I want to end you

the way you tore into my heart

delivered me from happiness

and drowned me in my sorrow.

Do you not realize

the way your smile rocked my world

the scent of your breath

intermingling with mine--

plagued with deception

killing me softly.

So little time I have

to stare at your face

the way you force a smile at me

and smother out the ashes of you cigarette;

smother out the ashes of my heart.

We're not church people,

you and I,

and I must bite my thumb at you,

Satan, Beelzebub,

tainting my mind with your sweet nothings

and promises of sanctuary

when all I must do is breath. Relax. Repeat.

Take care, lost boy.

©SelfTitled, 2017

A great mercy, like a dormant seed,

planted in each heart

biding until its appointed springtime

though innumerable springs

come and go and are endured

beyond enduring,

as such things must be

if we are not to be immolated

in the heat of ourselves

and our accounting,

is pulled like a great anchor

up into the mouth

through the ascending throat

to rest like a gift upon the tongue,

to betray the confounding

malediction of Babel's fall,

to prove, with however much

difficulty

that the most beautiful words

in any language

are,

I forgive.

Dead birds of incensed words,

gutless flesh of decayed sores,

prostrate on ground, buried

in bitter leaves, wet with sorrow,

unable to escape into fresh air -

broken angled wings lingering

as I try to forgive your lapses,

but the birds remain lifeless

and fallow on the ground,

words ingrained into my soul.

I must chime in on what I feel is a sad trend in poetry today. With the rise in popularity of free-verse poems, there seems to be a huge and quite obvious bias against the study, crafting, and reading of classical-style formed, metered poetry.

This disheartens me. I hold an ACP designation (Accredited Classical Poet), and I work almost exclusively in metered forms. From the old classics (the sonnet, the villanelle, the rondeau) to the newer forms created by myself and other neo-classicists (the trijan refrain, the ravenelle, the symmetrelle), I love and write them all. I have also written some lovely free-verse, but for me the forms and meters of the classics are where my roots are, and where my heart lies.

Poetry and visual art are very much alike in one huge respect. There is no right or wrong, when it comes to style. As an artist, you must still practice and refine your natural talent, and master the basics. Now, whether you paint classical landscapes and portraits, or abstract, nouveau shapes and patterns, is a personal choice.

The structures and metering requirements of classical forms seem to be a challenge that many people are not willing to work at, let alone master. The requirements of building a large and fluent vocabulary; studying diction, accent, flow, and rhyme; and learning to paint vivid word pictures, while staying inside the lines, is very much like mastering classical painting.

Make no mistake; creating good poetry is a skill that must be developed, quite like the skill to paint good pictures. Anyone can splash paint on a canvas and call it art, and anyone can create images and metaphors of joined words on a page and call it poetry. Does that make it good art, or good poetry? Good is a tough call. It is a very subjective and personal term, but I think we will all agree that Michelangelo and Picasso--both masters of their own respective styles—took very different approaches to their craft. The same is true of both Longfellow and Whitman. They each mastered their own style, one classically metered and the other free-verse. They really are apples and oranges.

For me, the true joy of writing poetry is found when working within the rigid constraints of meter and structure. I find it much more challenging than simply creating a melodic flow and rhythm, which is the basis of ANY great poetry, regardless of form or style. Toward that end, I have published a number of How To essays, by which I am endeavoring to teach others the joy and beauty that can still be attained using classical forms and metered cadences. There is after all a reason that Shakespeare was not just a bard, but The Bard.

There are many wonderful channels for classic poetry to be savored and shared, but the mainstream forums are filled with artists who seem to lack not only the discipline and desire to master classic rhyming poetry, but the ability to appreciate it as well. Often, the forms and structures are ridiculed or ignored for the very reasons they are challenging.

Classical poetry form restraints are sometimes misunderstood and often falsely accused of limiting the poet’s creativity. The truth is, this rigidity and focus allows the true artistry of a wordsmith to be refined and explored. It is my belief, born out of many years of work and study, that the dedication required to color inside intricate lines, can create a masterpiece of language art that scribbling—even if done with the greatest of intent or design—can’t match.

I wish that every aspiring poet, regardless of the style they choose to eventually work in and become skilled at, would work at and build at least one poem in a strong, rhythmic, metered form. This process can often bring out the true artistry within a poet’s soul, in a way that all the new-wave, post-modern abstractions and free-verse thought expressions, simply cannot.

We might just get to witness a new golden age of poetry.

