Poetry Is Not Just Feelings Poem by RIC BASTASA

i have long said
that there is no definition to poetry
it is
sui generis, a class of its own,
a evolution of meanings and a transfiguration of words
into substances beyond
the limitations of our minds,
if you say that poetry is feelings
what is then
those that we have not even felt and yet
strikes us as
poetic?

an enlightenment for instance
a divine revelation handed in a dream
in the form of metaphors

what about those that strike us
like a red wheelbarrow glazed with the rain
beside those white chickens?

what about those live frogs in the imaginary gardens
of our minds?

what about a new philosophy of life?
or the promiscuity of the glands?

there are no boxes that can contain all these
in one container

let the poem be just a river
going anywhere
let it just be the sea taking us anywhere
let it be the waves
to and fro arriving everywhere

or what? you name it, you 'll have it.