Sideways: Prose Poem
Saturday Poetry Prompt: borrow from me
I’m having a hard time writing —
so I make a new hole in my breastbone, a place where the incense can come to light — I know that somewhere, people are growing naked and secure, preparing the pile of lost clothes for the morning and losing themselves in the…—
my head is on sideways — I can’t hear the words you were going to say, anymore. I’ve crystallized, I’ve tried to do the summons, I’ve done the weeping into the shallow hours of dark morning — and a heavy head isn’t what you wanted, not one made of stone and not flesh —
I’m getting around to straightening out — to speaking to the disciples of park benches, waiting for the next Caesar to come across the rivers, and the blinding flash of steel which now goes onto buildings instead of into hands—
I do not want to rule the world — I’d settle for mastering this page, coming to the end of the pen with an idea for reincarnation.
J.D. Harms 2023
Prompt:
It’s a funny/strange/neurotic/exasperating fact that, even having spent the vast majority of my life writing, there are periods where it’s a damned struggle to try and get anything out. It’s equally frustrating knowing that when I put down words to the effect of “I can’t…