Poetry

Poetry is when you find a windshield smashed with a baseball bat

and you smile,

thinking that the little pieces

look an awful lot like diamonds.

Poetry is when the seagulls

hung up in the night sky over the casinos

look like plastic bags,

Drifting on the dirty, gentle summer breeze.

You see, Poetry

is taking a breath on top of a parking garage

and closing your eyes to cry

where nobody’s going to stare,

and poetry

is thinking about what’s out there

What’s going on in every housing project,

and why is that man holding his face in his hands?

Poetry

is not nostalgic,

is not a sexy boy kissing a perfect girl,

it isn’t using logic, it’s more

Poetry

is just being able to stand

and look at yourself and at others and at the pigeons and at the world

and shed tears because it’s all so perfect.

Poetry is being able to understand

That taking a child’s hand and walking down the promenade

is not just motions, it’s not just an action.

Poetry is realizing that every brick and nail that makes a city

was laid by hands that were once as small as those,

That every grain sand and piece of land on which we stand

is all the same;

Poetry is opening your eyes to the miracle

of the neon lights on a Corona sign,

seeing a squirrel for the first time

and living your life,

I don’t know how else to put it,

just write