It started
Innocently enough
With the desire to make
The woebegone world laugh.

Begun in 2 a.m. grogginess,
I concocted a nonsensical,
“Off the wall” theme.

Two famous literary notables
Ponder an inconsequential matter.
Like Tolkien and Tolstoy discussing
Plumbing.

No that didn’t work.

What about garlic bread.
Nope, no where to go
With that.

I was bereft of good ideas.

So I counted on your friends
At the
National Celebration Day Calendar,
Labouring in North Dakota,
Mandan, no less, to give me
The clue.

How can a poem arise from
April 9th’s celebrations—
National Cherish An Antique Day
National Name Yourself Day
National Winston Churchill Day
National Chinese Almond Cookie Day

The best of all—

National Unicorn Day

Is there a poem here?
Tolkien, Tolstoy, Churchill
And Unicorns.
Does it qualify
For the universal chap book award,
Or is it the mere ramblings
Of a naked old lady
sipping a cup of
Orange-ginger tea?

Does it make any difference?

Did you scratch your head
And laugh? Or better still,
Guffaw
While examining the question
With the “Surrealist Manifesto”
At hand, in your bedstead drawer
Like a “Gideon Bible”.
Certainly a guide
To following the quest for

What is poetry?

 

Charlene James-Duguid
Amissville, Virginia
April, 2020