Parsing Ars Poetica

To Rosemarie Dombrowski

Horace

Rhymes with chorus

A crowd

Thinking or singing out loud.

There are ridiculous and sublime

Ways to rhyme,

To codify oceans

Of notions,

Tracts

Of a mix of fancy and facts.

A poem need not rhyme

With every pair of lines

Or even ever

But in order to be a poem it needs to roam

Realms of thought

Skylines of rippling emotions

To yield a encrypted description

Or a wearable narrative

Or a profound or slight insight

That brightens

Or darkens

What has come before.

You want to know more?

Grow some of your own;

That will teach you.

..

Afterword: Rosemarie, first Poetry Laureate of Phoenix, once had a spoken-word event at the now-defunct Urban Beans in which she discussed the Art of Poetry.