prose poems.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

I took a class last year on Prose Poems and Short-Short-Stories. In the end, I had a blast with Prose Poems, thanks to the form. And by form, I mean that they have almost none. They're a mix of fiction and poetry. They don't require the cohesive story of a short and don't adhere to the rules of your typical poem. Instead, you can go wild, evoking a tone or depicting a dream like image, thereby embedding any such desired layers beneath. In fact, my favorite of the lot is the first, the shortest. Anyway, here's edited (tonight!) versions of my favorite ones I wrote that semester. These are things I have no idea what to do with, would love to submit somewhere, but have no idea where. Feel free to post your own prose-poems that exist in this formless-form, below.

 

[EDIT] Jacking diedan's excellent idea of putting the writing bits in spoiler tags.

 

 

fragments of a truck beside the road.

 

 

There was a collision at the intersection by my house. Your hands were above your head, making out the shape of a car.

 

“I could see the man as he split in two. He was air and atoms and you and I was still alone.”

 

 

 

on indecision.

 

 

I’ve got my boots on the wrong feet and they’re splitting me like chop sticks. Left (nose scuffed, a little bloody) speaks for a minute sometimes, then goes quiet. Today he says, “I was wrong about you. Go with Right. You never listened to a word I had to say.” Right (gnawing on my left foot) stops chewing and looks up at me, squinting. And then begins to mutter, bits of nail dribbling down his chin.

 

Thisisthehouseyou’llhave,thisisthewife,thesearethechildren,I’vegotthenamesallpickedout,lineduplikeplatesalongthewall.

 

He stops, chokes and sputters.

 

“You’re right, Left,” I say, taking a seat on the tracks and itching my nose. There’s a sound in the distance, bleating like a pig being slaughtered. I take to my laces and leave my boots on the ground.

 

Wriggling my toes, they are small and fine, full of flesh and brilliant in the sun.

 

 

 

revision a.

 

 

When I was young, my mother would march me to the schoolhouse at the colliery, shouting to put one boot in front of the other, and to keep my eyes on the road. It was practice. After the fire in the mines, my mother didn’t say much. Most days she sat at the window, holding her hands in her lap like she was trying not to crush something. I asked her once if she would play with me in the garden. She smiled and shook her head, saying, “He’ll want his supper when he comes in. He hates when it’s cold.” Her eyes were pale and white like milk.

 

 

 

revision b.

 

 

After my father died, they seemed to forget about me. With no one to chide me I would go out into the woods, sometimes as far as the old colliery. Once, there was a girl sitting with the dying trees. I thought she was an angel, and then, death. She rose, dancing in the ash, naked and caked in soot. A primrose clung to her hair like tar, brilliant and white. She warbled and crowed, arching her back and shaking a blackened fist at the sky, opening her throat and singing like the world was coming down, like it had and like it would.

 

 

 

 

vetey.

 

 

If you severed them, piled them together - made a cairn from all the faces, you would see it. At a distance, it is an aging titan, the Face.

 

Hair knotted, they tumble from the pile, gnashing out, trying to snatch a bit of the other as they fall, mouthing to the Voice:

 

They are the enemy.

 

A hundred times over, the Face repeats this, pausing only to swallow.

 

It has lopped off the hands that said, But, They are We.

 

Content, the Face jabbers on, picking bits of skull and chunks of hair from its teeth.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2011 by TheForgetfulBrain

[diedan]

Fuuuuuun! I'll give them more time when I'm not at work so I can give better feedback than one word. But, I do love this style of writing, the free flowing don't really need to bother with form short pieces.

 

I have a few that kind of fit this structure. And I probably have some excerpts from the Large Writing Piece that would fit here better than other places.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Yay! I shall anticipate their arrival.

[diedan]

Okay, so I got a chance to read them and digest them a little bit more and I looooove them! What's so fun/nice about short pieces is how particular you have to be when choosing words so that you can paint a picture/emotion/etc. in such a small space. All of yours are incredibly descriptive in such the right way.

 

I like revision b the most, but I like the idea of revision a being paired with it rather than one needing to exist over the other.

