Discussion on Poetics - split off from previous thread.

[busker]

Busker

So what specifically is poetic about your example?  [Question, not argument]

Poetry is many things.
There's the sonic quality, of course. That is one of the aspects of primitive poetry. From "Menin aeide Thea" to "Grendel gongann god's yre bare" (to compare the great with the small), and eventually, "for skies of couple colour as a brinded cow", there's the magic of sound. Tetrameter or the more boring iambic pentameter.
The measured use of sound brings pleasure  (till it becomes overused and pedestrian), but rhyme also brings pleasure. The Romance languages, because of the way their verbs conjugate, and for Italian, the vowel endings of nouns, abound in rhymes. Which is why Dante can go on and on with:

E come li stornei ne portan l’ali
     Nel freddo tempo, a schiera larga e piena;
     Così quel fiato li spiriti mali

Di qua, di là, di giù, di su li mena:
     Nulla speranza li conforta mai,
     Non che di posa, ma di minor pena.

and write an entire epic in terza rima, without it even grating. However, English being nowhere nearly as rhyme-rich, can't have poems written the same way. Or if it does, then you get the barbarous rantings of Chaucer:

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

Etc

So English poetry is more economical with rhymes. Regular rhyming schemes don't work very well in English, but complex ones, and especially half-rhymes, work quite well. There is a different sort of effect that you get with consonant endings, rhyming or not.

The point is that sound is one of the instruments of creating aesthetic pleasure.

Imagery is another - the ability to conjure a vivid picture with few words - showing rather than telling.

The Dead Seal does a great job of showing.

Prose is more telling rather than showing. Where it shows, prose is frequently described as lyrical or even poetic, proving the point.
Conversely, writing out A Brief History of Time with line breaks will be seen as distinctly prosaic.