Roses Are

See, perfect example. The above has all the earmarks (or hallmarks?) of a "modern poem."

* mostly prose
* novelty line breaks
* subtle if any rhyme

This gives your verse
an incredible amount of loose,
groovy freedom - but

WARNING! It does NOT

make poetry writing EASIER! If anything,
the lack
of a safety net, the lack
of an even force of gravity to pull you down, keep you

able to tell up
versus down, even - the lack

of all that
restraint and equipment,
basically - frees you up to FAIL!

, if you're not careful

Most modern poetry is a perfect example.

Mine, just
right up above
us, there - ? Well,
admittedly, less so. Far
short of a perfect example of
that sort

of thing.

That's the risk you take. Free verse is for REALS, yo.

I just wanted to point that out, because

sometimes people

are like

"This museum piece looks like my special needs kindergartener's imaginary BLIND FRIND took a SHIT on a NAPKIN and slapped it up on the refridgerator like the proverbial asshole sittin' in Pie Corner with plumbs on his thumbs." That's pretty much a cliché,

in the red
-blooded just-us
-folks world

of art critique

, in these days, ever since
hey! they finally gave up
on the sort-of progress that had been
captivating snoots for a while, by then.

You

look at some free-form MASTERPIECE
, and go "SHIT!
I could do that without even WANTING to
."

But it's just as important to note
-
the same thing applies in poetry
! It's
just poetry

never had a chance
to get bastardized by the Modernist
Hijack so bad, because poetry

wasn't in competition with photography
in quite the same way.
(That painting was.) Fine

Arts Painting basically felt itself

threatened,
grew desperate,
freaked out like a SPAZZ
into a corner and
DIED there, trying
to find even one
decent
plump

remnant

wedged into a beveled aluminum crease of a by-then-
long-since way
-too-picked
-over PIE PLATE. And let me tell you!

There is nothing inspirational about the wafting aroma
of the curdles and scrapes and streaks of remains
of purple-pulped pie juice that looks and smells
like it has been sitting out

, in a room-temperature room
, since the beginnings of the ends of days. Bacteria,
mold - you name it.

And yeast
- trying trying to eat
what's left of the sugar, but
there's not even enough moisture for poor little mister
yeast to shit out a proper alcohol molecule
as a by-product! Art,

basically,

became spoiled

and so I just wanted to make sure you're aware of the pitfalls
- the same thing hasn't QUITE

happened to poetry yet, so!

be careful, but have fun.
Just
make
sure you're not the one,

to fuck up poetry for EVERY ONE TO
COME

GENERATIONS

AFTER

OKAY??

There's no

Nobel Prize

for that.