 

It's been a while (read: years and years and years), since I've done formal criticism, so all you gets is praise!

[diedan]

So, this was originally written as a poem, but I feel it fits better here:

 

Twin Oracles

 

 

—The sky’s gray again. I hate it, goddamn hate it.

 

—You always do; you always do.

 

—Can’t you do nothing?

 

—Nothing at all.

 

—Goddamn nothing.

 

 

 

 

I'm digging through my Longer Work to see if any excerpts would work here or if we need to start a new thread for such things.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Thanks diedan!

 

For the revisions, it was an exercise to cut down something longer of ours by at least half and I ended up doing two. I was actually thinking of either doing a short story or a bunch of small segments like that about this small town based around a coal mine where there was a fire or similar catastrophe, but I haven't figured out how to enter it again - one of those things I'd need to do a lot of research about first.

 

I like yours!

 

It's humorous and I dig how it plays with the words in this sort of almost-conversation.

 

The repetition of the first 'response' is interesting and I like how it works with the pacing.

 

Oh man, I am so out of practice for writing comments as well though.

 

That and I never really say anything negative - usually just say places I'd like to see more, or something focused on.

[slithy toves]

oh!

 

my favorite poem i wrote ever is really short and sweet and at this point really old but i loves it.

 

 

 

GEEK

in my imagination

blowing bubbles with you

i'm so perfect

i wish you were too

 

 

Edited January 15, 2011 by slithy toves

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Hahahha, I love that, slithy.

 

The tone reminds me of something, but I can't think what.

 

Arghh.

[diedan]

This is my new favorite thing. This thread. So I dug a bit through my Longer Work (which will never be finished), and I found a chunk that could fit here. The Thing Itself is a large, messy book with lots and lots of stream of consciousness sections, seemingly randomly. They aren't, but they definitely seem that way sometimes. This bit is a paragraph from when the character is about to embark on an existential walk around the city where he'll experience every aspect of life before his ultimate...um, transmutation?:

 

 

 

I care about this. Here. Now. I care about my neurons, my enzymes. They speak to me directly. They are me and I am them. We are we and these thoughts are our thoughts. Thoughts of twisting decay and wintry failure. Thoughts of barren walls and barriers and banana cream filled cardboard. Thoughts of sightless nights groping toward anything something to comfort and to calm. Thoughts of blue-eyed Death, open armed watching them fall down down down into their graves just like that. Thoughts of white-backed women and shoulderblades like wings. Thoughts of yes and no and thoughts of the Form of All! I have seen it screaming my name in orgiastic fury. I have seen it weep fiery tears onto undulating archaic fabric. I have seen it naked and cold and shivering in fear of the outside world—outside, the collisions, the pain of faith and truth and questions and the emptiness, the movement, the chaoticrushofarmsandlegsallcomingatyouatoncetoeateateat! I have seen it knife-edged and warm, smoke-blast filling the air with dreadful silence, yes silence, the frameless shot of I am! I am; therefore, I can be not. The negation. The horror. The beauty. The paradox.

 

 

 

And this bit is much, much longer, but I really like it so I'm posting it anyhow. It's basically him in the heart of the city transitioning through young adulthood into adulthood and all the angst that goes with it:

 

 

Where then is this O glorious nymph of the Urban sprawl? Thou art not a sylph nor a salamander, but a great Thing with arms outstretched like a god—dark veins of sinister mechanics. Cells like clockwork. Tick. Tick. Tick. Was it first the gods or first the love? Who birthed whom? Does it matter? In the long run? Perhaps for Everyone at All Times—but for Here&Now: for Dasein? Here, not there, but everywhere. Everydare. Everywear. Lair. Sayer. Nayer. What boat is this that I should be so lucky? Wave wave. Night night. But it is. So. Perhaps. Turn. Left. Or. Perhaps: wait eternally for the change from red to green: watch as the dust falls and the buildings erode and everything slowly becomes angelfood for the next generations. As crows caw. Death, birth, death, death … it is not the destruction of stability, of unity. The Unit is dead; long live the Unit. Long live the. Me. Here. I am. A moment. Of? This. I comport myself toward myself and find myself. Who else? Why else? Crisis. Critical. Critically critical. The critic of crisis critically christened by the critical Christ. Also severe. And naughty. O lamp! O home! Left. We need our young adulthood. We need the pure angst, the where-you-are-right-now. Golden hour. Moment. Angst on angst. Death on death. So: turn—

