Distort or Clarify

Contemporary poems may

distort truth in a strange way.

Metaphor becomes a fact

but fuzzy and inexact.

Imagination has no zest

if it has an unearned rest.

The truth may become a lie

which metaphors may deny.

If nonsense is exciting,

why use facts while we’re writing?

Exclude all hope if you must

let poetry become dust.

Nonsense is what poems must be

as the heart of good poetry.

Walt Abbott 11-7-2011