Declaration

Poetry can be made of any kind
Of language, and any kind of language

Already has poetry to be found,
Buried like a stone ghost in the marble,

Since language and poetry are almost
As close-knit as life and respiration,

Organism and metabolism.
So please stop complimenting each other

For avoiding declarative language
In poems—might as well praise the evasion

Of song, which most do more successfully,
Despite still clinging figuratively

To ancient lyric associations.
Or try congratulating a poet

On having not written in prose, and see
How awkwardly that conversation goes.

And who would dare, in this era, declare
A new poem collection admirable

For having eschewed the political?
Not I. And so what? In gestures, digits,

Voices, or ink, poetry infiltrates
Then emerges from any sorts of words.

It’s crafty, even when we’re total fools.
It’s art, even when the poet’s a tool.

I don’t care poets praised gods that weren’t there.
I don’t mind that some minds were half-rotted,

If words turned the worms in them. I declare,
I don’t care the Instapoets can’t think.

The Imagists never thought much either.
It’s phrasing, you idiots, that makes poems

Possible in this pulsing logosphere
From which all poems evolve. Nothing devolves.