prose poem for a night out on the town

prose poem for a night out on the town

People pretend and tell how they cry to the moon then merely stand amazed at her curves for a moment, at how she is so close and tunneling even ever farther into an expanding universe - for a moment she appears round, truly close and spherical and they rise towards her; she is the coin of life and death, ("what if I had a double-headed coin?" "you don't.") the marble everybody loses into the quiet hours of the day. There is as much space between their feet and earth as between their face and her face, a close eternal kiss of reflected light. The whole world is distant, space opens up wider and wider and the people get dizzy and they fall to the pavement and they get into their cars to go and spread their wonder of the universe to the world -

- they take a final glance as the moon recedes behind the building, one of high school graduation, one of leaving behind something to return, knowing you never will -

then they pull their heads in the car window and turn the radio back on.

I'm not entirely sure I would call this a poem. It's not bad, per se, it's just not really poetry. It's more a descriptive piece of writing.

*moved to other poetry for the time being*

sorry. I'm of the 'poetry = figurative language' camp, not 'poetry = trappings of verse', which I guess makes me kind of pretentious now that I think about it, but I like the figurative language better and so I'm sticking by it. XD

If you've got any tips for how to make something that looks like prose read more like poetry, though, I'd really appreciate them. Prose-poetry is something I've been shaky on for a while and something I'd like to learn.

Thanks

B.

Give me a little while to decide what I think about prose poetry and how to address it in a helpful way, and I will get back to you on that!

WM

EDIT: Well, this is pretty much what I came up with. Prose is pretty awesome, I must say. I have done some prose in the past. However, for the purposes of YWS, it is mostly considered fiction work rather than poetry. It shouldn't be, but the case in point is that those who read poetry on the site don't recognize it as poetry (i.e. me) and it more considered fiction. Anything such as this placed in poetry won't get much attention mostly because it's not placed in verse. Reactions do differ, but it's very mainstream. Prose does not get the recognition it deserves on the site, but there are other things in which are left in the cold as well.

I appreciate the response, so thanks -- I'm pretty new, too, so that was definately helpful; it's always good to have an insider's view of how a forum works.

I read it at a continuing speed until the break, whereupon I read it gradually slower.

I don't know what compelled me to read it like that, but doing do made me enjoy it a great deal.