definition

where does the poem come from

some think it is god

others suffering

i believed at some point

that poem and place were the same

a map of the washboard

roads of someone's existence

then there are those

pulling poems from

the air into their nets

 

i think of Pablo

he would probably say

the poem is the spaces

between the mesh net

not what we bring to our hands

or ashore but

what escapes us

the water flowing

back to her mother

the butterfly pushed away

by the whoosh of the net

 

poems are like people

they come from everywhere

 

still there is no definition

that is mine

no meteorite burning red

in the 3:00 a.m. sky

no brief electricity

of a first kiss

define define define

the poem is

what would have happened

if Tristan and Isolde had lived

some mad potion

that is supposed to be death

and is instead

the way we fall and live

more fully because we have fallen

 

po-em n 1: a word that is the name of something. 2: the moment when the word becomes something. i.e. as in the moment when we should be sleeping but wait up in case she has one more beautiful thing to say.

 

po-em v 1: a word that expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being. 2: to build freely. i.e. a roof made of words or a wall constructed of silence.

 

po-em prep 1: pre + ponere, to put. 2: a form that combines with a noun or pronoun that has a relation to some other word. i.e. to be at a state of revision or to be on the cusp of some unthought thought.

 

po-em adj 1: often formed by adding endings such as -able, -ful and -ish to nouns or verbs. 2: relating to or functioning as beautiful, clear or something like sunlight on a first snow.

 

po-em adv 1: form by adding -ly to an adjective, thus making it even more poetic, exceptions are lovely, brotherly, friendly. add freely to amazing, brilliant or beautiful or any force of nature requiring one more syllable to be remembered. i.e. the sunrise that february morning was burning brilliantly for all the souls that would leave that day.

 

po-em conj 1: the act of conjoining, or the occurrence together in time or space. 2: linguistic form that joins together sentences, clauses, phrases, words, or time and space. i.e. a red bird flying into a cloud or squinting one's eyes at night to make all the stars one light.

 

po-em interj 1: word immediately following a poem. 2: word that moves you to a better or more introspective place. i.e. wow, yes, and oh my.

 

and then there is still

this lack of my own definition

and where it will persist

the backbeat of a song

that is its heart

the things we wish to say

and don't

the way unsaid things

try to live

even as we kill them

 

here is my definition

tomorrow there will be

a new river

but today at 10:03 a.m.

on a friday

the poem is thursday and saturday

it is what burns us

makes us love

what used to be

as we hope that

tomorrow the poem will be

newborn again into the sky

much like venus or our sun

in the hours before we wake