Week 6 - Prose/Poetry and Prose Poems

I'm aware that I am thus far missing weeks 2 and 5, but in the interests of staying current with my peers I'd like to present two pieces of work of Prose Poems.

Piece 1:

Your bed. Your room. Your door. Locked. Sitting, quietly, knees under the starched cotton covers pulled close up about you, you look toward the window. The sun bathes the distant trees in a soft yellow light, as the gentle breeze sets the world in constant motion. The world behind the glass. A world currently out of reach.

A car window sends the sun’s light reflecting toward the spot where you sit, the glass too far to mirror the solitary star, and all it does is make your eyes hurt. The room is dim.

You look out towards the plush gardens of a retirement home over to the right side of your screen of vision, the transparent portal that allows a view of life outside this place, this room. The garden is kept very well; set-square flower beds and well chosen trees. Artifice in nature as the not-too-tall trees create the illusion that the old-folks are actually in a natural get-away. But their view is like yours, and your view is like theirs. Like you they look through windows, watching the world just happen. Vantage points on vivacious nature, and a view of your fellow spectators; that’s life from one side of the glass.

The ambiguity that I was aiming for with this piece of writing is in whom the person is that is viewing the events, where they are and what their situation is. I want readers to question why the spectator seems to long to be outside – can he/she not get there? Is the person trapped or locked in? I’ve tried to keep it as poetic as I can, using some devices such as alliteration, rhythmic sentence structure and repetition.

Piece 2:

And so it happened. The wreckage and broken glass. The blood stains the street.

I approached the scene. Red metal, green paint, concrete. The flashing blue lights.

Witnesses gather. Mumbles and murmurs abound. Who’s fault was this mess?

Then I heard a name. Katie, or Carly was it? Was hers the red car?

It’s not her car now. It’s no-one’s car now, just junk. A piece of scrap steel.

An ambulance comes. Mr. Green-Car seems alive. At least one made it.

They lay him down, still. A mask covers his anguish. He might not make it.

The police question. What did the witnesses see? I didn’t see it.

I just heard the screams. A young girl who just saw death. And it happened here.

It was her I heard. She didn’t know what to do. Hysterics took her.

I ran, and ran fast. The shrieks demanded interest. And interest it got.

Fifty-ish gathered. Or maybe even sixty. Sixty rubber-necks.

The cars are removed. The shattered glass remains still. Mr. Green-Car breathes.

The crowd starts to wane. Sobs soften and tears dry up. Well at least for now.

Cleaners clear the road. Shards of metal and glass go. The scene becomes clean.

But I won’t forget. The mingled reds in my mind. The horrible sight.

But what of Katie? And what of her family? I will never know.

I’m hoping that it’s not immediately noticeable that this poem is actually 17 haikus, laid out in a haiku format – 5/7/5.

It has the feel of a montage or collage of images, with little flow between the snap-shots of information, stinted like haikus can be. The subject matter actually derived from the thought process, the decision to just play around with the haiku format put two words in my mind: broken and fragmented. A car crash seemed to fit well.