Poe and Jung Agree: The Prose Poem is the Master Symbol
Marc Laughton
Charles Bronson
Just outside of the state line, in a place foreign and made haunting by the scattering of feathers from Indian garments and the shattering of bulls’ skulls—long since decomposed and void of their spirits—, the engine of the ’56 Oldsmobile stopped; the man inside looked to the woman and felt truly alone in this moment: however, not any more alone than they felt when their silhouettes were seen just past, on the wide horizon, the form of two black and unsure shapes with a shotgun in hand and a wedding dress veil dragging like sorrow behind.
Audrey Hepburn
It’s in the days like these that he wonders why exactly he breathes like he does, and why he moves like this; from across the table with the upturned linoleum top and the cracked salt shaker he can feel that there is something missing, the tension in the way unspoken words make these eggs, this orange juice, and this toast taste like “I’m dying in this place, I swear, I’m really dying in here,” and she just grins.
Humphrey Bogart
How would I describe resting my body against yours, what it is like to make love to you?—he says with a vastly worn Valentino suit (two buttons missing and a stain too engrained to be bothered with). Yes—she says as her mouth spreads open like concentric spherical petals, beckoning every man into submission. And they stood as though two distant seafaring vessels; the first, with its crew collapsing upon the deck in tears, and the second, with its crew holding their red, slash-throated cravats in arranged silence. Their hanging faces, like buoys in the storm of the Metro, gradually dissolved under the weight of the fluorescent lights above. Continually catching glances and licked lips, again and again like wartime strangers. Bound by an eroticism; and thy , they whispered until they died facing one another from that distance of nine metres.
Walter Benjamin
Spindle thin lies are sewn into the horse hide of my body, coals smolder in the base of my palms. But there is in the sweet silent gaze, hands in each other’s hands in love in the breast of this night. My love, I want to undress you and speak of your heart in Yiddish poetry that was written by the tallowed light of my open mouth, that I buried in the soil of the Bavarian forests, on parchment pale notes that will spring from the earth; You, my darling: Bei Mir Bist Du Shayn (to me, your are beautiful) You, my Bubbala We forget that our bodies carry with them the dirt of the shetl; how when I press the curve of my body into yours you whisper that everything is kule ru’khnies (all spirit) Taste the loshn-koydesh (sacred tongue) and breathe; because we only have tonight before the gleam of SS boots caked in mud come to take us to our deaths. And so, we must enjoy the smooth rind of our passions; we must become drunken seekers of pleasure beneath the European sky and weep.
