Bob Heman

INFORMATION

Doors. Or something like doors. Women. Or something like women. The words spoken never any different. The steps taken never returned.



INFORMATION

It would be nice of course if it would but of course it never will or if it did it would be different then than what it was expected to be if it ever was.



INFORMATION

In the story about mushrooms the bears were more cautious than they should have been. In the story about cars they wore yellow suits that made them look like bees. In the story about loyalty they lived in a house that had no windows. In the story about trees they each swam across the sea.



INFORMATION

O.K. The door is open or the window is closed. The man is broken or the car has gone away. There are bears or cows but only when the woman tells the story. When the preacher tells it even the distance is “only down the block.”



INFORMATION

Is separate from what has been separated. There is a rope they must follow through the deep country. The animals there only whispers. The day a flash of light.



INFORMATION

There is always a door but sometimes it looks like a window or a woman or a cloud.



INFORMATION

The arrows show them which way to go. The cars are painted with faces to remind them of their origin. Beneath a tree the bears have gathered to play a game. It is a game none of them can ever win.



INFORMATION

The formula says there must be bears. And a house in the forest where the bees come to rest. There are cars that are symmetrical and a horse they no longer know how to use. One of the men is not a man at all.



INFORMATION

Is like a door sometimes. Is like a bear made of leaves or the surface of a mushroom. Is like the water trapped inside a machine. Is like a man split in half and filled with animals. Is like the trees that are always incomplete. Is like the shadows that they cast.



INFORMATION

That was or was not, but each time the same, the distance within it only an explanation, the man or woman a destination, but only sometimes, once the door has been opened, or closed.



INFORMATION

They use too many words to say what doesn’t need to be said. The barn was only some windows that couldn’t be opened. The man hanging there, a sleeping owl.



INFORMATION

The women fill their clothes differently. The man is only taller when he is compared. Each time the car approaches it is filled with different words. The bears can’t read them no matter how hard they try.



INFORMATION

Or with wings when they are provided. Or with ropes and special shoes. Or with little boats that seem too small until they are used.



INFORMATION

Inside of her body there is a tree she cannot climb.



INFORMATION

Wants to sit or does not want to sit. The chair chosen because it is not a machine. The table pulled closer even though it cannot be moved.

Bob Heman edits CLWN WR. His “Information" pieces have appeared in many publications including Caliban online, Sentence, Otoliths, Right Hand Pointing, Mad Hatters' Review, Ditch, Fell Swoop, and Clockwise Cat, and are included in the 2009 anthology, An Introduction to the Prose Poem, published by Firewheel Editions. Two collections of his earlier prose poems are available as free downloads from Quale Press.
 
 
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