Turning moments into stories and stories into poetry

I justify my poems on the grounds that I am telling a story in a voice that suits my personality. If they are less vivid or oblique than many modern poems I admire, I am content to be clear, with neither more nor less word-strokes than are needed to let the reader see the essence of what I saw and feel what I felt. Sometimes I am shooting for style points. Mostly I hope to nail the substance.

Now, does this work better in this form?

I justify my poems on the grounds

that I am telling a story

in a voice that suits my personality.

If they are less vivid

or oblique

than many modern poems I admire,

I am content to be clear,

with neither more nor less word-strokes

than are needed to let the reader

see the essence of what I saw

and feel what I felt.

Sometimes I am shooting

for style points.

Mostly I hope

to nail the substance.

And then there’s the poem I would like to write, that reveals my point equally clearly without being so explicit.

You have to walk before you can run.

You have to run before you can fly.

One day.