Diverted

Poetry tends to gimmickry,
Even when the gimmick’s plain speech.
Whether you’re messing with language
Because you love your playfulness

Or because you want to bend it,
Make it serve some urgent purpose,
Represent or break open worlds,
Poetry tends to gimmickry.

Languages are jostled through it.
Sounds are synchronized like kick lines.
You make bids for your Olympics,
Build stadia, tear up your speech,

Dig trenches down your mountain slopes,
Narrow, artificial canyons
Lined with stones for class-five rapids,
Challenges for world-class desires,

Built to tempt the organizers,
But who are those? Voters, paddlers,
Judges, viewers, commentators,
And the displaced? All more of you.

And who are we to say? Only
What you count on—meanings, notions,
Associations, rushing words
Hurtling downward, what we do.