A teen

with rage issues

and an above-average IQ

I still managed

to embarrass myself

and amaze myself

with my own stupidity

sitting on a toilet

finishing my business

tired and not thinking

with my feet tucked behind me

I reached for the toilet paper

and fell off the "pot."

Three a.m. walking the dog.

A brut husk of a thing. Dark Black..me in a hoodie and flower print skin tight paints. Scarring the block ..

A kiss goodbye on the dance floor. She was amazing! Genovive...(again? )may as well be Genocide.

A text from an x about needing money, tents and black...and all we could have been and he is.

A blind girl named Sky. Coffe and conversation... Instead of drugs...drinks and death. Talking about a cloud she can't see. She's more blind than me. Calls me a fool and ask me to show at 7:30 pm tommorow. I think I love her!

Ignored in a corner by an x that chose that drunk over this one.

I just want to be held by that tiny blind girl right now...anyone.

Where is she? Her name is inked on me forever. Not the future..the past I guess...

Oh...yah! Not here!

One wife, two...

Three and four.

When will I learn?...maybe when the blind girl finally takes this heart.

Because maybe...just maybe..her heart like her eyes can't see my faults. Only my love....

I lived the life.

A wife a little fence with city council dilebrance.

He was the perfect devil

With haughty eyes he looked down upon the people of Earth

Acting as if he were God

His tongue spun lies to ensnare their senses

Then his hands shed their innocent blood

His heart devises wicked schemes

His feet are quick to rush to evil

A false witness with his silky lies

He throws every town into upheaval

If there were such a place where the dead were to rise and the living wither, well that would stand to reason that perhaps the end is not so near. My days in the mud and muck have not been taken; my brother shall live again as will I. If this space is to exist, afflictions would take no one without death guiding them back from wherever they have wondered to. Such a place I propose, nothing reminiscent of the fountain of youth; no a place of my own.

A home for the demented and the saintly. A vessel in which there is no end to billowing winds that bind us...

Oh, such a place as this would be marvelous...

A home in which I would find myself content. Pass my bastardly youth by and stand mighty in my own small but, sure way.

A world to paint whatever color I choose...

But, what would I call this vessel? This bountiful wonderland? Have I not the mind to try and fashion it for myself?

Perhaps....

If I wish.

it was epic alright

almost a whirlwind romance

except not romance

they all said it was bad

we'll never be together

hell, we'll never meet

but it worked

for a while

broken pieces and unknown wrongs

shattered me forever

who the hell is he, mocking me?

an epic failure, alright

Ponderous tall redwood tree

How does water get up

Your 300 foot height?

Your bark so red and smooth

I would like to sleep at your very top

And see 360 degrees panoramically

Nestled in your soft redwood needles

High

I would dream of when you sprouted

From a cone seed years

Before

Christ walked the earth

A tiny seed

Grew so majestically

I would wish to hear you

Speak and tell me

What you saw when men

Came in droves

And wagons

With sharp toothed steel saws

To cut your family members down

I would feel your tears

And your sorrowful heart

As you stood defenseless

Your loved ones headless

Only stumps remaining

Withstanding time

As silent testimony of man's

Pillage

All for your beautiful redwood

Flesh

And now pollution

And drought threaten you

I hope and pray you survive

Extinction threats

And live for all posterity

Of mankind to see

Your amazing splendor

Stand so tall

Defying gravity

Earthquake and winds

No other tree upon this earth

Stands so tall and wide

At girth

How dare a man cut you down

And not regret conviction's frown

I called him "The Dead Man" because that was exactly what he was

I do not think I could find anyone who knew him,

For he lived long ago

Dead man

Dead man

Why do I keep seeing you?

Am I losing my mind?

Or are you really there?

I see you at my bedside

I feel the touch of your fingertips

The warm embrace of your body

But is it all a hallucination?

Can you hear me dead man?

Do you understand?

