Never listen to man-on-the-street interviews
Like the woman informed that the logo
For Procter & Gamble the Man in the Moon
Was a Satanic symbol who said
I wouldn’t want something like that in my house
Or this one
Obama was born in Kenya
And nothing you say can change my mind
Or this one
My dog can read my mind
That’s not an opinion that’s a fact

Hence the necessity of poetry’s pseudo-statements
Calling a nightingale a dryad
Translating the words of a mockingbird
Telling all the truth but telling it slant
But can you call a mockingbird a dryad
A hippo
An oil filter
Can you call a nightingale a suicidal ideation
Can you call a metaphor the truth

And what about ambiguity irony effrentic neologism
Typographical innovations
You can do all these things
You can but should you
Is there a poetic law like the moral one
And are all metaphors ambiguities ironies &c
Created equal
And how slant can you tell it before it stops being truth
What about originality
Innovation is the blow of fate
Had Dryden in Absalom and Achitophel

And who’s qualified
Must you demonstrate your facility with the villanelle
Ottava rima the elusive alexandrine
Haiku quốc ngữ and the craft of the griot
Or will free verse do and if so how free
If so what regulatory principle applies
Who’s going to judge the audition
Is poetry the expression of self
And if so is it okay to fake it
Must the poet load and bless her creation with erudite allusion
Enough cried Rasselas to Imlac
Thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be a poet

Sometimes it is necessary to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa
Sometimes it is necessary to wake from the dogmatic slumber
To rouse oneself and hopefully others from the customary sedation
Not factual data but fitness of epithet
The nightingale somehow a dryad
The alexandrine maddingly elusive foo
The imaginary tail that wags the too too solid dog