folio : (further) short takes on the prose poem
Thoughts on the Prose Poem:
I think the prose poem is like a very popular seesaw. It’s also like a chair for Siamese twins. It’s also like a child. I find it to be the perfect form for silence, cacophony, silliness, and deadly seriousness. It’s also the perfect form for languages that don’t yet exist. If a small black box fell from the sky one day, and said “from outer space,” and we opened it, I believe it would include a prose poem or two. Maybe one of the prose poems would be hard to understand. But that’s how we would know it was a prose poem. I think a prose poem happens because the writer knew exactly what they wanted to write. That being said: I can’t remember why I started writing prose poems…
Three Prose Poems:
In This Village
In this village, the mice are the ones who are tyrants. They rule us with an iron fist. They are led by a Queen who bejewels her tail with gemstones from the countries of her conquered enemies.
They leave traps out for us…Torture us if we are unlucky enough to get trapped…There is a great famine of cheese! We must do things in the dark or else…
At night, in secret, we pray to the Dark Lord of Hell, feline in face and form, to liberate us from this cursed existence.
Asking Nicely
As a child, I thought about torture a lot. I asked my friend, Sally, to torture me, but she said that’s silly.
I asked my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hahn, to torture me, but she just said I should do a report on Francisco Pizarro.
I asked my mom and dad to torture me, but they said that’s only done when a man and a woman love each other very much.
I asked my dog, Yoda, to torture me, but he just begged me to read him the latest issue of International Shih Tzu.
There seemed to be no one. I was alone with my yearning. Eventually, through hard work, ingenuity, and dedicated passion, I found a way to do it myself.
Nobody’s Home
I found a little house in the woods. It was a tiny little A-frame no bigger than my shins, with a little snub-nosed chimney out from which little wisps of smoke billowed. It was a damp, drizzly December day. I knocked at the tiny door with my one knuckle and waited. It sounded like somebody was rustling around in there, but nobody answered the door. I knocked again, enjoying the aroma of the little wisps of smoke. It smelled like ice cream being made. Or something like that. I waited a long time but still nobody answered the door. After a while, I took the hint and wandered back home. Just because there are wonders in the world doesn’t mean we get to know them all.
Shane Kowalski lives in Pennsylvania. He teaches creative writing at Ursinus College. He is the author of Small Moods (Future Tense Books).