Prose Poetry by Matthew Kirshman

Posted on January 26, 2014

Prose Poetry 

by

Matthew Kirshman

Jaguar and the Joking Tree

All of nature is a giving and receiving of signs.  The air around the body collects in mosaic fraternity.  A wee worm wriggles its way up and gets lost in the Alien World of Creation (AWC).  Before the first recorded dream, before the soothsayer and tribe, in the heart of the jungle stood a hard, dark tree, beneath whose limbs crouched a sharp-toothed Thing (T).  With infrared KillerVision®, it spied two figures approach, interlopers in the Garden of God’s Astounding Desire (GGAD).  Try and hide.  The jaguar’s first slice is fine and light.  With no warning, you are TradeMarxed© completely.

Folk Legend

I photographed them get into the car.  Have you read my “Manhunt of the Year” (Life May, 1977)?   How about that close-call with the law, which might have ended it all?  Their escape was a travesty, bought by suitcases of cash from the Narcotics Agency.  How ironic, the shootout took place at the Ford Pharmacy.  They entered Cincinnati on page 96.  With a trunk full of gelatinous explosive, they headed to the Flamingo Motel.  From there they followed a well-established strategy.  Do you think they looked like newlyweds?  I find it difficult to credit.  I tailed the Jaguar to Chicago, where a cult following had sprung up overnight.  To the journalistic eye, their pop-appeal was transparent:  the lore of outlaw lovers, with sirens closing in.

Mysticism and Meat

Ideally, you are devoured in your prime by medicine men and not as junk-meat for the communal pot.  With the breakdown of tissue, the cells issue a mortal cry.  Around the Cook’s Bible chimes a chorus of sous chefs.  The page emits a campfire glow from which a cannibal emerges.  What’s missing?  Pretty soon, your arms and legs—seared and smoked until dripping from bone.  In the aftermath of prayer, when chords rise from the planet, you make the rounds of the soothsayer’s intestine. 

The Hungry Python

All of life the python seeks to know.  He slips through the flea-market with a clinging stomach, catching in his glittery eye items from the old world:  sheet-music, tunic, ice-cream scoop, top hat.  To touch these with quiet flicks of the tongue.  At the sound of thunder, the merchants start to pack, placing wares hurriedly in boxes and covering these with plastic sheets. 

Bio: I live in Seattle, Washington with my wife and two daughters.  I am an English teacher, but before that have had a varied career–telephone repairman, bartender, and cook, to name a few.  Writing since the early 1980s, my publication credits include: Charter Oak Poets, Dirigible: Journal of Language Arts, Helix, Indefinite Space, Key Satch(el), Mad Hatters’ Review, Phoebe: The George Mason Review, posthumous papers (NothingNew Press), Vangarde Magazine, Xenarts.com, and Z-Composition.