Summer at the Movies      

John Carter of Mars returns this summer, 
not surprising if you give it some thought.   
The crux of his heroism never questioned 
a return to the planet Barsoom. Bound by love
but never the law of gravity, this civil 
warrior forever rescues the Barsoomian
princess, Dejah Thoris, strong and firm 
of chin as well as other more prominent 
parts. Many have sought to recreate
the legend, beginning with his sequestration
inside the desert cave, then his rebirth 
on the wild west of planet red.

But previous incarnations focus too closely 
on the green of Tars or heaving bosom.   
Surely those parts are a handful
of the plot, and central to the essence 
of Barsoom, but what blooms 
into greatness is the humility of the gifted,
the recognition of inner worth 
with her royal highness leading the cheer, 
the man unleashed from earthly body into grace.

I know, I know, Freudians love Tarzan, 
the skimpy loin cloth barely sheathing 
his wicked knife, and the near coitus
death roll in the croc-ridden river, and the subservient 
Jane, who replaced the ungendered Cheetah.  
Eventually the couple rescued a youngster; 
et voila, the family tamed the id-driven reader.  
Leaping off ledges, swinging on vines 
across cannibal plants, or yodeling to local elephants, 
Tarzan is basic man, raised jungle-wise 
by primates who pitied the orphan.

When John Carter leaps to planet Mars
and he and Tars Tarkas make goon guacamole, 
a generation of men abandons remotes, 
sucks in its gut and grasps the hilt of imagination.   
John Carter will always return to Mars.   
Its terrain rises deep in the stellar reaches, 
entrenched in red recesses, where gravity fails 
to contain the youthful beating heart.