- dustygrein

When I was four my mother pushed me out of the street to avoid getting hit by a car. The accident rendered her bottom half useless, confining her to a wheelchair, but she saved my life. Everyday, she tells me it was worth it, as she strokes my cheek or pulls me into her. And now I lay here on the bathroom floor in a puddle of my own blood, razor blade in hand, shaking, and fading in and out of consciousness, I can't believe what I've done to her, what I will put her through, I want to take it all back but I can't because now the blood is pouring out of me quicker and everything is fading and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, mom fills my head she always said it was worth it but no, what difference did it make she will find me here, dead, and even though I want to reverse my decision it's too late she will lose her only daughter. The thoughts cease.

I have been cursed with the ability to know the location of every single spider around me within a 40 foot radius. Now, this might not seem so bad for someone who enjoys the company of spiders. However, I am not one of those people. I happen to dislike spiders (I'm not terrified of them) I just don't like them. But now that I can sense their location to within half a millimeter of there positioning, I am thoroughly intimidated.

I can sense the blasted creatures walking up the window pane. I can feel them crawling in the attic, and I can see them in the corners of every room. They live under beds, behind dressers, in mattresses, under tables, hidden in lamp shades, and in the walls. I know their every move, and I can feel my sanity cracking just thinking about them.

I got this curse when I foolishly wished to know the location of spiders. As I said, I wasn't terrified, I just wanted to be able to locate them so I could avoid them. Only thing is, now I know just how many spiders there are... And believe me, they are everywhere!

“Mike, is that receiver plate ready?”

“Yup. Just waiting on you.”

“Almost there. I just have to tweak the magnetic field…”

In the wee hours of the night, Mike and Dave were hunched over their dorm room desk, which was dimly lit by the university issued lamps. Their beds were unmade, dirty clothes were piled in corners, and a half-eaten sandwich on the nightstand was growing penicillin. The room reeked of unwashed bodies and solder fumes.

The desk was covered in electronics, calculations, tools, and candy wrappers. Two metal plates were isolated like islands on the desk amid the sea of clutter. Dave turned some knobs on his plate, studied the digital readout, and then let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“This is it,” whispered Dave. “Tonight we make history.”

“People have been dreaming of a teleportation device for decades,” said Mike. “Tonight, dreams become a reality.” He paused, and then broke the reverent moment by adding, “If it works.”

“Present: the puppy!” said Dave.

Mike handed Dave a cheap plastic puppy wearing flight goggles. The two had spent all semester designing a teleporter for their senior project. They'd given themselves headaches trying to work out the math. They'd begged, borrowed, and tried not to steal the materials and tools needed to build their design. Yet as challenging as this project this was, the choice of who or what to teleport first was just as difficult.

They'd spent two weeks arguing over which one of them would get to be the test subject, until they agreed that sending an inanimate object first would be safer. They finally settled on a plastic dog that belonged to Dave’s little sister. Neither wanted to risk his own possessions. To justify their choice, Dave told Mike how thrilled his sister would be when she found out that her idol from the Puppy Posse TV show was the pioneer of teleportation. Neither of them discussed the possibility that the treasured toy could be destroyed.

Dave placed the pilot dog, Flight, on the transmitter plate in front of him.

“T minus 10, 9, 8…” the two counted down together, “…3, 2, 1, Teleport!”

Dave pressed the big red button.

Nothing happened.

Dave frowned, and pressed the button again. Still nothing. The puppy was supposed to teleport from his plate to Mike’s. Disappear here, reappear there. Simple.

“Maybe it’s the atomizer,” offered Mike. They tinkered and tried again, with underwhelming results. After a few more adjustments, Mike said, “I saw a flicker! The puppy flickered! I think.”

Hours later, the two were still stuck. They reviewed calculations, tweaked settings, and prayed to the gods they didn’t believe in, but nothing worked. They even started swapping out puppies.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be sending Flight first,” mused Dave. “She’s intrepid, but I think Sheriff is more likely to keep a level head. Let’s try him.”

Then later, “Perhaps Smokey? His excitement and sense of adventure could make the difference.”

“Hey Dave, are you sure these are your sister’s toys? You seem to know a lot about them. How come you have them, anyway?”

“Of course they’re hers,” Dave said, just a little too quickly. “She, um, came to visit a few weeks ago. With my parents.”

“She did? I don’t remember that,” Mike said suspiciously.

“Wait a minute!” said Dave, stabbing at the top page of calculations.

“Wha- oh man. A sign error? Negative instead of positive? How could we have missed this?!”

