Finger-Pointing (or All Too Real): Hybrid Prose Poem
Who Drives You to the Page Prompt: Beats of the drum
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion — Ginsberg, “Howl”
The weeping started again in the night against the frigid art canvases the shade of the real petals and stems cast inside a negative space
desire goes missing, hands outstretched finding walls, tepid looking for edges — don’t want to fall, not really — the dreams are stopping sleep, like conversation, from coming down fully, from giving one the real ear to drop into like a buzz from the floor overhead —
and what will they say about the man who died a week ago drugs and other bombs fallen beside his bed or the woman who woke up headless in an alley unable to choke or say goodbye or embrace anyone —
fingers pointed regaling each other with mysteries and other misery — will they really stoop to say…well, life goes on — and if it does, what does that mean to the rest of us, hazed in our brick corridors, the pot and nicotine from outside drifting into overheated window-panes —
I’m going to hand out hotdogs a street festival a giving experience I’m going to wave flags I’ll remember I’ll never forget forget forget till the daylight finally goes out
All too real, this sadness — the pain of missing out on another life, another suicide, another day dry but longing licking lips for the bottle, longing for the ticket for the train outside of pain — all too surreal, the sky and lilacs, painting other pictures —
an unforgiving sun a moon that just wants to be left alone —
J.D. Harms 2022
Prompt:
I can’t remember when I first began to read Allen Ginsberg, but he quickly became a formative influence in my writing life. I’ve tried reading the other Beat poets, though haven’t been able to dive so deeply as I have with Ginsberg. I’ve done a Ginsberg-influenced prompt before, but today I’d like to open up the inspiration to the others of the Beat Generation. This means you could be inspired by Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, or William S. Boroughs (oh…though I couldn’t finish all of Naked Lunch, I’d love to see some inspiration from there!). Tag me in it, and Beat on, write on!
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