It wasn’t the same this time. The people were the same, But the poets had changed. Where before their nuances seduced me, Now their insistence on form dismayed me. Some had followed the tubes of formality All the way to Deep6. What I’m talkin’ about Is spirit and form, The freshness of youth, And the staunchness of age. Of course, I consider myself young with spirit, While the grad student is old with form. A need for rules has replaced the fervor Which we all walked in with, As if fervor’s decline Caused formality’s control Or as Bukowski said, “As the spirit wanes, the form appears.” And I could add, “Poetry dies.”