Down Main
21 April 2021 Wednesday Prose Poem: through the city
School takes up three blocks, or more, brick utilitarian stolid glares at Picasso’s play structures, holes in all the boards, along brown grey green grass, spiked wind whipped firs
competing with dirty Esso, mechanics, for brown splendour, shaken by iced in houses, some falling, nothing built before ’60, or one, McClung’s cabin, they say, but I haven’t gone in there
Water Conservation, a former barn or church with metal cladding, turning yellow looks browned by reaching across a park to find cenotaphic dissonance, a stone I didn’t read, either
but the opera house looks built for hosting hay rides, peanut-laden christmas floors, but warns to stay off the grass, easily higher than the post-office bright red from dirty white grocery pharmacy gym, come coasting to the rails and elevators at the bottom of the hill.
J.D. Harms 2021
Prompt:
I’ve often wished I could do cities the kind of justice that Camus delivers. Man, those descriptions come alive! You can feel the sweat in Oran or Tangiers, getting dunked in the wash of pedestrian/commercial life. I can’t do it justice. Not like he does, nor do I contend this piece even comes close. But…to respond to this prompt, bring a city/town to the…
