Prose Poetry - a prose poem in poor explanation

‘You call that a poem?! I don’t call that a poem.’ A national flower in one country is a weed in another. ‘That’s prose.’ Would it help if I told you the French started this in modern times? ‘The French?! After what they did!’ No, before what they did. (May Gertrude press your tender buttons.) The seed grew in the Left Bank of Parnassus, blossomed all around the world, soil on its roots in ancient texts, tendrils running in European breath until Make it New! coloured the New World and imagery burst into sunlight, delight. ‘Give us a break, Andy, you’ve been sold a pup!’ A pup digging holes back to its roots. Mind the geraniums, daisies wilful and free.

Andrew

Knuckle Bones - prose poem by Andrew Burke

I stood before the noticeboard and saw my name. Nerves kicked in. In boarding school change was regular: each Monday the roster for altar boys changed. Mass stayed the same, a daily constant in Latin, but we had a variety of priests, and among them a Hungarian, a refugee without English, whose accent refreshed the Mass. Things do change, don’t they, even dogma.

When I change, it surprises me.

Once, at what young age I can’t recall, I rejected a set of plastic knucklebones as a game, yet later, say two years later or less, I sun-dried bones out from the garbage and empty lots to make my own set of knucklebones. Arthritis came first to my knuckles, the same knuckles I punched in frustration against an office wall, working in a department store, selling goods marked up by too much per cent, paying for the first meals of my first born. Fish oil helps me write now, knuckles flexing over a qwerty keyboard. There is a cricket umpire, Billy Bowden, who has a strange calligraphy of signals for fours and sixes. My mind returns to the Hungarian priest when Billy holds up his arthritic fingers, hooked in the sky as he signals a six. Some in the crowd snigger at his movement whereas my dramatic young mind would have it that the refugee’s fingers were distorted by torture in Budapest yet still held Christ aloft so lovingly. Things change but in my mind small lanes run, a labyrinth, a maze.

Evening - prose poem

The things left undone look at the refrigerator door in the gathering dark. There the list is married to the door with an icon with hieroglyphs beneath. They know they are there, not struck out, not executed yet. Tomorrow, the next day. Some must wait for sunshine, some are best in rain. They move away resignedly and gather now in the warm glow of TV. Executioners are voluble as figures run across the screen, run up, run down: some fall, some fight, some jump, some cheer. TV cheers are echoed here as the glow grows brighter and the dark grows deeper. The dog dances on the carpet as the executioners laugh and hug before turning TV off and turning on the lights: passageway, kitchen, toilet. White powder with specks of blue are poured into the open machine beside the refrigerator. An executioner closes the door firmly. They turn away from one who was formerly left undone, turn away as he is electrocuted. The whirring machine sets them a-shiver on the refrigerator as a hand strikes one out. Done.

Andrew Burke

Prose Poems - a post to read

As you would have seen recently, I am attracted to the prose poem, as in Water Colour Morning, a poetic form whose definition is not fully clear in my mind, so it is even more interesting to work within its vague borders. Yet I still force free verse (so called) into form, as in the six line verses of On Chapman Hill. So, I am often attracted to discussion about the prose Poem. If you are similarly interested, there is an interesting posting at Best American Poetry's blog, http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/06/prose-poem-fact-or-fiction-by-sally-ashton.html It does take you back to the original posting which sparked her thinking, so be patient: at the original posting one must scroll down quite some way to approach the subject.

I hope you enjoy it.

Walking to the River (edited)

The river. Dogs swim in it, fish piss in it. It washes its dead up on the banks. The banks ignore it. The river is our destination through flaking trees and salty flowers, across riverside roads and sign-posted paths with people celebrating the invention of the wheel. Out of the river a bird sticks its black arse, a Rabelaisian greeting, and I half expect a cartoon balloon to belch into the air, saying, 'Fuck off, will ya, I'm trying to fish here!' I look down and at my dog's front paws there lies a complete river bream. It seems healthy, not a mark on it, so I look around, thinking it might be some mass death by industrial pollution. No: just one stark fish, its scales silver in the sunlight. My dog has one sniff and into the river for a swim. I call her back but there is no stopping her and I trust her instincts to judge fresh water from foul. Reeds grow green and straight, the cormorant appears again, with its knowing look. The river seems healthy enough. Here again, today, two pelicans do their strange ritual: while one swims up river, close to our bank, the other swims down river by the far bank, the bank with the restaurant nesting on its jetty. Like pedestrians walking both sides of a suburban road in different directions. My dog comes to shore and does her shake dance. 'Go, girl, go!' I say to her, half laughing, then wet dog and I turn for home, leaving the dead bream for birds to peck, the cormorant to his fishing, and perverse pelicans to come to their conclusion.


(Thanks to Sarah French for editing suggestions.)

Walking to the River

The river. Dogs swim in it, fish piss in it. It washes its dead up on the banks. The banks ignore it. The river is our destination through flaking trees and salty flowers, across riverside roads and sign-posted paths with people celebrating the invention of the wheel. Out of the river a bird sticks its black arse, a Rabelaisian greeting, and I half expect a cartoon balloon to belch into the air, saying, ‘Fuck off, will ya, I’m trying to fish here!’ I look down and at my feet, at my dog’s front paws, there lies a complete river bream. It seems healthy enough, but if so why is it dead here, washed up in dirty yellow sand? There’s not a mark on it, so I look around for other fish, thinking it might be some poisonous algae or such that has caused many fish death. No: just one stark fish, glistening in the sunlight, its silver scales shining. My dog is not interested; one sniff and into the river for a swim. I call her back but there is no stopping her and I trust her instincts to judge fresh water from foul. Reeds grow green and straight, the cormorant appears again, with its knowing look. The river seems healthy enough. Here again, today, two pelicans do their strange ritual: one swims up river, close to our bank, while the other swims down river by the far bank, the bank with the restaurant nesting on its jetty. Like pedestrians walking both sides of a suburban road in different directions. My dog comes to shore and does her shake dance. ‘Go, girl, go!’ I say to her, half laughing, wet dog taking me out of my questioning mind, and we both turn for the path home, leaving the dead bream for birds to peck, the pelicans to come to their conclusion, and the cormorant to his fishing.