By this point, we flashback to the club. And it’s all a blur of drugs and gap-toothed memory. Staccato frames of maybe. Then a surprise. A big surprise.
I’ve used language from the beginning to allude to a corpse, a dead body – and now it arrives. In the most unexpected fashion.
As the story unfolds, we start learning more about the freelance photo scene in NYC in the 1970’s. Music magazines, clubbing, drugs, disco and more dominated with freelancers scrabbling to pay the bills, get high and maintain their status.
As the prose work continues, I see this as a great way to explore the poetic form. Combining POV and inner monologue in a free form way.
I’m working on a prose poem story that I shall excerpt here. I’m greatly influenced by author Toby Barlow (Sharp Teeth, Baba Yaga) one of the few authors today working in free verse.
Dad carried the box
Under leaden skies.
Abigail wept as we
Burbled to the hole.
Black, forever dirt
Piled and waiting
For us to deliver
Her Forever.
Shield to my step.
Champion of rock, road and grass.
Rubber soled lover.
I cheat on you with another.
You, my Right, my first lead me out as she follows.
You the kicker, the striker, the pivot as Left bides her time in lock step adoration waiting for you to falter to take the lead.
Bark ripped, ax blade heart
Hate harridan, blamer, badgerer, baby-cutting, twice-barbed tongue kisser
86 toxic years too many
dusty shack slunk on hill
2 many cars come and go
i arm in silence
Troopers choked in bramble memory, jungle-wrapped fences, seats and track burst with rusted racers.
Ghosted in silent shrine.
Voices roared once, hearts leapt, sweat stung, winners and losers gone to distant grey forever lights.
Dream hard-edged flashes
Teacup shattered memories of
Brittle bric-a-brac
QUICK, QUICK, QUICK
Glue the shards
Paste hopes and still-born dreams
Daylight brings leaking, scarred
Headaches
Sleep never kind nor whole
Outlaw Poetry 