Meta Poetry. 

I often get asked what poetry really is; 

I’ve come to realize that poetry is simple, 

yet arranged in a not-so-simplistic way. 

Poetry is a riot of ideas waking you up at midnight, 

bombarding you in the most random, inconvenient hours. It is unfinished business that refuses to sign a peace treaty, waiting until you are halfway to a dream and cannot find a pen. 

It is emotion that needs expression from its obsession; 

It’s motivation, some call it inspiration, others a muse 

demanding an absolute revelation. 

Poetry is a man alone who needs no battalion to win a war. It is an advocate, a change-agent, and a master-mechanic screwing back the nuts and bolts that once held peace together. 

It is the smell of rain on Northern dust and the steam from a morning cup; the call to prayer and the desperate answer of the pen. 

It is the quietest thing found in silence itself, 

moments when time stands still and all is hush. 

Poetry is an endless ocean, vast and deep; 

It is anger, it is sacrifice, and it is the letter 

tucked beneath a lover’s pillow like a secret. 

Poetry is an armed robber, it takes what it wants 

but it is never a terrorist. 

It is an exaggerator; a handsome liar. 

It is the thief of sleep and the merchant of scars; 

the price we pay for seeing what others choose to ignore. 

It is verses, stanzas, meter, rhyme, and rhythm. 

It is diction, imagery, and the leap of enjambement. 

It is fourteen lines, it is seventeen syllables, 

it is free verse flight, the tribute, and the persona’s grief. 

Poetry is poetic license, sanctioned for poets 

to metamorphose and manipulate the world. 

It is Me. It is YOU. 

It is sacred, it is mundane, it is bizarre and unique. 

And what do you think this is? 

It is goddamn POETRY.

Abbas Yusuf Alhassan is a poet and a dedicated student of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Passionate about creative expression, he shares his work with a growing literary audience on Instagram. His work has been published in “Synchronized Chaos and he has co-authored two anthologies: “Life and Death” (SGSH Publication) and “If Only Words Were Enough” (Al-Zehra Publication). Abbas values the art of learning and unlearning, constantly seeking new ideas and perspectives. While he studies life underwater, his soul resides in verse and stanzas.