Go ahead and take a seat,

You can feel your heart beat

Adrenaline rush in your veins,

The fireworks explode in the sky.

Keep your eyes on me

Can't miss this last chance,

Time to the let the show go on

Then all of my circus amusements.

You see fire circling upon us

And flame out of my mouth,

You can feel the heat tonight

Life will burst you out of your seat.

Keeps your heart pumping

And clowns can do Juggling

To entertain you for nights

Left you with no words.

And men swallow sharp swords

If that's not enough?

Watch the canon ball explodes

Right thru your eyes.

You may Jump up and down,

You can feel on your soul

Don't ever closed your eyes,

And keep your Jaw wide open.

You see I whipped a giant lion,

As you watched his bare teeth

And the loud roar to my face,

But when you feel the sweat.

We'll leave you speechless

We can blow your mind away,

But chills run down your spine,

Welcome to my circus world.

My circus World.

with the catch

in the throat

loosened

with the fumble

of mental

fingers

with the faintest

creaking

of hinges

and the holding

back of myriad

treasured secrets,

threatening to

escape untold

at slightest

opening

with a film

of sweat flashed

upon the palm

and forehead

crinkled,

with color

in the capillaries

creeping up

like tell tale

quidnuncs

with brows

that lift the lids

of eyes

with cautious

advances

that reveal

as many questions

as answers,

high lighted

in the margins

with the

girth of night

and spell of

morning

with and

without warning

in the comfortable

silence that was

adequate

in itself as

much as it was

disconcerting

with beating

in the Temple

keeping time,

with a reset

fastened, on

the

Conversation

...folding and

unfolding...

it has begun.

12.12.2023

And so it begins challenge @dctezcan

The first piece I wrote on theProse was published on December 18, 2018. It was a short poem for a challenge that goes to a 404 page now so, it's a mystery. My submission was quite short:

On a precipice

Cradled in gnarly roots, 

steep, rocky mountain behind

and below,

I gaze upon brilliant blue.

(https://www.theprose.com/post/247380/on-a-precipice)

I submitted two other pieces on that day as well, but they were written before I discovered theProse.

In December 2018, my husband was just starting to accept the Parkinson's diagnosis he'd received in February, 2017. My son had joined the family business while also delving deeply into a passion he'd developed starting in August 2017: Ironman competitions. I was a year into "retirement" from a 26 year career in foreign language education and building a career in acting. I had also started painting and I was trying to write more. I had been writing for decades (so many notebooks), but I wanted to do so more consistently.

And I really wanted to be read, perhaps even published.

Enter, theProse.

Finding theProse was a godsend for me: for the writing it has encouraged thus enabling me to improve (I think); the reading that has touched and inspired me; the genius I have had the privilege of witnessing myriad times over the years; the joy of being read, understood and appreciated; the prizes and challenges I have won; and, most importantly, the friends I have made (some gone now), who I feel like I know though we have never met (in person).

Nearly five years to the day have passed since that first post. My husband has made it through all the steps of grief for the loss of life as he knew it and works hard to avoid the slippery slope of despair. My son continues to work with his dad and now has a coach and a team with which to train for his Ironman competitons. He also has a fiancée now, having proposed earlier this year (wedding in August 2024).

As for me, I am still writing, a lot more longer prose than poetry. When I get hold of a good topic, I find it hard to stop writing. Still no novel in me yet, though. I have a room full of canvases and one of my paintings is on the wall of my son's home. And I had the lead in my first short film and a national commercial this year.

So, life is good.

And one reason why is because of the community here at theProse.

I am so grateful to have found you.

Love to you all,

Danielle

(Dctezcan)

