Writers,  

     Seattle Refined did a remarkable spot on us. From a bar in West Seattle to the downtown offices of Prose., this three-minute piece came out nice and clean. Link is below.

     We hope your sentences are hitting the page lean and mean, and to see more of your work across this spectrum words. Thanks for being here. 

Go to minute 14:00. 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fm-uquSrxSI&

     Writers, 

     We set up the Seattle Refined challenge, to write about the passing of Chris Cornell, to be won based upon the most shares. Reading through the entries, and being here in Seattle, two things ran through our minds: So many good stories here, poems, tibute pieces, and pure expression of loss through art. The second was who would share what to put just one up top. The most shares went to James M. Byers, with his poem, aptly titled, "Black Sun, Black Days." 

     We could go into detail here, why we think this one received the most shares, or we could almost say we didn't really expect a rhyming poem to get the most shares in a challenge like this, but with a subject like the one presented, there was no gauge or reason for one. A great man died, and expression against death has always been the writer's medicine, or the most effective kind. 

     Fitting, actually, that a rhyming poem is featured as the most shared, because the lyricism of Cornell is what inpired the piece. Byers, in flawless recall, threw down the notes of tears in beautiful verse:

     Pretty noose foreshadowed doom;

     A burden in the palm.

     Blowing up the outside gloom,

     The rhinosaur brought balm.

     Black rain fell in drops of thought

     As phantoms telephoned. 

     Great write, James. A ton of heart. 

     You can read the entire poem here:

     https://theprose.com/post/164786/black-sun-black-days

I.

Angelic yet shrill, a voice to woo all the lovers

and soothe all the mothers but also a fierce cry

of havoc as teen angst embodied, as adult

confusions and contusions voiced plaintive,

contemplative, and combative. Looking

for Spoonman, resting like a stone, and rowing

all along with the slaves and bulldozers.

Now he’s saying hello 2 heaven, and those

who loved him up close and from afar are

left behind to mourn the loss of a personified

scream married to melody, but also, a father,

a husband, a son, a brother, a bandmate,

an icon. Jesus Christ pose, Jesus Christ-long

hair and goatee, Jesus Christ…

II.

Summer 1997, you stared in black

and white back at me from the cover

of Spin. You and your band, who had

already broken up still as the songs

from Down on the Upside burned bright

on radios, Walkmen, and Discmen

all across the world.

My adolescent brain felt loss yet

I did not know why. Now 20 years

older, my adult heart feels loss

and I know why. You, stranger,

left an indelible and undefinable

mark on me and those like me

like shadows scorched into pavement

after an atomic bomb has gone off, like

the ash-statued remains of Pompei:

both unnatural and primordial in their way.