I've been on OS for a relatively short time and am really enjoying the wealth of talent, divergent views (sort of), humor, pathos, and funny comments that I've found.  It's clearly a community of people that respects each other (mostly), and I like being a part of it.  Warm and fuzzy almost, (even Tink), and even if I'm still sort of on the outside looking in.  

It's made me start writing and feels like a much better use of my time than ignoring prayer requests on Facebook.

But, that being said, and with due respect to all the people who write and put themselves out in cyberspace for all to see, I have to admit that I find myself passing over the poetry. 

I'll click on a title that sounds interesting, wait for the page to open, see that it's a poem, and boom, I backspace.  I'm out of there.

            The close set eyes

                  stare blankly back

               at....

Well..., frankly, I'll  just never know, because I haven't stayed around to see. And to all the poets, I apologize.  I may be helping your view numbers, but I'm doing absolutely nothing for your ratings.  

It's not that there's no respect.  It's just that I don't have a clue as to how to determine what's good.  Oh sure, I kow what I like.  But what I like is usually off color limericks, the poems that rhyme, or the ones that are good and funny.  Which means that I probably completely overlook the ones that are actually good.  

It's partly because I remember dipping my own toe into writing poetry back in my teens and early twenties, with all the self absorbed drama that came with that time.  I'll run across those poems on occassion in old boxes and am kind of intrigued,  but mostly I'm just embarassed.

And I know that good poetry is more than that. Yet, somehow I can't get beyond the belief that poetry is a sort of lazy type of writing (and here again, I apologize, because I know it's my own ignorance, and I know how long you struggle over a single word).  But to my ear, any good prose can be read to sound like good poetry.  And if that's the case, then isn't a poem really just a lazy man's prose. A shorthand, so to speak.

But just when I think I have it figured out, I remember that really good prose takes out all the extraneous words.  And I start thinking that  maybe poetry is the best type of prose. Good prose taken to its very bare bones limit.   Perfect prose.  And, once again,  I'm confused.

Which is why I keep passing over the poetry.  Because, really, I don't have a clue.  

In one of those old boxes, I found a poem that my sister wrote in high school. And, again, I apologize just in case she didn't actually write it , but took it from a book of Rod McKuen or Susan Polis Schutz or somebody. But it goes like this.

                        I saw a leaf

                           fall from a tree

                              And I wrote about that leaf

                                 And called it a poem.

                                 But later,

                                 I wondered,

                                Was it a poem

                                Or was it only a leaf.

"Exactly!" I say. "Well done."

Which is why I keep passing over poetry.