Mixer in the afternoon

alright, on my third

but outside the Sun is frying

everything in its touch

everything regarding the city suffers

a famous, commercial writer once said

never place your desk in front of a window

sitting here now in the early afternoon

frontal lobe joggled just enough

head change

ice at the bottom of a glass

sings as sweetly as Simone with

the right timing

watching the tip of the mountain

burn from my window while I write

take advice from no one

if it goes against your gut

ignore and avoid kept men

with soft hands

in weak imitation of the greats

ignore their cries for attention

and self-promotion

while they use age as a gauge for

wisdom while their

wives fold their clothes for them

in the next room

which overlooks a tiled den

and a gorgeous yard

ignore the bullshit

to simply survive is not enough

while outside the mountain burns

and your words hit the page

with force

the reward is doing it

the reward is in the lift of heart

those of us who have made a living off

the writing will tell you it’s

a long and brutal fucker of a climb

but a climb with each second worth

more than a life

avoid the circles of trash, stench, and low-flying resilience

aspire to money for contentment

but be driven by neither

accept to banish

abolish to embrace

don’t place faith in

the existence of things you

cannot see

but place it in things

you know must be there

laugh at the sorrow

while the sorrow eats you

and outside the mountain burns

and sheds rocks like tears

the Sun disfigures dream

the life of us gripped

in the fist

of our own surrender

of fear

but spiked with moments

of unfathomable joy

of moments combined

in memory

that becomes our fortress and gate

our Mars and Pompeii

our sunlight, Liszt, and metal

our poets, singers, thespians, and

criminals of war

all the love inside

trapped but burning

beneath all the anger, waiting

beneath the unfathomed greatness

built in

moment to moment

the buzz gripping the mind

the time running out in this poem

before I start sounding like one of them

and feeling the oddly warm comfort

when you become what you despise

sitting here in the early afternoon

the dead men on my shelves

the dead women on my shelves

the dead-eye stare of a mountain

on fire

weeping across the desert west to

California

where I know beauty

must be waiting

while I sit here writing

ugly in desert

officially drunk

while the mountain burns

and laughs

at my stupid

fucking

face.

Man went from killing one-by-one to murdering millions by every means imaginable.

We have lived on one planet.

Stepped on one moon.

Explored one solar system.

Observed one universe.

We do not know what we do not know.

Yet, in our ignorance, we boldly march with confidence under one banner:

“Arrogance!”

Small town bar

whiskey and beer

and pool

bad yet good country spewing

from the juke

and forget the bullshit

the fucking news on your phone

the updates

and compulsion

the sad state of affairs

pervasive

sitting here buzzed

high as a giraffe's pussy

the next game breaks and I think

about Europe

or the feeling of Europe

or Europa

or who knows fuck

who cares

sophisticates

theorists

feminists

all of it can fuck straight off

in a house fire

none of them would exist

existing in flame is raw strength

but keep everything equal and careful

and dogshit safe

lest you offend

the ugly

progressives

but tonight's not about

those weak motherfuckers

not about Isis

or Trump

or Jenner

or whatever media

darling dominates

let's get back to love

to life

without a screen.

Tits and ass

and sunlight.

Shining through heart.

the world is

but a pulse

with shaved legs

and atrophy

and white beards

remembering glory.

All of us here now

waiting in flames.

i stopped praying the day i fell through the water. after forty days of nothing, i felt like it was time to shake the dust off my knees and stand up. i was flesh and bone and all my sins, which were greater than the sum of their parts.

when i was little, i felt god in my rib cage once or twice. i endured panic attacks before i knew what they were. my heart would start pounding fast but before it could shock me, a hand would slip between my bones and rock my heart back and forth to its beat.

you're safe now,

you're safe now.

i think it was faith.

the third time i felt god was different. the tent was set up in the front yard for the night, and the cats were keeping us awake. scratches and shadows on the fabric fought us, so we retreated inside.

i was the first to walk in through the front door, but i sensed a presence in front of me once i entered the living room.

do not be afraid,

for i am with you,

he said.

i wasn't truly scared,

but i nodded.

i was in sixth grade when i discovered the books named after a series of colors. each story was different, but they were all the same. a simple girl would make the wrong decision and choose to drink/have sex/puke/etc. until she was a wreck, but then she would repent and god would grant her a happy ending.

