A Poet's Meaning

A delicate web of words flows softly
through an eager pen,
expelled from a wandering poets mind;
the page turning into a radiant smile
or a lachrymose face, forlorn in loss.

Perhaps this poet will draw us a forest,
perhaps a subway,
perhaps he'll merely paint us a butterfly
and let us chase it like children
until it lands on some foreign thought
and carries us away.

Memories and burning thoughts scream inside of him,
calling to be written, to be heard.
So a pen is raised to stain the waiting paper.
Our poet needs no meter,
the rhythm is to be found in the intensity of his words.

I paint you a picture full of long purples, daisies, and roses,
their petals sparkling in days full swing,
and present you a garden of poetry;
blooming in neverending, thoughtful light,
none of their fragrances quite mirroring the others.

and ask you, if this isn't beauty,
if our poet did not paint you a crude Mona Lisa,
then what is poetry, if not art?

==Dedicated to my friend T.H. I wrote this in response to a paper he wrote on poetry, claiming that it wasn't art.==