WHAT IS POETRY?
"...that which cannot be paraphrased?"
Well, so is a rock. Scissors. Paper.
Rock. Scissors. Paper. Mind.
Put your hands behind your back.
Just cup your palm for mind.
Choose one of the four. Be sly.
One. Two. Three. Go.
Paper beats rock. Wraps it up,
as history's lines wrap lies. We're stoned.
One. Two. Three. Show.
Scissors cuts mind into paper dolls.
(Descartes throws up before multiplied I's).
One. Two. Three. Whoa.
Mind beats rock, beats against rock
until world relents, and the matter settles
grit on the tongue. Two. Three. So.
Paper slices mind in tissue samples,
soul's salami, soul's Salamis of utter
defeat to a Kleenex-thinness of thinking,
how can a tornado drive a piece of straw
through a roof beam? But deep down
you know, you really know how,
if you've ever played the game before.
If you ever saw a page behead someone,
yet leave the heart furiously beating.
This is the praying mantis, death-in-life,
which leaps from leaf to leaf, life to life
and the dead all turn their heads
360 degrees when they are inside it.
And lovers are the only ones will ride it.
—W. B. Keckler