Jeopardy

Answer: Must contain literary
references and lots of metaphor.
Must be clever and contain strategically
broken lines. Must mention
absent mothers and/or drunk
and absent fathers without really talking
about absent mothers and/or drunk and absent
mothers or fathers. Must stray
from straight talk. Must be bowled
over by the grand pooh-poohs. Would
be nice if it likened the self to a natural
element. Must be tercets or quatrains
or couplets (which are particularly
pleasing when sex is involved). Must
not sound sycophantic--i.e., don't
reference wheelbarrows or plums
or how nothing has such small hands
or a crab scuttling--must pay attention
to sonics (no nonsonically inclined posts
allowed). Must be devoid of feeling
(i.e.--no I's) but filled with feeling
which does not include I's. Must not
be about snotty-nosed kids across
the street or dead neighbors or ravaged
trees or changing a light bulb. Can be
about the sirens and soothsayers
and war gods and temples crumbling
to the ground. Can be filled with all
the right sonically pleasing, rhythmically
stroking, killer line break, enjambment
loaded, artfully studied scenester
elements. Can arouse slightly centers
set for arousal. Can refute and rebuke
and puke and spoof (albeit rather ineffectively)
all the reader knows. Can be lauded
as the best thing since heat. Can elicit
lovers and strangers and familiars.
Can ask without asking and tell without
telling. Cannot (let me say this again)
cannot be about the home town grill
keeping the fires burning or the neighbor
warming up Jambalaya on the grill
or the trips to the toilet in the dark
and cold, or the cats accepting the dog
on their longest night alone together
or shit like surviving unless there's some
clever way to share the story, like maybe
how your mom drank so much beer
the first night she thought she was back
home, your dad beside her in the bed
they never shared, his arms holding
her so tightly she feared they may crush
her in her sleep, fitful as it was in the
up to 20 degree outside sleeping bag,
which is not really clever at all, but true.
And sad--oh you must must must
resist ever telling in the quest you decide
is worth abandoning--sad cannot, absolutely not
be included--no matter the fact that your fingers
have become too cold to write another word,
and all the candles are on their way out.
Question: What is a poem?