Prose Poem: "Cloister"

image credit: Greig Roselli

In the cloister, there is often a sign on the porter’s door that reads, behind this door no one is allowed.  But, sometimes, after time has passed, the sign is worn by fingerprints and folks pass over the threshold unbeknownst to the lawgivers. And, as usually happens when laws are broken, a tension arises there – in the navel, in the cloister, and then, as it ineluctably does – community begins again.

"Cloister" is a prose poem by Greig Roselli.

PDF Copy for Printing

Childhood Memory: When I Got My First Bicycle

In this post, I recount my memory of my first bike using a prose style of poem-writing.

My Schwinn was bright green, with a streak of black across its aluminum frame; it had five speeds that I could control from the handlebars, and an orange reflector on the back, a pedal-operated light on the handrest that would glow with fierce intensity through the night.

"Bike Agrowing"

PDF Copy for Printing

Why A Running Car is Sexy (with Apologies to J.G. Ballard)

Please excuse me if I find a running car sexy, especially if it's dirty and used, coke cans scattered across the dash, spilled on rotten cushions, the sound of a radio whispering through its slightly cracked window somebody's car — someone with a soul, with possessions, an eroding history pitted inside a car, still running.
  And me, a tad bit voyeuristic, watching and waiting, the culmination of will-they-ever-come-for-the-get-away or will the car just stall there, idling?

PDF Copy for Printing

Prose Poem: Quote from My Moleskine

In this post, I include a prose poem fragment found in my Moleskine notebook.

A couple rides the New York City subway.

The empty tomb startles me as I know
it startled Mary

~#~

When wishing upon a star be sure to want what you really desire; for desire materializes

PDF Copy for Printing

Location:Cohn St, New Orleans,United States

Prose Poem: Saint Charles Avenue Streetcar at Hickory (On a Rainy Tuesday)

Saint Charles Avenue Streetcar

The neighborhood streets are filled with a nice one-inch blanket of water. The Toyota is at school on high ground; I'm happy to be a transit commuter for a bit. The rain is heavy; slight fog. Streetcar comes to a halt at the Riverbend so the conductor can get herself a jelly donut. 

Lady tells me, "Supposed to be like Saturday. Supposed to be like Saturday. Tulane and Claiborne flooded, Lord, Oh Lord. I'm surprised right here ain't flooded." 

It ain't nothing but "a hair flip" thang, I tell her, flipping my hair in dramatic fashion. Mother nature's a bitch, but you just swat your hair *me imitating Chris Crocker * like that. That's what you do. Sure do.

The streetcar starts up again. I'm relieved I won't be late for work. We're finishing up some miscellaneous myths. Perhaps we'll do flood myths; sounds a propo.

PDF Copy for Printing

Ties: A Prose Poem

Big Brother approached a stolid teacher:
"Where's your tie?"
"I've noticed you haven't worn yours today!"
He replies, with a grin
"I had a rough night —"
An interminable set of chores ...
"I don't want to hear it. Wear a tie to work"
Apples and trees; bells ring.
The mosaic of color blends. He scrambles for a rejoinder.
0
So, the stolid teacher sighs
and taught another class of happy, eager student to whom an entirely different set of restrictions had been laid out:
Overstuffed maroon sweatshirts
Lack of earrings for the men
Pleated skirts for the girls
Conservative appliqué
Legs outstretched, one chews a pen to its raw carcass center.
The bitter avowal of knowledge and lessons; Socratic questions; plaintive pleas for individualNESS.
Time bleeds
A former student visits:
An altercation in form:
Wearing a French-style hat, bold cerulean colors, he says, "hi" — fresh from some college where self-expression is allowed: its own set of burdens.

PDF Copy for Printing

Poem: "Albanians"

Albanians are beautiful when they sing,
often cupping their hands to their ears, calling out and calling back in,
dressing and standing, cream and burnt umber salad dressing, large black buttons and bright brass horns, topped with cucumber. Even once an accordion, like a squished
banana and I thought I heard a yodel.

They often travel in bands.

The underground is dark and people stare.

She shares my clothes; he leans on my necktie.
Sunken eyes, burnt, but a healthy rest —
she dances with a glare, tightly with her baby there,
around and inside, somewhere. “You dance so well,”
speaking only French and I tugged at my belt.
The little child inside only smiled.
Leaning, cooing, whispering, wooing.
An arching double vision:
the back of a woman and next a headdress with a painful terror —
and I sat up, lightly touching, strewn books, pausing at titles, sighing, with one under my leg and another open with red-letter between the sheets, the part when Harry meets Sally.

A lonely negro girl revitalized and charged —
Netting her hair and saying, “I’ll be right there!”
A nettling neighbor watching, a quick kiss, and parting,
and a lonely girl on the metro to Merode, plaintively chewing at already bitten baked crust as the lights buzz, and I flicker on and off.
This girl dark with a light chin pointed like her mother but hers was larger and doubled.
Black plain true eyes — but soft on luck . . .

Dust and pizza, a broken nose and a boy — no she did not know him —
He jostled from image to image dreaming of Colombia,
Body to body, pressed against already open books, pages tearing, forcing his
persistent shadow to grow and malinger, and I fear death ...
No redemption,
a lingering death as he picks cherries and finds my place.
Tries to place the scales and ribbons, peace back into place,
I lie side by side, he green and supine, a coconut and Borden’s mix of smooth, trace pale fingers and rest like a pillow, crying on naivete, like a spread napkin soaked, and he spreads. Speak about love and friendship but I remember I have an appointment.

Another he. He fell from a high tower and held Christ in his body shrieking all the way; his mother had asked: “Do you believe in God” hoping for salvation — though it was only a conversation. Why would you ask such a question?

But Colombia’s tears only trace and map a morose tale and look —
While other girls prim their hair, thinking of shiny boys and plump bellies,
I shake as the station nears by. She had already eaten her crust.
Colombia is only a memory but I hang a photo of Christ, a double vision and Albanians forever and ever woo me with their smiles.

PDF Copy for Printing

Flash Fiction: Tchefuncte River, Summer 2005

One summer a boy dove into the Tchefuncte river and hit something at the bottom. When he came back up he hurriedly free-styled to the flood wall, clambered up the algal steps, frightened. We all looked and saw the corpse of a calf float to the top of the water. It had risen up from the depths. Bloated. Passed along by a farmer from downriver to here, near the mouth. Thrown in for the alligators. And a few days before that, a kid caught a nurse shark in the same river, near the same spot. Adam told me he used to swim in it, but not anymore. -- Rivers aren’t supposed to have cows and sharks swimming around in ‘em, he said. Besides, the water’s been getting muckier, disgusting. It’s not just the boats, either.

PDF Copy for Printing

Image Credit: "Bogue Falaya River Bank" © 2005