Ars Poetica

Poetry is a busy crosswalk downtown, when everyone moves together with elbows held a little wider than normal. Poetry is a middle-aged man, creased and folded, sprawled out on the neglected weeds in Woodruff park, eyes wide shut. Poetry is the free fruit for children podium in between the produce and clearance aisles, oranges and apples withered to marbles. Poetry is a crying baby at the 3 o’clock movie theater. Poetry is a young boy in the park, battered by curiosity, in a fight to the death with furry flowers, their guts filling the air with each oaken swing. Poetry is giving a nod to the mailman. Poetry is the unintentional eavesdropping of the worst idea for a screenplay ever fielded. Poetry is the gait of a man recently in love, thinking of hands suddenly adored. Poetry is the enigmatic ether that fills the summer air so thick you have so do the breaststroke just to get back home. And how can you ever think to write it if you are stuck inside behind grating blue screens or painfully white paper?