Contributor: JD DeHart

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…poetry had to rhyme.
Not all the time.
(chuckle, chuckle,
snort)

…poetry had to be true.
Someone made all that up.

Why, I could write a poem
about a man with an axe and
a large blue ox. Happens more
than you might think.

…poetry had to be chained.

Poetry can break the bonds
of
line
and form. Poetry
can do whatever the hell it
wants.

Poetry is that kid at the store
you simultaneously love and want
to punish for misbehavior.

Poetry is spoiled, lovely, crude, erudite,
evocative and numbing,

the only
way to capture
the loss, the pathos,
the perfection

we feel on this lonely
and bustling path.


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My book of poems, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been published by Dreaming Big Publications.