What is Poetry?

What is poetry,
she asked, fetching
it to me with full
hands. How could I
answer the woman?
I do not know what
it is any more than
she. I guess it must
be marks on tender
skin, bearers of sin,
cool cups of rain
and bottles of tears
collected on midnight
trains from the eyes
of old men, old women
and infants traveling
to God knows where,
it hangs and is lifted
from our hair
goes onward and
onward speaking
itself, tripping us
as we debark
chewing-gum-mottled
metal stairs.

Photo by Sara. Used with permission. Poem based on Song of Myself, Section 6, by Walt Whitman.

Next week's poetry prompt: Let's try If words were... [choose an object: chocolate, soda cans, envelopes, a pillow, whatever!]. What would you do to or with the words? Or what would they do to you or someone else? Give us sights, sounds, fragrance, textures, tastes. Post your offering by Thursday evening, April 9, for possible feature and definite links at High Calling Blogs. Drop me a comment and your link URL here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Song of Myself (seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com)
• Thought of the Day: Walt Whitman (queerty.com)

POETRY FRIDAY:
Yvette's It is Done
All the Links for the Writing Prompt (see "You Tried It")
Cindy's Awakening to Silence
nAncY's Logs and Stones
Laure's 6 O'Clock Evening Hour
High Calling Blogs' Erring on the Side of Oddness
Erica's Spring Snow
TUC's Liar

YOU TRIED IT (If words were prompt):
Cindy's Arbitrarily Speaking
Monica's Maui Words
Lynne's If Words Were Arrows
Jim's If Words Were
Warren's Words
Deb's If the Poem Fits
nAncY's chew on this, the one, if, flashes, again
Sarah's If words were
JoAnn's If Words Were...the Word Is
Brian's A love of language...

Song of Myself

I thought about all the places I find my soul. Surprisingly, it can change from day to day. Today, this is where I spied it. I don't think it heard me there on the stairs, holding my breath, listening to it its little song...

I found
my soul
in an attic
circa 1932,
toes naked
near a scruffy
yellow
Teletubbie,
fingers
riffling ivory
pages, Whitman
clothed in 40's
faded burlap,
once green
like the grass.
Soul voice,
undisguised,
was whisper
whispering,
gently turning
over under rafters,
urge and urge
and urging a
sweet clear
song of myself.


Walt Whitman 1940's Edition of Leaves of Grass photo, by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED POST:
LL's Grace is a Painted Woman: Unfolding Imagination

POETRY FRIDAY:
Erica's Dawn
LL at High Calling Blogs FedEx Your Soul
Laure's 10 O'Clock Morning Hour
Yvette's Sin is Like That