the day

has passed to

winter's night

long and cold

soft fading light

the silence

muffled

by a blanket white

everything everywhere

glistening bright

a moment's burst

a quiet glow

life melts

away

like

winter

snow

Cast upon the snow

Shines a somber light

Soon the moon shall rise

Beckoning the night

Low lies the sun

Weary to the bone

Succumbing to darkness

A stranger to the throne

Steady reigns the umbra

All becoming shadow

Star speckled blackness

Casts a ghostly glow

Clenched by icy fists

A time of plenty quelled

Silence fills the land

Barren and bespelled

backseat of the same car

we've had since I was ten

we drive through the town I grew up in

and am desperate to leave behind

we look at the lights

tradition

snowflakes hang in the air with the very same

brilliance of a camera flash

artificial illumination stains the lawns

and it's beautiful

like always

but there's that pit in my stomach

that comes with the season

of knowing the traditions

and the performances I have to put on

to hide the pain of being home

where you don't know me

not really

not anymore

you can't see me

not behind the shine of that practiced smile

not behind the lights

astigmatism augments

and obstructs your view

like always

evergreen picking

together carrying,

Mommy and me,

then decorating

while listening to Chipmunks

and Brenda Lee

joyful celebration

at midnight mass

warm milk

sweet dreams

Where do you get your ideas from?

Who are you?

What do you believe?

I say that a person is incapable of knowing who they are unless they are committed to doing certain things. Behaviors that have no outward utility or consistent application float away in the wind and become a history of confusion and often, carnality. How could you know yourself if you don't believe you mean anything to anybody? How can you know yourself if you don't see the impact you have on the world. How can you even exist if you don't hold any effect over anything?

What would there be for you to observe, if not the effect of your actions on others? I believe that to live without purpose, belief or responsibility is to be utterly lost and slave to base impulse. That experience goes beyond pain or depression. It literally makes you nothing.

Where do you get the narrative of your life from?

I am learning to get mine from the Bible.

Salvation is a true experience that a person goes through when putting their life in the hands of Jesus Christ. Truth is uncovered by the analysis and living of His life. There was a man, who was born immaculately, who lived a perfect life, who was the incarnate God who walked the earth and displayed a magnificent power to give life, He was hated by the blind and loved by the needy, He was killed by the established elite and He defeated death perfectly. In His wisdom he explained to us who we are and who He is, In His love he modelled righteousness for every generation that followed Him. In His grace he willingly died at the hands of the ignorant, taking our deserved punishment in our place so that we could be with Him in glory. The accounts of Jesus' existence and the experience of those who knew Him were so cogent, and powerful that they both uprooted the established religious structure at the time, but brought an exceedingly potent truth to the story of creation and acted as the distilled aspect of the message that God intended for mankind from the beginning. What was thought to be a need for religious activity and legalism was discovered to be a commandment of love.

What was thought to be a God who was separate from creation was proven to be a God intricately involved in the lives and thoughts of His people. Recognizing that the Old Testament was written in preparation for Jesus and the gospel and the Church confirms the existence of YHWH as the God of all creation. The testimonies and eyewitness accounts of his corporeal existence and resurrection lend credence to the established theological doctrine revealed to the authors of the New Testament. And the experience of the immediate change that happens in the heart during salvation and the output of a fruitful and sanctified Christian life that is manifested despite one's original nature, as facilitated by the Holy Spirit is proof enough for your's truly to be utterly convinced of the need for Christ. I was once (and recently) nothing more that a lost, hurting, and dying soul trying desperately to fashion my own god through false worship and exploration into my own dark heart. It led to addiction, sickness, heartache, debt, loss, and put me far too close to an early grave. I thank God for the deliverance that came with salvation and for the roadmap to fulfillment and purpose that is the Holy Scriptures.

I exhort you, look inward and recognize that you are inherently flawed. Understand that without God a person can do no good thing. Realize that the wages of sin truly is death, and that Hell follows shortly behind. The word Gospel means 'good news', and I encourage you to see that. Seek God, repent for your sin, turn fully to Him and find the truth that you have been running from. You need Him.

As an 85-year-old man, death has always come for me. I think it now can reach me after all its time trying. Every day I wake up thinking about how many days, hours, and seconds I have left. Every second scares me. The only thought in my head is if I have enough time. I try to make the most of my time by always meeting my son's family. I have kept a grave secret from them and that is that I have a serious disease that can't be cured.

My son always tries his best and his children are like him. I never thought I would have enough money to feed him when he was a child. Now he has a business and everything so I think he'll be okay when I leave.

I love you, son...

"I do," says

The Truth,

and kills it-

self in proof,

again n' again:

That is the Tao,

and the I Ching

the very Aching

of Be-ing . . . . .

12.05.2023

Truth kills... Sometimes challenge @dctezcan