The sun was just rising, light peeking in between the drab curtains. They hurried through the calculations as quickly as they dared, fixing the sign mistake as they went. They had to be at class in two hours with a working project, or else they would flunk the class. Dave entered the final coordinates and then, crossing their fingers, the partners pressed the red button together.

“Woah!” said Mike.

“Did you see that?” asked Dave.

Then the two were jumping up and down, slapping each other on the back, and yelling in triumph. “We did it! We did it!”

A loud thud, like that of a bowling ball striking the floor, sounded from above and shook the ceiling. “Be quiet, you creeps! Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“Just because he’s majoring in sports and doesn’t have any real work to do…,” muttered Dave.

“Forget him,” said Mike. “This is it! The first working teleporter!”

They stared at their handiwork again with goofy grins plastered on their faces. Flight (they had decided to try sending her again), was standing proudly upon the receiving plate. But she was also on the transmitting plate. Was she in two places at once? Half here and half there?

Recklessly, Mike put his hand into the electromagnetic field of the transmission plate and swiped out the dog. Dave, noting that Mike appeared unscathed, grabbed the puppy from the receiver. Both were solid, whole, and identical.

“Wow,” breathed Dave. “We didn’t just make a teleporter. We made a replicator too!” They stared in awe.

“But wait,” Mike said. “If it was a sign error all this time, and we just had the wrong coordinates, does that mean the device was working the whole time? Just sending the puppies somewhere else?”

“Hey yeah, you’re right! We couldn’t tell because Flight stayed here the whole time. She wasn’t traveling, she was replicating. But her copies were being sent to the wrong coordinates!”

The two looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Can you imagine the look on someone’s face if puppies just popped out of the air in front of them?”

Sleep deprived and giddy with success, the two were still chuckling when they made their way to class.

******

When Steph’s alarm clock went off for the fifth time, she groaned and finally dragged herself out of bed. She stumbled to her closet to grab some clothes, but when she opened the door, she just blinked, uncomprehending, as she looked inside. Something was different. She flipped on the light switch and then shrieked!

“What’s wrong?” asked her father from downstairs, although he wasn’t overly concerned. In his opinion, his teenage daughter was given to hysterics. She had probably just discovered a zit on her forehead.

However, Steph’s little sister, Molly, ran to investigate. She was fascinated by her mysterious big sister and looked forward having another story to tell her friends at school. They’d all laugh together about silly older sisters. But when Molly entered the room and saw the closet, she shrieked too.

Their mother came running. “Are you girls ok? What is going on here?!” Her eyes were drawn to the open closet. Molly was hugging a pile of some thirty plastic Puppy Posse figures and shrieking in delight.

“You girls,” their mother said, shaking her head and smiling. “Stephanie, that’s really thoughtful of you, giving your sister Puppy Posse toys for her birthday! I had no idea you were doing this. But maybe next time you can do it without screams of bloody murder.”

“But… but…,” Steph stammered.

Molly hauled the toys off to her room and their mother went back to her coffee cup in the kitchen. Steph simply stood still, stupefied. She definitely had not filled her closet with toys.

She hadn’t even remembered it was Molly’s birthday.

I dreamt I wrote a letter,

To my unborn self,

My future incarnation,

Then I put it upon a shelf,

There, the letter stayed,

All those musty pages,

Just to gather dust,

A letter for the ages,

As with any soul on earth,

I finally passed away,

A slumber for eternity,

To await rebirth another day,

Until after many years had past,

Through so much suffering and pain,

An eternity filled with tears,

The story it seems, is the same,

Born again, into this world,

Of sunshine and of pain,

To learn life's many lessons,

Just to do it all again,

One day by chance I found a letter,

Addressed to "My Future Self",

In an old box of correspondence,

On an antique dealers shelf,

Curiosity got the best of me,

So I enquired about the price,

He said, "Fifty dollars buys the lot."

I said, "Fine, that sounds quite nice."

I took the old box home with me,

And set it on the table,

Then tried to decipher the musty contents,

As best as I was able,

But when I encounters that old letter,

Its envelope browned and brittle,

I had the oddest feeling,

That I recognized it a little,

I opened up the envelope,

Then carefully unfolded the letter,

My fingers started trembling,

But wait, it gets much better,

My heart started to race,

Then my head began to spin,

Because what was most shocking,

Was what I saw therein,

I held in my now trembling hands,

This document so frightening,

Was the shocking realization,

That it was my own handwriting!

(c) BAM

I didn't know about this site until recently, but the man behind the magic here messaged me and asked if I might be interested in posting something. After looking through what's offered here, I couldn't say no. A place for writers to freely share their work, critique and interact? Sign me up! It's a great idea and I'm a big fan of Prose so far.

