Sample Prose-Poems

Prose-poetry is pretty similar to flash fiction (or flash nonfiction, if you prefer). Essentially, a prose-poem is a poem without line breaks. So what makes it poetry? Well, ask ten people and you’ll get ten different answers; personally, though, I think the difference between prose-poetry and flash fiction is that flash fiction has multiple paragraphs and prose-poetry is [usually] just one paragraph, but still has poetry’s super-emphasis on lyricism. Here are some examples:

Ignorance

by Joel Brouwer

The authors you haven't read are cooking over campfires in your backyard. They've pitched tents and dug a well. You knew they'd eventually come to haunt you in their frock coats and togas, wagging ink-stained fingers: shame, shame. But they don't seem irked: they sing as they peel potatoes, they've set up a volleyball net. You say / thought you'd be angry, which cracks them up. Hell no, they roar. Have some lunch! Your mind floods with the morphine of relief. Someone ladles you a plate of soup. You can see your face in there. You can see right through it.

Two untitled Prose-Poems by Gary Young

1.

I discovered a journal in the children's ward, and read, I'm a mother, my little boy has cancer. Further on, a girl has written, this is my nineteenth operation. She says, sometimes it's easier to write than to talk, and I'm so afraid. She's offered me a page in the book. My son is sleeping in the room next door. This afternoon, I held my whole weight to his body while a doctor drove needles deep into his leg. My son screamed, Daddy, they're hurting me, don't let them hurt me, make them stop. I want to write, how brave you are, but I need a little courage of my own, so I write, forgive me, I know I let them hurt you, please don't worry. If I have to, I can do it again.

2.

My son is learning about death, about the possibilities. His cat was killed. Then Mark died, then Ernesto. He watched the news, and saw soldiers bulldozed into the earth after battle. Down the road, a boy his age was found floating in a pond. My son says, we're careful about water, and splashes in his own warm bath. We don't want to die, he says, we want to live forever. We only just die later, he says, and nods his head. Death is comprehensible; what comes later is a week away, or two, and never arrives.

The Real Politics of Lipstick
by Mary Carroll-Hackett

She learned the secret authority of her mouth at a young age, too young to form the words, but she understood the looks men gave at the innocence of the Tootsie Pop in her lips, a generous mouth her mother called it, easily sliding from a smile to a sulk, that ice cream cone a weapon that she wielded easily by the age of fourteen, the sweet cream of it deliberately left on the cushion of her bottom lip as she watched them stare, sweat, shift away from their wives. Look up at me, look up at me, they said, and she did, especially after she discovered the ultimate power of lipstick, blood red for regular guys her age, who wanted to rush, wanted to own the cleft of her upper lip, the tangle of hair they fisted at the crown of her head, but she switched to blushing pink for older men, that sweet slow youth they struggled to remember, cotton candy, candy apple smeared across her cheek as they mouthed thank you thank you thank—. They all thought they were taking her, as she knelt, eyes lifted, thinking of nothing more than how for that moment, she owned them, branded each forever with the tip of her tongue, shadowy traces of lipstick that would never completely wash away.

It Doesn’t

by Randall Brown

They come up to tell me what a good person I am, for letting the cook’s daughter swim with us. The girls build a village of sand hamlets—and a man carries chairs, sets them up, covers each one with a towel, adjusts the umbrella. I ask him about his own kids. They live in Canada with their mother while he works. “It must be hard,” I say and press money into his hand. He can’t thank me enough. The same with the woman bringing me the mango-banana daiquiri. I make a joke about wanting a tiny umbrella, and she returns with one and some pineapple and cherries. The girls build a moat to protect their town. I read the condensed New York Times, listen to an Elton John playlist. A chicken now and then runs from the bushes to the gravel to the sand and then back. Someone wants to know if it bothers me. He will kill the chicken if it does.

The Straightforward Mermaid

by Matthea Harvey

 

The straightforward mermaid starts every sentence with “Look . . . ” This comes from being raised in a sea full of hooks. She wants to get points 1, 2, and 3 across, doesn’t want to disappear like a river into the ocean. When she’s feeling despairing, she goes to eddies at the mouth of the river and tries to comb the water apart with her fingers. The straightforward mermaid has already said to five sailors, “Look, I don’t think this is going to work,” before sinking like a sullen stone. She’s supposed to teach Rock Impersonation to the younger mermaids, but every beach field trip devolves into them trying to find shells to match their tail scales. They really love braiding. “Look,” says the straightforward mermaid. “Your high ponytails make you look like fountains, not rocks.” Sometimes she feels like a third gender—preferring primary colors to pastels, the radio to singing. At least she’s all mermaid: never gets tired of swimming, hates the thought of socks.

The Plains

by Larry Levis

I put down my detective novel and look out, over the plains. So much light. If anything was out there, I would see it. But there are only a few nervous farmers and their wives. It occurs to me that one of these families could be my own, lost in bitterness, like a sideshow at a county fair. This way they live and tell nobody. This way the few elms that are left get back their leaves. This way, whenever I look up, somebody else is missing.

Lullaby for the Elderly

by David Young

Under the hum and whir of night, under the covers, deep in the bed, beyond all the calling of doves, past the great flares of love and pain, the daily bread and grind, it's warm as a pot, soft as a breast. It's the deep woods, the place where you come to a clearing, find the still pool, and slip gently into it—to bathe, to dive, to drown.

Your mother is there, under the leaves, smelling of milk, and your father is hiding among the trees. A giant hand tousles your hair, and the mouse is there with its dangerous eyes, the bear with his shimmering fur, the rivers that thunder off ledges and spill into gorges as mist.

When you wake, refreshed, murmur a blessing for those who have never returned. Say a word to the corn and the wheat, to the deer and squirrels and whistling toads, who brought you right up to the edge of the woods and let you go in on your own.