T'is a far far better thing I do,
to write tributes to new poesy chicks,
when seldom sufficient is heard
an encouraging word

than repeat yellowed ancien
tale~tell stale revelations
of an ole man's
forgotten glories and
never ending
tribulations

research uncovers a single
tributary,
a common origin, an irony river,
for their source,
tributes and tribulations,
one and the same

herein, this aging
tribune
defends the new poets
even as his own defenses
erode ever faster,
daily the surf takes him,
granule by granule

thus, t'is more urgent that he
construe and
contribute,
formally and officially,
attribute
the old guard's passing mantle, cloak,
making no
tribologies

frictions tween young and old,
fictions tween old and old
reconfigured as pretend new

this the natural way,
this luminescent fractious friction,
gives birth to
an Einstein~energized
triboluminescence

heat and light
the by-products of the
tribe
of poets