Interview with the Not-Poem.(Poem)

 
INTERVIEW WITH THE NOT-POEM 
 
   Interviewer: "But how can you call yourself 
   a `not-poem'? 
 
   You look, from all appearances, 
   like a poem. 
 
   You crouch, 
   shuffle, 
   swing and sway 
   and arrange your lines, 
   syllables, 
   metaphors and similes 
   like a poem. 
 
   Your flesh 
   resembles that of a poem, 
   of all poems, 
   as do all your other parts. 
 
   So how, 
   pray tell, 
   can you not be a poem? 
   Explain if you will 
   this `not-poem'-ness, 
   this state of un." 
 
   Not-Poem: "But then do not call me a poem, 
   for no, I am not one. 
 
   I came recently from that country 
   (about which by now you surely will have heard) 
   in which it was most unwise, 
   ungood, 
 
   simply un, 
   to be a poem. 
 
   Entire poems were murdered 
   in silent fields. 
 
   Stanzas, 
   though begging for their lives, 
   their limbs, 
   were strung up 
   and destroyed. …