 

A bridge? Not the bridge of old, not the holy bridge of footpaths and rails and almostdeadmichael. A bridge with cars and a sidewalk and a median and a river and the sky and trees and wow this is perfect! How beautiful! How, how symbolic! Of what? Crossing over? The turbulant waters of youth into the industrialized structure of adulthood. Discipline. Yes. O strength. O weakness, weakness to succumb to the week: weekness. Five day slavery for the coin of weariness. I don’t want to cross here! Isn’t there another way? Wish the wash of watery wishes! Wash the wishes of watery walkers. Oh.

 

Shit. Confusion already. Realists? Romantics? Even the Victorians? Dark death curl. Real, real bad, real death, real. Yeah. Um.

 

If I can perhaps put this foot one foot in front of the other foot and progress then this will be painless. Ha. Uncharted waters. Forced to grow up in one night. If growth, then also decay. If decay, then …

 

Turn around turn around turn around but I cannot. A rush of wind, a sword in my back, a nudge by a stranger, a moving sidewalk, the flow of water, I am washed down this tunnel through the ascent to the top of the bridge where I will gaze back and see my skin in pieces, a shedding of the days of old and the cold familiar nostalgia that I will never feel the warmth those layers imparted onto my body. I may even run back, screaming, arms flailing, picking up pieces of flesh and shoving them into my mouth, hoping that if I devour them they will still remain within my system of how-I-see-it-all, but faint with energy and the knowledge that they too will pass through my body, coming out the other end worse than they were going in. I am a machine that destroys. I appropriate all energy and leave it warm with the residue of my bowels. The most difficult. The most unforgiven. I will never forgive myself for this. All anger and hatred and destruction will be directed at this moment, this leaping forward and denying myself of all the things I love. Death is not death; this is death. I can watch the film of it all, right now. Dark night sky littered with the nonexistent tears, my outstretched fingers reaching toward the Outward as I fling them around my body, the centrifugal forces ripping them from my body I watch as the rest of me slowly falls apart: my hands, my arms, and soon my abdomen is torn in two, only a small puddle of blood and guts where I once stood. Or just not step. Or just find any blunt or sharp object and beat myself into that similar stain. Or just. Oh god. Step.

 

It has begun. I can feel myself fall away from myself. But this is also myself. I am myself. Despite. De spite. Of spite. To spite. Each step brings another step and each step brings another step and each step makes me thinner. My hair fall out first, then my ears, then my nose, then my mouth, then my eyes, then my face, then my head, then my neck, then each shoulder, right first then left, then my fingers, beginning at my pinkies and moving inward toward my thumbs, then my hands, then my forearms, then my upper arms, then my chest, then my stomach, then my hips, then my groin, then my thighs, then my lower legs, then my feet, then my toes, beginning at my big toes and moving outward until I am absolutely gone. I am gone. But I am here. On top. Of the bridge.

 

I turn around. But do not see a trail of skin. I see nothing but the gray path that descends toward the light of that corner. I look right. I see the rail. I see the water. I see the other bridge. I see trees. I see light. I see a large beacon in the sky calling for my destruction. I see the fringes of industry. I look left. I see water and trees and the darkness of the sky. I turn around again. I see the inner heart of the beast. There are only small hints of it now, but it is the precursor to the frail universe that I must enter soon. An office building here, a restaurant there: department stores, hospitals, hotels, busier streets, lights, drowning lights that drain the night of its unknown. This is the world of mechanics. Of a systematized drug structure. Synthesized ugliness. And I think: this is where I will spend the rest of my life.

 

 

[slithy toves]

i dunno what it is either, but it is like the poem of me. i have written so many things but if someone asks what i'm like that's it.

[diedan]

Hahaha! That poem is great! I love little simple things like that that manage to pack in a lot anyhow.

[slithy toves]

when i was 12 i was like amazing at that. now i've got too many words in my brain to be so effective.