when i started coming undone in eighth grade, i remembered the stories, so i turned my bedroom into a chapel. i fell to my knees and lowered my head as i rested my shaking hands on my dresser. i sobbed and i prayed, just like they did in the books.

i'm sorry.

i regret all that i've done.

lord,

please grant me redemption.

forgive me.

i will change.

i will follow you forever.

i will never take your name in vain,

i promise.

i'll go to church every sunday,

and i'll pay attention,

and i'll do whatever you say,

just help me,

please, help me.

i don't want to be this way.

nothing. so i tried again two weeks later, and again when another two weeks went by. maybe it didn't work because i didn't believe what i was saying, but i sure as hell tried. but oceans didn't split and bushes didn't burn; there was no sign to show me where to turn after i had failed to become a believer. it got to the point where i begged to be a martyr, but god and my own demons kept me in the middle. i couldn't really live, and i couldn't die, so i gave up on both.

now i am the salt of the earth; i let life and death walk all over me. i have nothing left to say, nothing left to pray. i am finished scribbling psalms on my ceiling in the hopes that god will notice.

i am older,

wiser, now,

less susceptible to his holy ink.

sometimes i feel it a fourth time.

lord,

grant me the wisdom

to think.

I remember walking home bloody

and walking in the front door

to the old man at the table

smoking cigarettes

with my mom

and when he asked me

what my problem was

I told him since we’d

moved there

a week ago

two boys older than me

two grades higher

were chasing and beating me

after school

while I tried to make it

across the field to our house

and every day it’s gotten

worse

until today when

they finally drew blood

my mother hustled to the

kitchen for the bottle of

shitty, burning-orange salve

to make the cuts worse and

while she rubbed it into the gaps of

blood and dirt and small rocks

in my knees and palms and forehead

the old man told me tomorrow on the way

home, I was to take my time across

the field, and when the two of them

stopped me

to punch the biggest one

square in the nose

and not to return home

until I did

and if I didn’t

then to plan on sleeping outside

without supper

or anything else

my mother started going on about

how she was going to call the school

and that I should report the

boys to the principal or vice principal

or to the teacher

but the old man saved me

the trouble of explaining

to her that no matter

how that was played out

I’d be labeled a rat

and I’d have it even worse

and the best way from A

to Z was a straight line

and it was time for me

to start figuring things

out and she started inventing

ways I could reason with the

boys, or how they could talk to

their parents, all the other angles

but he we wasn’t budging

and even after I left the room

they kept it going

I barely slept that night

because I took the old man

seriously

with his long beard

and tattooed fingers

back when no other dad had

such things

and also because I didn’t know

how to throw a punch

or if I could even reach the

bastard’s nose

and I was terrified

but the day was over

and I walked the field home

and the two boys were

there

and the books and folders

and backpack were again

knocked out of my hands

and I was again shoved to the

ground

and my adrenaline was boosted

and I could feel the old man

somehow watching me

and I went ahead and

brought it up

and hit the big one

on the nose

and the blood spat sideways

and he went down instantly

screaming a high pitched wail

while his buddy ran off

and a crowd formed and

I picked up my shit

walked home

where my knuckles

throbbed and my mom

wrapped my hand with

ice crushed in a wet wash rag

and the old man laughed

and nodded at me

and told me

once I took shit once,

I’d take it for the rest

of my life

and from then on

I had no trouble at school

but today this would be

“offensive”

and barbaric

the old man would be in jail

or slapped with some lawsuit

and

I’d be a pariah

and we’d be all over YouTube

today, instead of teaching our children to

truly stand up for themselves

they revert to their natural

forms of confusion

and cut their own flesh or

they blow each other away or

they commit suicide

on the Internet

due to

bullying.

