What Poems Do

this poem drinks too much

laughs out loud and cuts up

without decorum or sobriety

happy to have a good time

another dresses tastefully

displays impeccable manners

all éclat and dazzling polish

- a solid citizen of letters

in a quiet mood, one

reflects incisively on life

parsing its many contradiction

exploring a less-traveled path

one works to capture reality

the images, sounds, odors

of things seen and experienced

recording what is and was

pregnant with meaning

one is a riddle and maze

drawing analysis and contention

into its lyric black hole

like the people who write

and who read them

there are infinite answers

to what poems do