The formula for poetry is gone!

In its place a beautiful, natural

Expression pioneered by the bygone

Master, Walt Whitman, incredibly full

Of America’s burgeoning passions,

The democratic wit and the free mind,

Body and soul, you, me, we, our visions,

Elevate toil, carouse with workers, find

Beauty in the blades of grass underfoot,

Free poetry to sizzling, tempestuous

Untamed animal instincts at the root

Of our beautiful collective courseness.

Walt, my soul’s lover and liberator,

I offer this poem on your altar.