Confusion sweeps over me like a crooked hand

Yet somehow, I don't mind this dead man dreamland

Fill a room of a thousand windows with the deepest green,

See how many beings stand

Let the purest yellow run upon the stairs,

See how many smiles gather

Paint a door with the richest azure and maroon, mixed together

Watch as the lovers gather

Know that the armchairs may remain grey,

There will be strays who decide to remain

But, for those who cease to hover,

The path will follow no color

Several months ago we were approached by a Proser who expressed the desire for some killer reading material. “I’m just not finding as much of it anymore.”

“It’s all around you,” we told him, “you just have to know where to look.”

That was not the response he was hoping for. He told us that he wanted to help kick things into high gear around here. He wanted to see new work, new writers. He wanted to see people taking their work seriously, respecting the language and pushing themselves harder. The fact that writing matters, it’s a given. “I want to see writing that matters,” he said.

If you have ever read his work, you know what it’s like to read writing that matters. If you haven’t, treat yourself to writing that leaves a sting in the back of your throat, a hot ball of fire in your gut, persistent waves of gooseflesh all over your body. Writing that sticks with you, haunts you, and doesn’t stop even after you’ve read it a hundred times.

We had a few phone calls and exchanged emails with this Proser, all of which further revealed this man’s commitment to excellence. He offered to sponsor a challenge on Prose for the next five years. And so, a creative collaboration was born: a writing challenge like Prosers have never seen before.

With the support of Rolando Hernandez (whom you all know here as @rh), we are proud to announce the launch of the first ever Copperplate Awards.

“By recognizing writing that matters we are reminding writers that there is still a place for their work and the practice of delivering uncompromising truth to the masses,” Roland says of the Copperplates.

The Copperplate Awards, an annual Prose challenge, begins November 1 in conjunction with National Novel Writing Month to recognize excellence in less lengthy works including short fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry.

Anyone, anywhere can enter by visiting https://theprose.com/challenge/2469. Submissions will be accepted in three categories: poetry (250 word minimum), short fiction (500 word minimum), and creative nonfiction (500 word minimum).

Prose and a trusted panel of judges, including @rh, will be looking for form, content, fire, and creative edge. Each category will have a first and second-place winner. First place winners, in addition to global bragging rights, will receive $500 and an iPad. Runners-up will receive a variety of writerly “swag.”

We’ll share more details about The Copperplate Awards and some of the prizes up for grabs in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. For now, get back to doing what matters: writing.

The smell of petrol in the air

A Devils kiss is for those who dare

While stars above compete with flames of red

Incantations fuse into thoughts I once read

Symbols, carvings, scars and brands

They come to life across this land

Masked demons walking hand in hand

As fire feeds the flames of history

‘Is it trickery?’ She whispers mischievously

And I grin and try to think of something…

Sparks of darkness reap the twilight

While fairy lights fight with all their might

and lose…

The evening is ours

Seduced by the warmth of fire

Allowing us to indulge in each others desires

Hearts and flowers while the horizon burns

Fires reflected in the windows of the night

Where the day is truly lost to the mischief and chaos

And the night celebrates with screams of rockets and flares

Darker and without care

Like us as we tear at each other to explore new skin

The excitement and smell of original sin

On top of skeletal structures

Concrete bones that reside over the city

Hard against the softness of you

Stood smiling, loaded with devilment and sitting pretty

On our multi-storey world

Doused in shadows of red, cyan, purple and blue

Saturating the beast that makes me and you

Possessing each other upon a roof

Our blood making noise while our hearts seek the proof

Of a spark amongst the smell of gunpowder and gasoline

Falling from the sky while I reflect in eyes of blue and green

Until flesh takes flesh under a firework sky

Digital voyeurs may watch from lifeless eyes

Recording us to never fade away

In prisms of electricity we will stay

Prolonging the impulse and urgency of lust

Sated in the heat of flame, ash and dust

We sit and watch over the slumbering streets

It’s long past the witching hour as they ready for trick or treat

I ponder with a bottle in my hand

You in the other

While our demons shoot rockets at a threatening sun

Tomorrow is Hallowe’en but we have already begun…

The dark is our beacon

As we insist on remaining despite the threatening light

This is our night… Devil’s night.

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