Troy in New Orleans, Manhattan, or London

Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

So I found “Helen” sitting in a streetcar; the Dionysian revels of her court were transferred to a Metropolitan roof garden with a jazz orchestra;and the katharsis of the fall of Troy I saw approximated in the recent World War. ~ Hart Crane, “General Aims and Theories”

See Helen swaying in a streetcar, or

Perhaps far better, Paris, or the arm,

Or thigh swells of Achilles.  That is for

A poet like Hart Crane who sees no harm

In lusting after harder, mythic males

On buses.  Modern poets must retrace

The ancient Greek tale of a thousand sails

With what we see in a watering place

On Bourbon Street or in the Bronx.  The war

Goes on just south of Troy in Palestine

Millennia later so why not more

Voluptuousness.  Find it in a shrine

Made up of carriages of Tube trains on

The Central Line or in a gay bar’s brawn.