Spooled Loose

Spooled Loose

A Poem by roarke
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Prose poem, fabulist fiction

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Bird skull, crow-quill pen nibs drip oily blue well-ink on flesh worn, currency parchment. 


Pastel pennants hang from shipyard rope pulled taut between rival tug-of-war teams manned by midgets sporting pageboy hairdos.  


From a steeple spire vantage point, dressed in formal attire and playing Paganini’s violin, Satan stands witness to a flat earth, flat as an old Cadillac’s hubcap.


Rolling across a wrapper littered dashboard, an ugly duckling bobble-head toy and a plastic St. Christopher statue wrestle in mortal combat. 


Hot latin trumpets fire cruise-missile-high-notes into a dark tropical night as gyrating salsa dancers articulate their body’s into a wild, demon frenzy.


Television talisman broadcast images that shred light, distort sound and decimate reality like tropical hurricanes whip beach sand. 


Mind-thoughts crawl like bait worms in a greasy, paper bag cranium. Fun house mirrors feature menacing close-ups of nostril breathing faces. 


There’s a pause. 


A Police sketch artist renders patient notes while laying on a psychologist’s Freudian leather couch. He’s captured the archetypes accurately, trying to contain them on paper. But the sketches refuse two dimensional incarceration and spill off the page. They live, reincarnate, procreate and sidewind-scribble across the plush carpet. They slither under the locked oak door, freeing themselves to race through the shrink’s, professional building corridors. No one notices. The insane, haunting images blend in, mixing indistinguishable from all the other dervish spinning perceptions of reality spooled loose from society’s common, pedestrian throng.

© 2019 roarke


Author's Note

roarke
A reworked oldie, I find wrestling prose good exercise for better fiction writing. The other part is hearing how readers interpret, if at all, these lines. I'm hoping this piece evokes something. Critiques and comments welcome.

My Review

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Featured Review

oooooooooo very creative and original ... any one of your statements can be spun loose into its own avenue of story ... the theme is dark and steady .. for me it mounts with each separate line ..love the pause ... simply saying it works for me ... i needed it to let the imagery settle in a bit ... so many vivid creations .. packed back to back ... closing paragraph puts a purpose in this prose/story ... monsters in human population do exist ... un-noticed ... blended in ... ordinary .. until the horror in them is unleashed ... i like this .. so many really good words and phrases ... that work together to build a brooding darkness ... Happy All Hallows Eve :))))))
E.

Posted 4 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

roarke

4 Years Ago

Thank you EN for the read and comments. Writing this kind of prose helps make my fiction writing bet.. read more
Einstein Noodle

4 Years Ago

i took an on-line class on short story writing (free from the U of Iowa) and we talked a lot about t.. read more



Reviews

I know nothing about this kind of writing, so I can only give my impressions. I find that your widely-varying selection of details does not focus (for me) into any kind of narrative here. I love how you pick a wild array of unrelated possibilities & I guess it's a crap shoot as to whether it will "PING" on someone's cell tower of recognition. The final long paragraph, on the other hand, DOES have a focus, so it feels like a different reading journey altogether. The best part is your word play thru-out: "Rolling across a wrapper littered dashboard, an ugly duckling bobble-head toy and a plastic St. Christopher statue wrestle in mortal combat." *smile* Fondly, Margie

Posted 4 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

roarke

4 Years Ago

Hi M. Impressions are great, and this story prompted some from you. What kind of writing is this? I .. read more
barleygirl

4 Years Ago

This is a good explanation of how it might feel to write as you do . . . thanks for sharing! (((HUGS.. read more
oooooooooo very creative and original ... any one of your statements can be spun loose into its own avenue of story ... the theme is dark and steady .. for me it mounts with each separate line ..love the pause ... simply saying it works for me ... i needed it to let the imagery settle in a bit ... so many vivid creations .. packed back to back ... closing paragraph puts a purpose in this prose/story ... monsters in human population do exist ... un-noticed ... blended in ... ordinary .. until the horror in them is unleashed ... i like this .. so many really good words and phrases ... that work together to build a brooding darkness ... Happy All Hallows Eve :))))))
E.

Posted 4 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

roarke

4 Years Ago

Thank you EN for the read and comments. Writing this kind of prose helps make my fiction writing bet.. read more
Einstein Noodle

4 Years Ago

i took an on-line class on short story writing (free from the U of Iowa) and we talked a lot about t.. read more
Love it....though you left out the part where they slide open the protagonist's pancreas...such a deep paper cut

Posted 4 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

roarke

4 Years Ago

heh, and here I kept thinking it needed more salt... carnage of the mind will cause these lapses Fra.. read more

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94 Views
3 Reviews
Rating
Added on October 12, 2019
Last Updated on October 12, 2019
Tags: Poetry, prose poetry, prose, imagery, psychology, archetypes, surrealism, fabulist fiction, magical realism, william catkins, roarke

Author

roarke
roarke

MT



About
Bio I've been a professional teacher, artist and musician for over thirty years and I currently pursue an off-the-grid homesteading lifestyle. I'm continuing life's journey, accepting and creating n.. more..

Writing



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