I turn back to my door.
I’ll never know the mysteries that appear within my sight
Until I tread in darkness, when the moon gives back the night.

[A painter did a literal version of this metaphysical poem.]

Not that meaningless, meterless, unliterary, arrogantly rhyme-free junk that has been dominant since the end of WWII. Enough! Time to go back to REAL poetry.