What’s the difference, let’s say,
between a poem and a recipe.
Both feed.
Or a brochure on cool spots in Cleveland
some funky local thinks visitors should see.
Poets suggest different ways of seeing.
How is Dr. William’s red wheelbarrow
scribbled on a grabbed prescription pad
different than pill advised on the other side.
Both heal.
What if Lincoln’s Gettysburg’s Address was recognized
as the poetry it is. Four score and seven . . .
Who but a poet orates with such concise poetic speech..
Bob Dylan’s songs won him a Nobel Prize in literature
causing some in the poem industry to become unstrung.
Their poems could not be sung.
Wallace Stevens with his head full of actuarial science
lamented the passingness of time with ice cream,
the poem’s meaning insured by a melting metaphor.
Our cat walking across my laptop has written:
wertyuop hukliop aserj mind
qasrt zagr does not vbg matter
qazxcft nor htrba heart opk
without rfbgty heat zcju sad
a poem in the manner of illogic Dadaist poets,
absurd to perfection, perfect for these times.