Kenneth Haney - What A Poem Is (1928)

Forgotten Poems #71: A Prose Poem

     
              —: What A Poem Is :—

A poem is a word, that unfolds its strange and hidden meanings only to those that know the touch of warm moist earth about its roots?

A poem is a sound, faint and distant, that floats through the mind that's atune to its warming, rhythmic chorus. The echo of tiny silver bells, tripping through the aisles of darkness.

A poem is a wand, an ebon sprig cut from a splendid tree called life. To all that know its power it calls into being a host of nimble sprites whose shadow sickles keen, reap the emeralds of the night.

A poem is you, if you but know of the cool and sparkling streams that flow, around the mountains of your mind! These are the rills that sing in rhyme! They flow through fragrant moors awaiting that hour that's yours; to burst the dam of eternal time, and flood thy page with verse sublime.

       (Then patiently the dactyl kine
               Shall feed beside the trochee swine!)
       

This is the only known poem by Illinois poet Kenneth Haney, published in American Poetry Magazine in 1928.

     
                    —: Utterations  :—
                    for Kenneth Haney
                        by Dick Whyte

              I.

       poeming:

       begin
       once

       become
       twice

       belong
       thrice

       beforesight

              II.

       what poems are &
       are not:

       zero-dimensional
       points
       in which words
       w-o-r-l-d-s-
       resist
       being

              III.

       empty this sack of stars
       in the river

       mouth filled with moon:
       eyes with mud

       worship what remains
     

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Poems about poetry . . .

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