What Poetry Is - A Series Of Definitive Statements

Poetry is knowing both how to remember
and how to forget.
Poetry is admitting the world began last Wednesday.
Poetry is about what we do not know about anything.
Poetry is about what we do not know about everything.
Poetry is letting your words fall out of your mouth and letting them go,
like toddlers crossing a traffic-heavy highway alone; they are no longer yours,
and you cannot hold their hands and explain to the mystified world what you meant by what you said.
Poetry is getting up and leaving the room full of stuffy aphorisms
and slamming the door.
Poetry is seeing what a man means
in the light of what he says.
Poetry is having Teddy Roosevelt pronounce you bully.
Poetry is playing the strings on a woman
and making love to a cello.
Poetry is trying to describe color.
Poetry is saying what people don't realize they don't want to hear until after it has already been said.
Poetry is writing letters to orphans to inform them their credit report is shot.
Poetry is building a brand new pair of tits for the Statue of Liberty.
Poetry is mercy even for the merciless.
Poetry is madness.
Poetry is poltroonery.
Poetry is drawing blood from a stone.
Poetry is throwing rocks at a ghost.
Poetry is seeing yourself through the eyes of another.
Poetry is tracing out the wrinkles in your own old face.
Poetry is knowing that one moment lives the death of the last.