Listening to the imperfect melodies beat out by
Hundreds of thousands of falling drops of liquid ice
Preventing my tortured mind from finally falling into
The powerful rejuvenating arms of blissful sleep
And leaving behind an eclectic, haphazard
Trail of tears upon my thin glass windowpane

there is poetry

Driving down the open freeways of this or any
Other state I watch as the lines of varying colors
As they dance and intertwine among themselves
Never beginning, ending only out in infinity
For asphalt isn’t merely black, but shaded grey,
As all surfaces contain endless strings of color

there is poetry

Being unable to stop watching the hypnotic nimble
Swaying of leaves and branches in brisk autumn wind
Endless gyrations, uninterrupted by the casual
Fall of a single leaf from its lofty perch
To the cold and uninviting arms of earth below

there is poetry

Watching my father watching a movie as sharp light
Falls upon his face and chest, rhythmically sustaining
His life with each swell, as his eyes, hiding a mind
Lost deep in thought, dart quickly back and forth
To take in the entirety of the pinpoints of electrons
As they enliven, destroy, confound, distort, invite

there is poetry

In the simple monotonous clicking as I type out these
And countless other words before and to come, a stream
Not just of English letters but of consciousness
Imperfectly transcribed by the imprisoning necessity
Of language, that thought appears and solidifies
In the tapping of my pale fingers upon a black keyboard

there is poetry

Searching for the human soul within your dark
Piercing eyes as they simultaneously probe my own
Open to the world, unspeaking and unmoving in search
Of the philosopher’s Holy Grail: where is that which
Separates Man, where lies the seat of Thought
Invisible behind your black retinal mirrors

there is poetry

Dancing slowly at thirteen meager years of age
To the crooning of a long-forgotten vocalist
With my arms draped around a girl’s shoulders
For the first time, wondering is this Love?
If love is, or can be, found in a middle-school cafeteria

there is poetry

Falling upward and outward into the golden rays
Of sunlight, and dancing to the unspoken melodies
Tossed earthward from two atoms’ meld into my eyes
All of this activity envelops me as I sit motionless
In a blue and white plastic chair in my backyard
One summer’s afternoon, my mind enraptured by light

there is poetry

I have heard Great Minds speak about the meaning
Of Poetry, and what truly makes a Poem more
Than words printed upon a page by an ink-infested
Machine, in a brick-walled publisher’s lair

And I heard Great Minds stumble over their
Attempts to bring the ideal of Poetry to light
Unable to solidify their abstract thought into the
Stranglehold of the English, or any other, language

I defy these Great Minds and their half-defined
Ideal of Poetry, for Poetry is everywhere,
To define is to limit

Poetry is anything, everything that ever is or was
Alive, or dead, or neither or all of the above, or ever
Could exist in humanity’s incomprehensible dreams