A Noun's a Thing. A Verb's the Thing it Does.

“The Grammar Lesson” by Steve Kowit is interesting because it was supposedly teaching a simple lesson on grammar, which is “A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does.” But in the poem, nouns and verbs start to be used interchangeably like, “A can can roll- or not.” The word “can” is used as both a noun and a verb in one sentence. The same thing happens with “Is is a helping verb.” And then we are supposed to have gotten it by the end of the poem, but really it is just a confusing mess.