On What the Future of Civilization Depends
Let's Fight Satan by Reversing the Demographic Collapse
First published in Under a Gull’s Wing: Poems and Photographs of the Jersey Shore, edited by Rich Youman’s and Frank Finale of Down the Shore Publishing and published in 1996, among other fine poems, has my poem “On What the Future of Civilization Depends.”
The poem is about the remarkable courting dance young women and men must willfully dance to meet, fall in love, and marry to have children to produce children to continue our marvelous American civilization.
The audience always loves this poem when I read it in public. Why? Because average Americans get it!
The Easy Solution to Demographic Collapse is to Have More Children
Reading so much recently of demographic collapse, what was once simple is apparently not simple anymore. I read so much of the despair of the young as they fight to meet, date, court, marry, and create families. Let’s help them create families so civilization continues after we are gone.
I wrote this poem after visiting Ocean City, MD about that courting ritual (I changed the location to Wildwood, NJ in the poem) after a Nor’Easterner ripped out and dragged large parts of the city, including the boardwalk businesses, from the ocean side of the city. Always seeking to learn new lessons from natural disasters to help American families, I drove there to see for myself the devastation, how officials and average people were coping, and what lessons could be learned and applied to the next one.
After spending several hours cruising about in 1995 observing and learning, it was evident that the damage was bad. Very bad. My spirits were low until I swung around a corner and saw these beautiful young people flirting as described in the poem.
The Holy Spirit does not allow us to despair if we listen to His directions and instructions. I am blessed because all I have to do is listen for a few minutes and write His inspiration into the form of a poem. My wife does the same in the way she loves me and my family. My sons as well and while their gift is music, we all get daily reminders that God wants us to laugh, love, and live…not despair. Even when natural and manmade disasters strike.
Out of love, hope, and charity will come successful courting and more children. I offer this poem in hopes some young people fall in love and create the ultimate wonder of God’s creation: sweet, loving, good, holy children. God bless you all in your carrying out what God demands.
On What the Future of Civilization Depends
"YO! Youse guys know where the party is tonight?"
The third of the summer blondes
Asks the street corner muscled boys.
"Right here, baby! Get outta dat car
And come over here!
We'll show youse how ta party!"
Smiles Tenderness Tony to his friends first,
And then to the summer blondes,
Fully aware of what hangs in the balance.
"Well, we're kinda lookin' for real men.
Youse guys don't look old enough
Ta drive our cars or even work on our engines!
Wheel it Angela!" laughs Marie.
They cruise around the Wildwood block,
Circle and return, compelled by a mating ceremony.
As old as any migrating naked rhizopod's
As insistent as any remoras on a tiger shark
As powerful as any copulating American saddle horses.
At the same time Tenderness Tony and Angela circle each other warily,
Hundreds of thousands of others dance the same dance floor
To repeat ancient and glorious tribal mating rites
Less understood than the circling rites of shark whales off Tahiti.
I know many who do not see the wonder of this.
Instead, they spend their days saying to whoever will listen,
"See! See there! This life is only abuse, death, destruction,
Hate and finally pain, pain, pain, and cruelty!"
And it is not just journalists saying this these days.
Perhaps such as these have never visited Wildwood, NJ
At the height of the mating season.
For there, on any given sultry summer night
When the air is as thick with mating pheromones
As the Brazilian rain forest, EVERYTHING is possible.
"Youse guys still where the party is tonight?"
Now it is Maria talking, newly revealed as the princes in waiting.
Who throws out the challenge to all willing to chance the future.
All three boys respond by raising themselves high.
To preen their feathered haircuts like cocks
About to meet their flaring hens.
"Yeah, Baby! I'm here for youse only tonight!
He's "VAA VAA VOOOMM Vic! I'm Tenderness Tony.
Dis heres' happiness itself,
Who’s otherwise known as Loverboy Louie."
This night laden with romance and possibility,
Despite the miles of backed up traffic
Tens of thousands in cars, clubs, bars,
All along these dazzling street-lit courting avenues
Rhythmically step to this genetically programmed dance
Unbothered by anything but the moment of contact.
Like a novice nun fingering her rosary,
Theresa brushes her hair with tender strokes
As Maria parks the car in one swift motion.
All three watch the boys in the car mirror,
Aware of what their charged rituals
Are producing in the awaiting Tony, Vic, and Louie.
Each reapplies her love-red glossy candy flavored lipstick,
Sprays wave after wave of perfume on her neck and breasts
And saunters over to her instant date for that night.
For those who snootily laugh at these young people,
Who dismiss their substandard English or their different ways,
I ask youse to please consider the following:
It is on the perpetual success of such everyday rituals.
Far more than on what laws Congress passes,
Or what breakthroughs our medical schools make,
Or what discount rate the Fed establishes,
Or what new worlds the Hubble telescope discovers,
Or what programs the President proposes,
That the future of civilization depends.
"Youse guys ready to party?" Shouts Marie.
"Yooooooooo!!! Honey! The party's just begun!"
Answers Tenderness Tony. "The party's just begun!"
Seventeen years later,
Within a mile of where her parents met,
The oldest of Tony and Marie's girls'
Drives by some guys on the corner of 58th and Atlantic
In "Wildwood by the Sea" And shouts,
"YO! Youse guys know where the party is tonight?"
When she does, on the successful answer to her question,
Will the future of civilization depend.
