Stigmata Junction - a collection of prose poems by an outstanding practitioner of the form, American author Thomas Wiloch (1953-2008).
The not so good news: Stigmata Junction
has long been out of print. However, I did locate one prose poem from
the collection. Here it is. You gotta love that last sentence with its
italicized now.
DISSECTION
Decide which one you are, I said, motioning to the objects on the table.
He looked them over and pointed to a glass bell.
This one? I asked.
He nodded.
I picked up the glass bell and rang it gently. The ring brought tears to his eyes.
Very good, I told him. Very good, indeed. You made a good choice.
I dropped the bell on the concrete floor where it shattered.
Now, I asked, motioning to the remaining objects on the table, now which one are you?
=====================
As something of a bonus, below are three Thomas Wiloch prose poems from Screaming in Code, a collection still in print and available for purchase.
THE GROCERY STORE
My
mouth is dry, my neck damp, my heartbeat is pounding in my head. Not a
word is spoken in this crazy game. Each of us has a shopping cart and
the goal is to avoid the other carts as we roll up one aisle and down
another. We keep our eyes on the cans and boxes along the shelves. The
fruits and vegetables gleam lewdly in the florescent light. The PA
announcements are in suggestive, alien languages. The piped-in music is
faintly familiar and slightly nauseating. I try to keep myself focused
on getting out of this place. And when I finally reach the cashier, she
nods her puppet head at me again and again and again as the conveyor
line carries my groceries to the distant horizon.
HOLE IN THE WALL
They
have made a hole in my living room wall. Not a square hole or a round
one or even a triangle but a large, jagged, irregular gap of the most
unusual kind. I really do not care for it. The breeze comes through this
hole and rattles the newspaper. I am trying to read. The sound of
passing cars distracts me. Worst of all are the three men who stand in
the unwelcome opening. They are dressed in black, rodent-like, and watch
me as I try to read my newspaper. It is like being on stage. This
audience watches my every move. I clear my throat and all three of them
scribble in their notebooks. I turn a page and they nod knowingly
between themselves. How will I ever find out what's going on in this
world if I'm not allowed to read the newspaper in peace? But even this
innocent thought attracts their attention. One of them is calling
headquarters on a cordless phone. The other two have brought out
revolvers.
THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A BOX
There once was a man who
lived in a box. The top of the box was so high that the birds and the
clouds and the blue of the sky were held inside of it, and the moon and
stars and sun paraded across that sky on their usual courses. And the
top of the box was so high that the man could never reach it no matter
how hard his tried. The sides of the box were so wide that the far edge
of the horizon was within its borders, and everything that was dim and
hazy and in the distance, and no matter how long or how desperately the
man traveled in whatever direction, he could never reach the sides of
the box he lived in. The bottom of the box was so deep, so far below
him, that the earth beneath his feet was held within it, and no matter
how the man dug or scraped or tore at the earth, he could never reach
the bottom of the box he lived in. And inside the box the man lived in
were all the people of the world, and all the animals and plants, the
cities and farms, the oceans and deserts and mountain ranges, and
everything seemed so vast, so endless, so impossibly varied, that the
man sometimes forgot entirely that he lived in a box at all.
Thomas Wiloch
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