Another one from the table

a track from The Church floating

out from the speakers in the living room

-f.m. radio for a change of pace-

fucking beautiful song

last time I heard this track was almost

the first time

driving through the farmland

on I5 headed toward

Fresno or someplace shit-awful

a year into the new century

little black Nissan pickup

my dog next to me

the sunset smeared across the

fields’ horizon outside the window

a laborer dream

but real as day

while I wrapped my head around

the next job site

the mornings waking up in the

back under the canopy

all my things pushed to the sides

around the wheel wells

my dog sleeping behind my knees

the redneck foreman pissing

in the cold dirt

a foot away from my

truck

the half-ass drive to the

gas station for coffee

water

soda

cigarettes

beef jerky

Excedrin

whatever the crew needed

to get the metal barns

built

the canvas roofs pulled

and tied

the stakes anchored into the

ground to pull the cables taught

street or dirt

didn’t matter

pound that shit down

get the site ready for

the fat and rich

weirdos with their

horses and spoiled brats

custom horse trailers

RVs that cost more

than most homes

rarely did we have to see them

but when we did it

was during tear-down

when we’d circle back through

from a different part

of I5, whether it was Burbank

or Monroe, Washington

or whether it was from

Highway 97

from Burns, Oregon

up

to Spokane

didn’t matter

the shit had to come down

and we had to make it happen

on time

any hangover

any breakdown

any type of human

condition outside of the job

was binary

including pain

or fatigue from the weight of

all the things we carried for

16 hours a day

But The Church’s

Reptile played

through the sunset

through the time knowing

that I knew where I was

where I wanted to be

a ghost off the grid

cheap pay

sleep outside

but there was a chain gang

rush to it

I couldn’t deny

or define

sore skin

the blood from

blisters or exploded

roof jacks

or from flat out

dropping to your knees

carrying a door across

a stretch of dirt and horse shit

I looked at the CD cover on the

bench-seat next to my dog

some free-shit-compilation CD

pushed on me at

the last coffee house

no radio signal

burned out on my music

so I surfed the CD and caught the

beginning of the song

and let it play out

and it was good there

in the truck

in the dream of fatigue

in the stretch of miles beating south

cast aside the sunset

the fields

watching

the torn sky

bleeding

mauve

down the

fading yellow

fields

black at their tips

the song playing

driving through

it with a film

covering me

that wouldn’t burn off

without something

outside of the job

something human

binary

something I couldn’t

figure out

but

the job was done

and I left that lifestyle

after a year or so

and now it’s

almost 2016

and I sit here

at the table

in my bungalow

waiting for the maid service

to show up

slamming coffee

downloaded the song to

my phone

add to playlist

I kill the radio

and hit play

on the little screen

and watch the room

sitting fair in

what I’ve asked for

waiting to see the cover

for the new book

set to drop in the spring

waiting to hear back from

people I used to read about

regarding collaboration

on scripts

all of that

but still waiting

for something

to burn off the film

to pull whatever it is

up or down from where

it rests

from where it hides out

and fucks with me.

You should do it like this..

The opening line, in an age old line of ego elevation.

To acquaint another with their own demerits, is better, for some, than all the endorphins drugs or drink could ever harvest.

Eat this, it's got this in it.

This is good for you.

This will make you feel better.

Read this, it's helped me so much.

When *insert deity of choice* is in your life you need no more.

To ease yourself by advising another how well your manic addiction could also ease them.

To cover up the fact you need an addiction to fill the void, just like everybody else.

Even if your addiction isn't antisocial it doesn't make it any less rabidly fanatic.

Take this heroin, you will unhesitatingly become more desirable to yourself.

Why go through this life hating the one person you spend every single minute of it with? And you only get the one, life, so spend it high.

God put these plants here for us, man.

Eat this kale, you will unhesitatingly become more desirable to yourself.

Why go through this life pig-set, jaundice and despondent? And you only get the one, spend it healthy.

God put these plants here for us, man.

One, obviously, makes your flesh sore with legions and your veins turn to rubber, whilst the other makes you glow like a new born baby with the lungs of a Himalayan sherper.

But the addiction emanates from the same sickness, does it not?

We preach to save ourselves and no one else.

We give praise to our own self worth simply by knowing another's lifestyle, spirituality or impulses are subjacent to our own.

We trick it into believing itself with the practice of a preach.

Natural selection for the ego.

Ego-eat-ego world.

Yet deeper still, does anyone, say anything, to anyone, for any other reason than to make themselves feel better about themselves?

Being nice, as nice as it is, is it just an excuse to convince yourself that you are in fact a nice person?

