I have read prose with haunting ideas, with every semi-colon in the right place:
Poetry, with a prose face.
I’ve read stanzas which made me laugh
As they sank into the paragraph;
Sentences, in prose, which crept along
As if they wanted to be in song.
I have seen plain writing,
Hinting, like a poem, at the exciting.
I’ve seen a poem, attempting to thrill;
But like its poet, it was dull.
I’ve heard Muslims dying in desert sands
Cry out for the greener lands
Of their God, with such elation,
Only poetry would be taught in their future nation.
Poetry is taught everywhere in your cry,
Rosalinda, that in your mouth I thought to die.
The prose writers are telling the joke
The poet in somber numbers spoke
Which at the time didn’t seem funny.
But now that joke is making money.
I feel a poem traveling near me in the shadow
Of a drafty mansion. An essay on sorrow
Attempted to convince me the most beautiful rose
Was black; but this could never be explained in prose.