[diedan]

I am rather excessive in all my writing lately (see above). It's insane. I just can't write simply anymore.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Ohhhh, I love that first one.

 

"blue-eyed Death" - brilliant

 

Excellent tone, pace and finish. It's like a good shot of whiskey!

 

I think I'm getting inspired to start writing short bits like this again and post them here.

 

I've still got some work to wrap up, so I'm gonna try and concentrate on that and come back to this thread later and read over the longer one then.

[slithy toves]

i'm gonna have to admit i haven't read either of yrs yet, but i am too drinky hyper to do so and i will read when i'm mature enough to comment.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

hahaha sliths.

 

s'okay, we still adore you.

 

Im'a bout to get back to work any second now, I swear, but first I wanted to hi-jack diedan's poetry thread real fast, and found one that's more prose-poem than poem, and included picture (ripping this from an old FB note).

 

eight legs.

 

 

A few weeks ago it was a mouse, slipping under doors and climbing up the wires.

 

Now there are spiders taking leisure strolls along my desk, leaving webs above my door.

 

Something new to wake up to.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2011 by TheForgetfulBrain

[slithy toves]

oooh after reading more i likes this thread. and i'll hopefully post more. i seriously have not ever had ppl i don't know read something i've written for like years so i hopes this is a good slithy development. i started a creative writing degree then finished as paralegal, and my writing in my college career was mostly non-fiction which i already know i can write well.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

I think this is an excellent slithy development.

 

/happy-dance

[slithy toves]

oh gosh i hope it is. my non-fic stuff tends to be a combo of mad max and romance... which is more embarrassing than it sounds when ppl read it. i hope to get some good stuff from you two out of this as well tho!

[rainetemplar]

revision a.

I love this one the most. It really sets a very particular atmosphere.

The story doesn't tell too much, if you know what I mean. It's just right.

[Mr W Phallus]

Have any of you ever read Virginia Woolf's The Waves?

 

It's basically a entire novel of prose poetry/stream of conciousness. It's so densely packed with imagery it's insane. Personally I didn't enjoy it too much because stretching the form out for an entire novel seemed a bit too much for me but I thought it might interest you, and there is some a lot of beautiful imagery and language to be found if you can cope with it.

 

Also great work guys!

[TheForgetfulBrain]

revision a.

I love this one the most. It really sets a very particular atmosphere.

The story doesn't tell too much, if you know what I mean. It's just right.

 

[SomTervo]

That's really, really great stuff Brain.

 

When I read the thread title I was like 'pfffft, in class they told us that if you make poetry too wordy or prose too sparse you get "fragmented text", which everyone knows is shit!'- but this actually works really well.

 

Have you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy? Uses a really simple style that's like this a lot- simple sentences and a lot of missing conjunctions or complimentisers, and it doesn't have chapters or anything but is structured into brief bits of text, usually a few paragraphs at most.

 

You've given me an idea for another writing thread that'll hopefully get some people into joining in!

[TheForgetfulBrain]

That's really, really great stuff Brain.

 

When I read the thread title I was like 'pfffft, in class they told us that if you make poetry too wordy or prose too sparse you get "fragmented text", which everyone knows is shit!'- but this actually works really well.

 

Have you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy? Uses a really simple style that's like this a lot- simple sentences and a lot of missing conjunctions or complimentisers, and it doesn't have chapters or anything but is structured into brief bits of text, usually a few paragraphs at most.

 

You've given me an idea for another writing thread that'll hopefully get some people into joining in!

 

Thanks kenshi!

 

I did read the Road, a few years ago now. I loved it. Which is interesting, because I hated it for about the first few pages, and then fell in love with it.

 

I think that's how it works for a lot of books though - there's an adjustment period as you get used to the style of writing.

[slithy toves]

I was actually thinking of either doing a short story or a bunch of small segments like that about this small town based around a coal mine where there was a fire or similar catastrophe, but I haven't figured out how to enter it again - one of those things I'd need to do a lot of research about first.

you should totally do that. revision a and revision b were my favorite bits. i like where you're going with that. i think it would be excellent.