Deep Background: A Prose Poem

[Don Schaeffer]

When I was a child,
one of my favorite games was "leave and comeback."
I would say to my friends,
"Ok I am leaving now but I promise I will come back."
Then I would head off out of sight.
I would toy with the feeling of departure

and the feeling of cold space between me and
my point of return, which in my imagination was home.
I would toy with the sense of being missed and missing.
I would practice trust .
In my game there was never a forever.
There were no real goodbyes.

Then, after a time I would re-appear.
Usually it was a return from an imaginary mission
I would bask in play with the feeling of welcome.
The welcome would mount into a childish imaginary play-acted love.


I haven’t played that game in more than 60 years.
And I am well out of practice.
But I still remember how to cope with the feelings,
my practice is still in the muscles of thought in my mind.
I do need to add the goodbye skill.
I do need to build the will to face forever.
Passing successfully through old age is going to require it.

[sonoranpoet]

Well done Don...hard facts to face...I prefer the leave and comeback method!
S.

[ststearns]

generally well done, though i am unsure of the "prose poem " designation. Many poems these days are "broken prose", but i envision a prose poem as written in a prose "structure" -- sentence and paragraph--using "poetic sensibilities" of rhyme, alliterative techniques, rhythmic device.

I suppose all that is up to interpretation.
Some very nice lines i would like to point out
"toy with the feeling of departure" conveys a lot, though using "toy" a second time does not work for me.
I am all for repetition -"real time rhyme" i like to think of it - i think is this case it weakens the impact first of the first "toy".

i would also break the sentence beginning with "I would toy with"
and "imagination was home' Grammatically very awkward, and leaving a soft spot in the middle of the piece.

I also really like the use of "muscles of thought" but would trim "in my mind."

A solid effort over all, but could use some tightening.

[brion]

such a good poem..last stanza especially touching
because we always know that all the practice in
the world never can prepare us for the forever
goodbye... brion