There is an enigma about the short message, the Facebook message, comprised of just a few words, or just a few letters, even. A picture, a selfie perhaps. This always gets the person’s attention. And most likely the person never likes to see, Continue reading…
As contemporary musician, Paul Simon, once put into song: “The words of the prophets are written on subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sound of silence.”
And then in another song, “A Poem on the Underground Wall”, he goes:
The last train is nearly due
The underground is closing soon
And in the dark deserted station
Restless in anticipation
A man waits in the shadows
His restless eyes leap and scratch
At all that they can touch or catch
And hidden deep within his pocket
Safe within his silent socket
He holds a colored crayon
Now from the tunnel’s stony womb
The carriage rides to meet the groom
And opens wide and welcome doors
But he hesitates and then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows
And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand
Now from his pocket quick he flashes
The crayon on the wall he slashes
Deep upon the advertising
A single-worded poem comprised
Of four letters
And his heart is laughing, screaming,
pounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.
But this as you might have guessed by now is all about irony and paradox. This song by Paul Simon taking rather long to unwind and yet talking about a “single-worded poem, comprised of four letters; which, as he can only guess, can either be f—k or l—e. And so, he has been told, there is a growing market for longer and larger text.
One must start, first by admitting, it is another literary form entirely. It is prose. And prose distinguishes itself by needing to elucidate, by meandering, and by striving for clarity instead of being open to too many layers of interpretation.
Prose is not afraid to take longer to read. And there is a beauty about that too.
It is the same beauty of a single day moving on like Sunday when there’s not much to do except to search, to find, and then enjoy, the company of those who are not afraid merely to ramble.
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