Ars Poetica

A poem is a machine of bone
that whistles and hums on the wind.
A skeleton parade that rattles and drums
and grasps with its limbs.

A migration of clattering rattling words – in flight.
Relentless and great as a midnight hawk
preying on chirruping scurrying mice
and rodents, who being shy, hide behind rocks.

A geometrical pattern of birds, their
wings clipping the pin-prick tips
of a forest whose acorn seeds drop
like skittering rocks from a cliff.

It sounds harmony and discord at once
on trills and staccatos. While playing treble
and bass, it can tango in places too tiny to
waltz., and sometimes its faces

weep, mourning at funerals, while laughing too.