The Obesity of Prose Poems

I’ve noticed of late
That many poems
Are just obese
Paragraphs of prose
Of startling proportions
Masquerading around as poems

Super sized
and bloated by
Too many words
Taking up
entirely
Too much space
On the reader's plate

I blame our society
For this blight on poetry –
For we have let our poems
Go the way of our bodies
Eating superfluous words
Addicted to phonemes
and morphemes

Now, I don't mean to imply
That all poems are fat.
All I am saying
Is that the majority
Of Prose Poems
Could benefit from a diet.

Nor am I recommending
that everyone stop reading
These Unhealthy,
super sized poems
Cold turkey

Nor am I suggesting
The other extreme
That we get back
To the anorexic poems
that are nothing
but skin and bones
and sans punctuation

And yes,
I also realize
that haiku
is little more
than a bite-sized snack
And hardly enough
To curb a reader's
Hunger attack)

(and the same
can be said
of the tanka
and the cinquain
mere morsals
to the gourmond)

So what's the answer
To this conundrum:

Use less words?
Chew gum?
Twiddle your thumbs?

If You Think Too Much

If you think too much
About the next rhyme

Like bait on the end
Of a fishing Line

You’ll never pull
A word from the sea -

You’ll always come up empty –

But if you cast your line
With a blank mind
You’ll hook one every time

And never go hungry.

I

a green uprising
of grass
weaving the sunlight
sings in the medow

II

April's silent
rain
is a monastary
May
a cloister of flowers