This will be my first post here so I guess I'll introduce myself. I'm Rhett C Bruno, amazon bestselling SciFi author with Random House Hydra and Diversion Books. My published novels include, "Titanborn," "From Ice to Ashes," and "The Circuit Trilogy." The story I'm choosing to post is one I wrote for fun, about a lonely god who has lost his humanity. I was never really sure what to do with it since it's so short, but I hope you all enjoy!

   Wind whistled through the deep vales that stretched for miles across the rockbound badlands arrayed before me. There was no other sound. Only the oppressive layers of quietness which enveloped me as they always did - my unseen cloak. I couldn’t hear my heart, for my heart didn’t beat. A god has no use for blood. I couldn’t hear the rasp of air being drawn into my lungs, for I didn’t breathe. A god has no need for air. There, at the crest of the world, I was utterly and completely alone.

   And so, on that sleepless night, like all others, I sought solace beneath the moon’s faint glow. Far over my head it climbed the ropes of the heavens, like a lidless eye amongst the stars. The light it exuded barely allowed me to see much in detail beyond the palms of my hands, but it was enough for me to make out smoke rising from chimney stacks in a distant village; enough to remind me that the world hadn’t yet vanished, which would’ve been a comforting thought if not for the well-known fact that even amongst a sea of men and woman I’d feel as secluded as I did then.

   While the moon soared ever higher, I reached up to grasp the edges of the golden mask covering my face. For the first time in countless years I decided to pull it off. My mask had become the only face I remembered how to wear. It was as cold and impassive as immortality had made me. However, at that moment, all I craved was to feel the gentle arms of a breeze brushing against my bare cheeks.

   I held my mask out in front of me and stared into its golden reflection. Through the darkness, I could only make out my eyes. They were blue as the smoldering coals at the base of a white-hot flame. It was the pupils, however, which most drew my focus. A normal man wouldn’t recognize the slight shimmer deep within the tiny, black circles, but I was not a normal man. To me the difference was blatant, like a pair of finely cut diamonds glinting beneath the rising sun. I loathed what I saw in them with all of my stagnant heart, almost as much as I longed for the days before they were rendered such; days so far gone that they were little more than a collection of meaningless images.

   “Sir, are you all right?” a small voice squeaked from my side.

   The mask slipped through my fingers. I couldn’t believe it. I’d allowed someone to climb the rugged terrain and sneak up on me as if I were a ragged, old man hard of hearing. No mortal was permitted to view me without my mask on. To see that beneath its gilded surface lay a face no different than their own. Perhaps my skin was smoother and my brow cleaner, but my mask was the face which allowed me to guard and to judge my subjects with impunity. It was gifted to me ages ago, when I was chosen by the heavens to serve as the Guardian Deity of Al’Riviera.

   “Sir?” he repeated.

   The person was so close now that I could feel warm breath kissing my exposed neck. I scrambled to find my mask so that I could place it back where it belonged, but in the darkness I accidentally knocked it out of grasp and into the feet of my uninvited guest.

I turned to face the mortal. He was a human child, no older than ten. His cheeks were gaunt and his hair was unkempt and mottled with dirt. He didn’t appear frightened, more confused that someone would willingly sit outside so high up, without a fire to keep him warm, or a companion to watch for wolves.

   When I said nothing, he slowly bent over to pick up the mask, but he didn’t run. A brave little boy. “Sir, do you have a name?” he asked, a hint of concern edging into his tone.

   'A name', I thought.

   I had gone by many over the centuries, but whoever I had been before no longer mattered. I was Noden the Worldcarver, living embodiment of the Al’Kari God of earth and water. Of course, the boy couldn’t know those things. As much as I may have wanted to invite him to sit beside me and enjoy the pleasure of company, I knew I couldn’t. Faith was a fickle thing. He had seen what was beneath my mask, and the heavens wouldn’t abide that. Even if it was my own fault for allowing him to get so near, the boy could never return home.

   The boy lifted the golden mask and went to hand it over to me. As my fingers wrapped my adopted facade, the light of the moon revealed the ornate designs along its surface. Unmistakable patterns.

   The boy’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Noden?” he whispered.

   I stared directly into them until his face went white as ash and his limbs went stiff like loose branches on a rotting tree. Then he tumbled over the precipice, leaving me alone again. It was difficult to feel sorry for him. There’d be plenty of souls for him to talk to where he was going. Release… He had no idea how lucky he was.

Thanks for reading! You can find out more about my other work or how to connect with me at www.rhettbruno.com.