Recall Buck Rogers from comic books?
Decades ago stirred young minds,
Futuristic rocket ships, aerodynamic looks,
Flew to planets for war, a treasure finds.

Flash Gordon updated these fantasms,
Flying machines, space craft outlandish.
Jules Verne imagined undersea chasms,
Round the world trips he’d brandish.

When these amusements were in vogue,
Were thought impossible flights of fancy,
Likely from unbalanced idealogues,
To the important, an irrelevancy.

We know the outcome of this tale,
We’ve seen men fly to the moon,
And we’d never have taken this trail,
If conservatives called the tune.

Yes, dreams often transcend canvas,
Change lives despite fancy bred,
Complement to poetic supernovas —
Realists, tied to physical instead.

It’s always worked that way, my friends,
Dreamers, artists and poets leading,
Dabbling in the art of impossible blends,
Imagination, art of possible, seeding,

For realists encounter fanciful scene,
Select slivers to wedge old ideas,
Anchor dreams, structures convene,
Convert to reality, partial panaceas.

So, dreamers, poets, — creative artists all,
Drink deeply from waters Hippocrene,
Build heavenly castles in air — if they fall —
Realists salvage elements terrene!

Hippocrene -- A fountain on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, fabled to have burst forth when the ground was struck by the hoof of Pegasus. Also, its waters, which were supposed to impart poetic inspiration.

terrene -- Belonging to this earth or world; not ideal or heavenly.