Prose Poems

New Style Poems

By Mike Garofalo

 

1. Surf's Up!

The seashores are crowded all Summer for sure. The cooler coast charms thousands. The summer sun attracts millions to this 1,403 mile long sandy playland. The 101 road traffic is heavy. A Fun Zone for a few of the 57,000,000 people on the West Coast. Families play in the sand. Motels are often FULL nightly. Wetsuits and swim suits dry quickly. The air is dry; no rain. People frolic in the hard charging waves. Campfires dot the grey sand dunes. Fishermen seek surf perch. Observations are seldom neutral. Restaurants are crowded. Clam chowder and salt-water taffy at every stop. Seashell shops are crowded all day. Boogie boards and surfboards in stuffed SUVs. Dogs running fast in the shallow wet sand. Kites colliding and fall to the land. Lovers cuddling on damp blankets. Beer and pop cans clutter around full trash cans. Seaside showers are filthy. Old men sleeping under canvas umbrellas. Children killing sand crabs. Buckets of sand piled high; a sand castle in the bright sky. The bars are busy till past the midnight hours in the port. Beach Boys singing California Girls on the radio. The shallow sloughs stink today. Bicyclists plodding slowly along in bike lanes. Motorcyclist's racing, cutting in and out, roaring and speeding about. Lost weekends in the salty surf. Many have died in the raging surf and undertow flow. Beachcombers walk and walk, then stop to touch a long strand of slick seaweed. Digging holes in the dirty damp sand. Fat men and women showing too much flesh. Tickling, laughing, wrestling, game playing on the shore. Vacation days full of fun! People on the Run. Surf's Up!!

 

2.

 

 

 

 

 

Prose Poems
Notes, Research, Bibliography,
Links, Sources, Favorites

 

Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present. Edited by David Lehman. Scribner, 2003, 346 pages, index, biographies. Paperback, VSCL.

 

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

At the Edges of the West, Volume 1
Highway 101 and Hwy 1: Pacific Coast

The Gushen Grove Sonnets

Bundled Up: Tanka Poetry

At the Edges of the West, Volume 2
Highway 99 and Interstate 5

Cuttings: Haiku

Poetry Research by Mike Garofalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Garofalo lives in Vancouver, Washington.
He worked for 50 years in city and county
public libraries, and in elementary schools.
He graduated with degrees in philosophy,
library science, and education. He has been
a web publisher since 1998.

 

 


 

 

 

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Text Art and Concrete Poetry

 

This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on March 23, 2025.