This is Poetry

This is poetry
(on a warm summer night Morgantown, West Virginia)


When I heard the learn'd poet
(author of many books, much acclaimed by the
literary world)
when I heard him with melodrama
and eloquence project his poetry
out over the auditorium
over the heads of the fawning MFA
candidates along with real live poets
and workshop leaders
(also, me, sitting alone at a table off to the side
observing literary scholarship firsthand)

When I heard him put van Gogh, Cicero, Themistocles,
and Dante's contrapasso in one stanza
and oft alluded to what I took to be various Greek gods
using complex imagery and gratuitous obscenities
while plunging headlong into the metaphysical

I too became tired and sick
and found my escape through the back way
onto the cool brick courtyard
into the night air to revive

And thus revived
drove my car radio loud
up and down and around
the college town streets
and hills of Morgantown
past red and green neon signs,
coffee shops, pizza stores, bookstores, bars
and summer students gathered here and there
and when I heard the unlearned Okie from Muskogee
on the radio sing his simple melodious song

"A canvas covered cabin in a crowded labor camp
stand out in this memory I revived
'cause my daddy raised a family there with
two hard working hands
And tried to feed my mama's hungry eyes"

"I remember daddy praying for a better way of life
But I don't recall a change of any size,
Just a little loss of courage as their age began to show
And more sadness in my mama's hungry eyes."

I heard America singing
This is poetry!