her bones are not yet inspired

dark ink dripping

within that soul

of golden honey and rosemary blend

a gentle beauty within her

that wants to touch the sun,

thoughts of something already lost

and not yet found

filling her mind

( in whispers, sharing a bright sky,

and the night spectrum under heavy eyelids )

pulse beating in pained motion, and slower breaths

( she says it’s darker there now )

wind howling through the cracks

of glass walls,

tradition, culture - unnecessary vines around fragile wrists

a suffocating thickness of something that’s meant to be good

but is sharp, scratchy, woolen rough

that’s why her heart is caught

in a web

of eternal summer,

but always placed in the days

that smell of

lingering autumn leaves

I see that soul swirling, stuck

somewhere

around a dandelion’s dream

her bones are not yet inspired

but there is light under those fingertips

silently getting ready,

waiting

for the wildflowers to bloom once again

in those gentle arms,

strength hidden in the way she smiles

( with kindness, such kindness )

despite the ache set deep

under those powder blue lungs

.

Mid-century madness,

drenched in sadness—

“Who shot JFK?”

Malcolm, too,

& who slew

M-L-K?

Bobby shot,

in a restaurant,

squeezin’ through a crowd.

(Killin’ dreams

with guns & screams

shouldn’t be allowed.)

But what are we to say,

when killers have their day,

if nobody dares to stop them?

Copyright 2021

A real writer, a proper writer is someone who gets published. Anyone else is a dilettante. A proper writer will polish and edit four-fifths of his time, and if he expects to be published, he'll also market another four-fifths of his time. You can always tell a proper writer. Reduced to one-fifth of one-fifth, he's someone who spends 4% of his day in actual creative writing.

If I was to paint but not very well, people would tolerate me. They wouldn't demand I sell my work. Mostly harmless, I'd fill in a canvas and once it's finished, I'd store it down in my basement and no one would care. Why must writing be different? Can't it just stay on my laptop? Why insist I jump through new hoops? I did that enough at my work. For fifty years in structural steel I answered to the man. I don't need either the money or the glory, so why would I spend my retirement hunting down publishers? Leave me alone and let me write.

As for The Prose, I've always had a problem starting a story, so I find the challenges helpful. Left to myself, I tend to stall so they help to spark my creative process. After I finish, I'll exhibit the story just once on the website, and then it goes into storage. Think of it like a choir. They'll stage a concert every so often just to give them direction and target. Would you consider that lazy?

I suspect that you're much younger than me and still working on your career. I belong in a different world, and in my world, there's a place for The Prose. And by the way, in my time on this earth, I have on occasion tried to be helpful to others.

By the fact that the challenge was created on this site, and the declared intent of said challenge stands in contradiction of that fact, leads one to conclude that it is a satirical commentary on the nature of amateur writing communities - an unpopular school of opinion that will most likely be ignored. In which case, I expect this will never be read. Will never mean anything. And trees that fall in forests don't make a sound...

Well actually, that's not how sound works; it's a vibration of molecules that we can sense with our ears, but the sound isn't created by our ears, so it is the stupidest analogy in the world. Of course the falling tree still causes those vibrations; therefore it makes a sound, only the hubris of man would lead one to conclude otherwise.

On a similar note, if a writer practices writing on a platform where other people can read their work, does it make a difference? If a person feels as though they are being heard, does it matter if the world doesn't know? Have I wasted enough of your time explainng the obvious?

~

starving

the soul

of

emotional need,

bandaging

wounds

without

stitching the vein,

transfusing

blood

before

stopping the bleed –

might as

well

light a match

in the down-pour

of

pain.

i don’t know how to walk down the hallways

without following the echos of your footstep

without the ecstasy of chasing your shadow

without your fingerprints painting the walls

i don’t know how to cope with this pain

that used to be so worth it because of the

way you'd smile soft like a fallen angel i

wonder if my name ever meant something

i don’t know how to exist in this world

without your voice to take up my mind

without tears and blood streaming down

without your ghost that cuts my skin deep

i don’t know how to feel when the doors open

because from now on it’ll never be you and

i can no longer see you from the reflection of

my screen the goodbyes breaking me completely

- deathetix

My father died. Two days before my son was born. That happens to be exactly 27 years ago today.

I was on bed rest when he died. My mother called my husband and told him to go outside to a pay phone – it was the days before cell phones – but to be surreptitious about it so that I wouldn’t realize anything was going on.

And so, she told him and they cried together, him somewhere in the streets of Philadelphia, her in her home in New York. And they decided not to tell me until after the birth – their logic being that they didn’t want to affect me or the baby in some negative way.

I don’t’ know how I didn’t notice red eyes or a grieving soul. I usually read my husband’s every mood and feeling. But not that day.

Two days later, I slept poorly and assumed it was the greasy burger and fries my husband had cooked for dinner. Did I mention that I had been on bed rest for four months and hadn’t seen my dad since Christmas when he was bursting with excitement for the grandson or granddaughter in my belly? He went on and on about the things they would do together, the most important being fishing. He couldn’t wait to go fishing. Sometimes that is what makes me cry more than just his death: the knowing how excited he was about his first, would be, grandson. And they never met except perhaps in transit as one soul left and another came to me.

So, two days after my husband and mother decided not to tell me, I got sick in the middle of the night. Except I wasn’t sick. I was going into labor. We called the doctor and my mother. Then we called a taxi to take us to the hospital.

A little over five hours later, I gave birth. As I lay there with my beautiful son on my chest, the doctor said, “Oh, by the way, your husband and your mom didn’t want to tell you before, but your dad died on Monday.”

The nurse’s jaw dropped as did that of the midwife and the midwife intern. I suspect I burst into tears, but I really don’t remember.

I guess there would never have been a good moment to tell me. And perhaps in the face of this new life in my arms, it was the best moment really. There is no time to fall apart and grieve when a new little human needs you like you have never been needed before.

And so, you do what you must, and carry on.

“I miss you, Daddy,” she whimpers

crying in the night

holding her dear teddy bear

waiting for daylight

hoping against hope

that when she opens her eyes

Daddy will be there

and give everyone a surprise;

They keep saying he’s not coming back

that he’s gone to be with God

but she’s praying he’s just hiding

though that thinking is flawed

for she saw him lying in the church

saw them put him in the ground

watched them cover him with dirt

placed flowers on the mound.

She burrows under the blankets

hugs her teddy to her heart

quietly listens to the silence

for a whisper in the dark;

if she listens closely,

she’s certain that it’s true,

she’ll hear her daddy say to her

“Darlin’, I miss you, too.”