Saturday, 1 October 2016

WHAT IS A POEM?

WHAT IS A POEM?
(In anticipation of National Poetry Day - October 6th 2016)

What is a poem?
Occasionally I have to ask
The answer might seem obvious
Though it’s not such a simple task
Spinning phrases and ideas
Words like cards from a magician’s hat
Call it literary prestidigitation
Or something mysterious like that
Making sense of a chaotic world

I’m not a poet myself you see
You’ll have guessed that from these
Words - that are slip-slip-sliding
Through odd line-breaks quite
Absurd – But I’ve come to love
The form, I’ve found – The things
That verse can do – Leaving
Otherwise stony-face hard men
And women strangely moved

Sometimes you have to
Break up the rhythm a bit -
Keeps it interesting

There are beats and forms and rules to follow
Then there’ll be no rules at all

Literary anarchy and yet…

Hark! A pregnant pause…!

Words can make allusions
Metaphors might intertwine
Oceans of notions colliding
To create an image quite sublime
The language can be flowery
Or subtle as a breezeblock
In a car park - In Dudley
On a wet Tuesday afternoon
Making nonsense of the everyday world

Some suffer close examination
Dissection by deconstruction
Others pass out unnoticed into
A wide uncaring and awfully busy universe

There are those that believe that poems should rhyme
And not just on occasion but all of the time
But sometimes they simply

Don’t

Poems can be about everything or anything
Or absolutely nothing at all
So why not write one for poetry day
Go on – you’ll have a ball…!


Martin A W Holmes, October 2016

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