Prose poetry is a form of poetry that does not adhere to traditional poetic structures, such as rhyme and meter, allowing the writer the freedom to express emotions and thoughts in a more fluid manner. This style enables the poet to convey deep meanings and personal experiences in a more accessible and liberated format.
In 2013, I engaged in improvisational writing at the Apadana Gallery in Isfahan. Over the course of two days, I composed poetic fragments during sessions lasting 45 minutes each and invited the audience to assist and participate in the writing process. Several individuals stepped forward to contribute.
Following the exhibition, I concluded that I should write improvised poetry in social spaces, such as Facebook. This practice continued for approximately a year, during which I selected a number of these poems and published them in my poetry collection titled Improvisation, exactly as they were, without any alterations or corrections.
The poems gradually transformed into a more prose-like style, evolving into prose poetry. I further developed this approach in the prose poems I shared on Instagram. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the theme of “death” imposed itself upon our lives, casting such a heavy shadow that it began to permeate my poetry.
▪Monday, November 4th, 2019
Plastic Blooms of Mortality
I ponder death, plastic blooms in garish hues.
Anima’s face adrift in these reckless days,
Rising like Venus from artificial flowers,
Behind murky glass and the sharp tang of sterile air.
I begin to count: one, two, three; by four, a nightmare devours me whole.
I was once a being falling toward the earth.
As a crow, I buried my soul in the dust and grime.
Should I awaken, tonight I’ll leave the flowers by the window framed by night’s stillness,
And not think of that day, not so long ago,
When your hand snatched the apple from the air,
And we both were cast out.
The gods, ancient and weary, weep for their endless, godlike despair.
I still gaze at the wooden frame that holds you prisoner,
And think of the eternal life of plastic flowers.
Death no longer feels like a calamity, but a herald,
A promise for the body.
My thoughts drift toward death.
▪Sunday, November 9th, 2019
In the Shadows of Dreams
In the shadows where lullabies softly weave,
A crimson echo lingers, painted on your lips,
Soiled by mother’s lullabies, deep and repetitive,
On the rifle’s stock, cradled ‘gainst your hollowed shoulder.
Beneath a sky of fading light,
Dreams flutter, just beyond your weary gaze,
“Shoot into the night,” the distant call resounds,
As leaves fall, surrendering to the autumn’s mournful sigh.
▪Monday, November 11th, 2019
Echoes of Innocence
The children’s voices, a haunting choir,
Joined the rhythmic beat of barracks’ drums.
“Uncle Chainmaker,” they chanted, in unison,
“One, two, three,” a mournful refrain.
“Did you weave my chain?” their eyes pleaded.
Within the five-door houses, they slumbered,
Their young eyes filled with spectral visions,
Of those who once walked by the river’s edge,
Singing love songs, now silenced forever.
They pierced the city’s woven tapestry,
Embodying the tremors of a spirit unchained.
“Father, has he come?” their voices echoed.
The sky, a canvas fading into twilight’s hue.
▪Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Whisper of Time
We are eternal—in nothingness, in dread, in expectant gazes, fixed upon the flight of the bird’s echo. I have forgotten the leaf’s audacity in the wind, nor the naked body of a cloud, set free in the window. We forgot time on the path of oblivion; we rode on the shoulders of shadows, unaware that this crack on the porcelain bowl with the bird marked the distance between my seven-year-old self and the awakening of love.
There was no strength left in this wooden chair to bid farewell to its passengers.
Rasoul Moarek Nejad
The collection ‘Prose Poetry’; this collection has not yet been published as a book.