What's poetry got to do with it?

Poetry has never been, at least to me
The wave to float my boat
Not quite accessible, a bit of a mystery
Like a distant snob, a little haute.

I wondered if anyone other than the poet
Ever 'got' what the poem meant?
The reader's delusional, thinking "I know it!"
While the actual target is left without dent.

The shackles of idiosyncratic love or pain
Not to mention rhyme and meter
What could such limited sharing possibly gain?
Not that this thought seems the poets to deter.

"Give me", I'd always say, "some lengthy prose
Slow unwinding leisurely descriptions
Never mind those who call it 'verbose'
True literature shouldn't feel like witty encryptions"

Of late I've been forced to question this (it's hard!)
And acknowledge that I was too quick to judge
There's true genius in the rapper as there is in the bard
Once you accept the magic, it'll refuse to budge.

How does a sonnet, an epic, or a child's rhyme
Bring words to the unarticulated feeling
And do so within a few short lines and in no time
And in a way that might just leave you reeling?

Well, if what they say is true, and Imitation
Is truly the greatest form of Flattery
You'll understand this attempt towards creation
Of what I try vainly and in vain, to call 'poetry'.