Not to advocate non-niceness.

Just a cerebration on human conditions.

We're designed selfish by default, a basic survival mechanism.

Selfdom to survive.

Preach to survive.

Give to survive.

Heal to survive.

Self conservation, but to what end?

So you can continue the progress of human race, of course.

But then!

Oh, yes, then..

You shall give for love!

Preach for love!

Heal for love!

But is it that new life not just an extension of you?

A chance to succeed where you failed so lamentably?

Or just another inbuilt mechanism to chaperon your species away from the teeth of extinction?

Yet the question behind all of these, one to which we will never know an answer, why the species at all?

To what purpose do we serve?

An answer of 'no purpose' could never be enough for machines designed to persevere and preserve, so just try not to think of that at all.

Or, find God.

But don't feel bad.

You didn't spark the air with evolution.

You were just born of self.

But, hold on, wait just a New York minute.. if all self is in yourself, there is no ego, for the ego is in the ether!

That is the best solution created by an ego to preach in order to feel egoless I've ever known and I'm sticking with it.

One love..

But to what end?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

The rhyming of the above, with round the bend, is no coincidence at all.

When I began to write poetry I thought the process consisted of throwing words on a page. I thought to simply say exactly what I thought and meant, with line breaks and punctuation placed here and there, or, perhaps not at all, was a poem. Poems were mud pies. How hard can it be?

I like mud pies and I wrote them for a very long time. But mud pies could not feed me or anyone else. I would write them and admire them there on the page all while washing my hands, drying them on soft towels and getting back to the business of daily living. Those mud pies were not memorable except for occasional smudges I’d find on the floor or in between my fingers. The makings of the mud pies were what remained. And if I showed them to people, I was met with a pat on the head or words of mild encouragement.

“It’s a very nice mud pie,” they might say.

When I began to study poetry and wander into writing deeper and longer works I found myself less likely to use mud alone. I studied the great poets, some I knew already like Poe and Dickinson, others were unknown to me at that time, Cummings, Bukowski and Plath. I veered into the ancient with Rumi; I skated shakily into the modern with Nikki Giovanni and Mary Oliver. I found my heart expand with each new discovery. I worked those mud pies well, graduating to flour, to pastry, to rolling pin, to oven.

Instead of showing simply muddy hands and inedible pie plates I offered now scent and taste- blueberry, lemon, key lime. Meat pies were within reach adding texture and form.

Poetry is more than words on a page. It is depth and reaching, aching and mercy. Poetry says all the things you mean to say and more. It tells, it shows, it succeeds and it fails. As poets, we allow for that. We rely on that. We hope for that.

I began to write prose as a form as an adult, when my kids were finally in school. I began to use my poetic leanings and knead the words into longer thoughts, sentences stretched out like braids of dough. I would thread them one through the other in story. For me, writing non-fiction short form personal essay was the path of poetry into prose. And for me, the path yields the stuff that fills the banquet table I mean to set. I want it to be beautiful and rich, satisfying and intriguing.

Writing provides an insight into myself that I need. I want to read the words on the page and find in them some new discovery, some new depth I did not recognize before. I resonate with the words of author Joan Didion when she states, “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Writing poetry started that process for me, writing longer form intensifies that process and brings it more toward completion.

Spending time on the mobile or web platform of Prose gives me an opportunity to experiment and get immediate feedback, something that most of us as writers do not have the chance to receive. We are often so isolated in our writing. Who can understand that desire to make mud pies? Who can stand to wait long enough for us to move into pastry and meat? It’s a long process and it takes nurturing and care, waiting for the dough to rise, the heat to bake, the air to cool. Prose allows us to share our work in progress and to share in that process along with fellow writers. It is a sort of online writer’s group, a community of support and encouragement no matter where one falls on the pie-making spectrum.

Why Prose? Because we are makers and the world is hungry.

- Angela Doll Carlson, A.K.A. @mrsmetaphor

Pi,

dressed up nicely

as a radian,

will get you across the Pacific,

more or less,

with an extended layover in Hawai’i.

We recommend the Royal Mahalo Hotel

on WaoWao Beach.

Get a king room with

DVD player and remote

with extra batteries.

Lotsa mana, that space.

