Poetry, according to Webster's decree, is

"Something that is very beautiful

or graceful",

some sophisticated art or form,

meant to make the heart feel full.

But what about Ginsberg, Bukowski, and Poe?

What about those who wrote of 

Horrors and whores?

Nothing seems graceful about losing your mind,

from drugs and madness and paranoid nights,

looking to score to escape the fright

of looming entropy and hopeless plight.

 

What happens to poets that write about their truth?

What happens to poems that cannot soothe?

Like tales of dark creepy corners where we dare not to look, 

or of terrible cities, teeming with crooks.

There's nothing beautiful in the word's descriptions

Hauntingly true and leaving you vacant.

 

What if poetry means a little bit more

than beautiful loves and lyrical woes?

While it's talent and wit that creates such art,

to me it is basic, and requires little thought.

Poetry to me is not very simple-

it can't be reduced down to meter and fluff,

meant to make the world feel soft.

 

Poetry should move the contours of your mind,

and evoke hidden feelings that you thought had died.

 

Poetry's definition is raw.

Poetry is living, it's livid, it's flawed.

It's about bundling up all your rage,

your fears, your emotions,

your plans and your hopes and your tears and your notions-

and letting them spill out into ink-

or screaming them out for the whole world to hear

As you force them to brood and tinker and think-

making them analyze the truth that you speak.

 

Poetry is openness, it is sharing, it is life.

Words are the fodder that give ideas light.

It is only increased when they're given a voice-

when they're blessed with and given the ability to work.

Poetry works by being gravely honest,

about the reality we live in but hope to escape

about the dreams that we have for our future at stake.

"Beautiful" and "graceful", though apt characteristics,

cannot fully define the wonders or listless

ways that poetry breaks the world-

starting at the root of one tiny word.

 

So what does poetry mean to me?

Everything.

The answer to that,

is everything.