What makes a poem a poem
and not a piece of prose?
Is the spark a glint in readers’ eyes
as they pass across the page?
Or does the destiny of words descend
from tip of poet’s pen?

Beauty finds life in the beholder’s eye.
We know it when we see it.
Perhaps poetry emerges from similar alchemy,
the brushing touch of voice on ears,
the pausing gaze of eyes on page,
the lightning bolt that jumps
from fingertip to knob
when shuffling feet in winter.

Call it alchemy, intuition,
inspiration, divination,
a slantwise, twisted glimpse,
a tumble down Alice’s rabbit hole
to a land
of strange and odd
arrangements
where words and things
conjoin melodically
or in dissonance
depending
upon
the
poet’s need
to brush
self-mixed
autochromatically concocted
hues upon the page’s blank
and taunting expanse of whiteness,
a disorienting prairie blizzard
where one’s eyes go sightless
and wind-numbed fingers
can grasp in desperation
only a lone strand
of cold, sharp
barbed wire
and follow
its palm-piercing
length
from post to post
and hope
one heads for home.

David M. Frye
April 3, 2009
Denton, Neb.