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What is a poem?
What is a poem?
By Bret
What is a poem, they ask,
as if a panel somewhere stamped the answer
and locked it in a glass case.
I stand here with moving hands,
inkless, voiceless, loud in a different way.
The poems, the signs.
My language spills forward like water over stone.
I am Deaf.
The system cannot hear my hands,
yet my hands keep speaking.
Who gets to decide the rules?
The ones who listen for rhythm in sound?
The ones who chase rhyme through air?
The ones who tap their feet to a beat
I never felt through the ear
but always felt through the floor?
Poem.
Peom.
Moep.
Meop.
Say it enough times
and the word starts to wobble,
loses its costume,
stands there bare and confused.
They call things beautiful.
Based on what?
Sound?
A rising note?
A falling note?
A pattern pressed into silence?
What is a beat?
A drum?
A pulse?
A heart pushing against the ribs?
A hand striking meaning into space?
When my hands flow,
there is rhythm.
When my face shifts,
there is tone.
When my body leans forward,
there is intention.
Is there a sound?
No.
And yes.
A different kind.
A quiet thunder.
A visual echo.
A language moving fast enough
to shake the air without touching it.
What is a poem?
A breath.
A pause.
A flick of the wrist.
A question left hanging
between two people
who understand.
Who decides?
Maybe no one.
Maybe everyone.
Maybe the poem decides
the moment the hands begin to move.
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