(content) Conception: A Prose Poem

[Leanne]

Jack, forgive me if I repeat what others have said, I haven't read their comments so as not to colour my own thoughts. First and foremost, I believe this should remain in its current format, though it is not prose poetry or anything really other than pure prose and I'd suggest editing it to reflect that properly. That it's prose does not negate the line "... the day this poem was conceived" -- however, I think "19 years later and I've written it" is overkill. I would finish on the previous line. I'm starting at the wrong end, I know, so I'll go back to the beginning

I imagine her barefoot, wearing denim shorts as she walks along the beach, the sand rising and falling between her pink toes. The sky: powder blue. I loathe her. The breathing definition of whore, diseased and spoiled, out alone, her cunt pleading for the first navyman delighted to have come across a 19 year old prostitute. Years later she will tell me she never loved him, but he was nice and had a house (though not at the time; more lies). He will tell me he wishes he'd let his friend have her, as they walked down the pier and he ran after her, setting the wheels in motion, the three baby peas glinting in his eye and fermenting with the ebb and flow of her pubic hair. I loathe them both. The selfish teenage hooker selling her pussy for a house and a car, passing on her rotten genes to her youngest son, the elders spared by luck I envy. He, already old and bitter, crass, racist and putrid like all men who take pride in their cocks as though the limp flesh marks them as superior. When I think of my parents making love I think of a cane toad fucking a dead salamander. They knew. She knew. The loneliness and crippled limbs, depression bearing down on you like a Yardie on the arse of a petty thief from Manchester. The fear of madness, evil, death. It's one long rotten game of pass the fucking parcel, where under each layer lies a new cloud of shit. The day of my conception is also the day this poem was conceived.

I am in two minds about leaving in the "19 year old prostitute" -- if you leave it in, you need something about yourself being 19, I suppose, but not to finish as it's not a strong enough connection as it is. You could maybe use "19 year old prostitute, 19 years ago".

Really good bones here, Jack, but a little way to go yet.