Everyone is a Poet

Life is like a parrot.
Friendship is a golden cloud.
An abstract idea, transformed
into a vaguely-related object.

The kind of poem so pretentious,
anyone can write it.

Just grab your favorite emotion--
love
rage
preteen angst
and simmer on high heat,
stirring occasionally,
until you can philosophize it into
your favorite concrete noun,
simple,
yet with a thinly-veiled hint of symbolism
that isn't really there.

So, throw on your jaunty beret
and snap your fingers to the beat
of the bongos
in a smoky, badly-lit coffee shop.
Now, everyone is a poet.