Classic Poem

I have grown weary of the humorless,
Unfairly strident, and decrepit
Conflict staged between disciples
Of emotion and the mind,
And all the squinting quibbles
And ranting stand-stills of another fight
Between the definitions
Of poetry and prose.
Where are the men who walk upon the hills,
With faces cool, still, and aloof,
With eyes whose sweeping straightness
Emulates the stride of time,
Beyond the rattling of bones
Of explanation and defence:
Who walk as my beloved one walks
Down the penalties of city streets?
Within her legs inexorable
Curiosity strolls on;
Strolls past the nervous convictions
Bound to faces in the crowd;
Plays with melancholy
Images of certainty and truth
But never allows them to gather
The tediums of rust and dust.
Her face is neither young nor old
Beneath the flesh of twenty years.
Another face of marble speculation
Fits the more elastic curves
Where her feelings rise and die.
Again she has two sets of eyes—
One drolly pierced and supplicant,
And one that holds the secretly
Moving calmness of stone.

Yes, I am weary of the over-loud
Wars between mind and emotion,
And I will walk, with silent inquiry,
Down the mongrel ways of city streets,
Beside the figure of my love.