In summer, you can stretch pi

liberally, given its impressive

tensile strength,

and hit Kamchatka,

but who the hell would ever

wanna visit Kamchatka,

except to mine for ancient

vodka rocks?

Me? I’d opt for an air drop

over Macau.

The pretty girls,

long legs and short memories,

all with Master’s degrees

and an outstanding

positive mental attitude,

you know.

For that round-the-world cruise,

though, you may need the whole ring:

2 x pi x Mother Earth radius.

Beware of giant floating rocks

at the higher latitudes.

If you’re in a hurry

and need to get to

the moon, say,

we suggest the cycloid

and a million joules

of carrot juice,

which is really just a metaphor

for a shitload of rocket fuel

and a child’s prayer.

Fasten your seatbelt.

And don’t forget your tray table.

And, for the truly discerning frequent flier,

may we suggest the Slingshot Express*,

a spicy mix of pi, active uranium,

discarded wishes and a kilo of pono

that will launch even a sizable ass

like yours [just sayin’]

well into Earth orbit

for many many years,

allowing you and your Plus-One

to experience a soundless

and, quite literally,

endless summer

from 234,000 feet above

everything you can possibly think of.

*The fine print:

This is a one-way flight, dear,

so please say aloha-ciao to loved ones

and do pack appropriately.

99.230597235. Death frequencies do not exist.

43.14. I'm too old for you.

93.4582. Your boobs are too small.

13.5093464. I think too much.

92375.3946. She drinks a lot.

83.93284667. They aren't very nice to each other.

9.014094853. The kid should be spanked once a day (really hard).

21.92735628765. People really are mean.

1.000000043. Priests should wed.

8.89235. The threads bare themselves,

Eventually.

8435.230975. Skin that glistened,

Desiccated.

395.1209775463. Diaphanous blue, now

Grey.

7.239074. We must die at sixty-five.

59.12494. Bars are not for the lonely.

9275.235235235. Panties: 3 for 1, $9.

12.254235747. Sing just once.

11.135409775. Cherry ChapStick.

8.989734. Monistat.

2.23509723587. Margaritaville.

1.109284. Ice to snow, not shaved.

1.8914875143. She was only 19 when the firetruck slammed into her VW. It was responding to a brush fire down the street. I read the papers. Her mother Joan cried once then never again. Moved out from 336 and walked all the way to California, then Mexico.

1.108509723. Love was not lost the day she died. It never was to begin with.

Her mother destroyed her things.

Why?

I wanted them. Her boy-jeans. The ones I peeled off her that night.

1.01835973498673589. Or was that a creamy wish, too?

7.230597235. All boobs are perfect.

3.092385. My thoughts spring until morning, then it's your turn at the wheel.

2.09283654. Drink up, my dear, bar's closing.

85.9872350. Really now, they're just brother and sister.

3.45987371. Child abuse starts in utero.

3.23097235876. People don't suck, their parents do.

2.3897528947. The Jesuits rape their nuns. It is doctrine since 15-something.

21.2123124. Diffuse . . . dissipate . . . disappear. Glowing still.

If you wait long enough.

84.12234552. Cinnamon skin at zero hour.

6.230958. Eyes never sleep. They see notes of purple in the dark.

9.0928730957. I know what you're thinking:

2093757534.2355. This makes 854 grams of nonsense.

235424. 2356543. Ah, but it does, my dear. Liz told me so in a dream today.

3.5346346. She died at 19 in 1981. Or was it '82?

3.21525345. Our second to last phone call: going to Luxembourg, we!

3.4232376784265. Last call: fuck off on down the highway.

3.24859674124. Okay, see ya!

3.21525345. Wake up:

And the tick-tock starts over again.

3.2152534538574745. Yes, my sweet, I know what you're thinking:

Drop by drop in small measures,

Elevated before its time,

Love my way or that highway where she died, the space where her ghost wanders from the brush in the wee hours of summer morn.

3.21525345761654876238746. Autumn news: being in love with you, dear girl.

First winter chill, blue goes to grey.

Right frequency, you can hear her siren-call,

That mournful cry of the little red firetruck.

Took her moistness from the earth.

3.21525345871546723. I know what you're thinking,

because we are one, no longer anyone.

99.2305972352. Ah, but they do!