by Hayley Michelle Trachtenberg
What does it mean to be a poem?
A piece written in verse?
Filled to the top with metaphors,
And conductive, cognitive, words?
Does one need to rhyme, to be a poem?
Or have a method to the meter?
Or, do the words just dangle precociously
On the edge of your tongue and teeter--
Is a poem defined by its topic?
Or by its underlying theme?
Is it the stuff that dreams are made on,
Are they rounded out in a sleep?
Do poems burst at the brim,
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or do they shrivel and die and dive,
Into the rings of hell undone?
Are they strong like heroic Hercules?
Or are poems weak as the lilies?
Are they labeled after their message?
Or are they categorized by their content?
Is a poem a leaf on the wind,
Going wherever the wind my blow?
Or are poems a rock, sinking
Down to Davey Jones?
And at the bottom of that underwater rainbow,
Is there a chest?
Full of golden similes and conceit:
And silver subtext.
A rose by any other name
Would still smell as sweet?
Does this rule apply,
When one applies it to poetry?
What does it mean to be a poem?
Is it a silence stuck and frozen?
Or---
Is a poem just a poem?
What does it mean to be a poem?
A piece written in verse?
Filled to the top with metaphors,
And conductive, cognitive, words?
Does one need to rhyme, to be a poem?
Or have a method to the meter?
Or, do the words just dangle precociously
On the edge of your tongue and teeter--
Is a poem defined by its topic?
Or by its underlying theme?
Is it the stuff that dreams are made on,
Are they rounded out in a sleep?
Do poems burst at the brim,
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or do they shrivel and die and dive,
Into the rings of hell undone?
Are they strong like heroic Hercules?
Or are poems weak as the lilies?
Are they labeled after their message?
Or are they categorized by their content?
Is a poem a leaf on the wind,
Going wherever the wind my blow?
Or are poems a rock, sinking
Down to Davey Jones?
And at the bottom of that underwater rainbow,
Is there a chest?
Full of golden similes and conceit:
And silver subtext.
A rose by any other name
Would still smell as sweet?
Does this rule apply,
When one applies it to poetry?
What does it mean to be a poem?
Is it a silence stuck and frozen?
Or---
Is a poem just a poem?