sharing history soup with a friend
In our lunchroom noon whisperings
we found the why
to the question of when
exactly the seeking out of our pieces took form.
From the shadow versions of us delicate and branched into splinters.
And how the day gave up hope leaving us to our own incarnations.
Because you couldn't escape yours
And I was ripped from mine.
And this is the slow and orbital way we attach and detach…
With our halos on our feet, aimed to inspire.
Simone
This is the jaw of the lion that last yawned,
At last light
came the lamps labored breathing...
breathlessly into the corners of nights’ invisible equation
The lamps stood somatic and still
as dust froze in prayer blown against
Word
Sound
Music
You sweet singer of nights sorrows and youths' sins absolved
You left me in bandages invisible to the eye.
Hung up as if lone star’d extinguished the promise of slumber steering toward the misery and the strangeness of colors.
Noise of your throat- done swept me, done take me forever shyly heart breaking against itself with each scorned symphony of your breathless pauses…
Finish me
Break me
Paint me on the walls
Break me down
Take me to where the phantom birth of slaughter is but a dreamed cramp of mine
Mazzy Star’s spell, dusk, Spinoza, leftovers, and one Russian love poem.
On the show today, Mazzy Star lights the way into a dark and light wave of five unyielding talents from Prose. Mariah leads the rest of the requests, down or up through the beauty of these brains, all wrapped in a bow from Russia with love.
Here's the link, you magnificent mofos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TII4uFRDm8
And here are the pieces featured.
https://www.theprose.com/post/804782/dusk https://www.theprose.com/post/811051/converted-brahmanist-2024-spinoza
https://www.theprose.com/post/808088/you-took https://www.theprose.com/post/810984
https://www.theprose.com/post/810980/leftovers https://www.theprose.com/post/811048/-
The Last Time
The Last Time
The last time I heard her speak
She was sure of her words
"Tell my children I love them
You, my husband, already know"
The last time I saw her walk
She spun on her heel
Giving me a glimpse of what first attracted me
And what kept me under her spell
The last time we ate dinner
I gave her the night off
Her favorite was eggplant parmigiana
The fine wine, I chose, covered for my cooking errors
The last time we said good night
I dreamt of our future together
Awashed in laughter and love
Void of pain and sorrow
The last time I saw you
Before they closed the coffin
I recited our wedding vows
Knowing we would (someday) meet again
Tom Waits, tweaker larvae, chaos in heart, stepping into manholes, and not enough skull. Also, new Challenges for April in all Portals!
In episode 19 of Prose. Radio, Tom Waits sings in the rain, while one tweaker larvae negotiates the harsh landscape of a small California town, into the words of a not so anonymous alcoholic, then a tiptoe into a manhole, and onto atoms and other atoms.
And in Portals news, all of April's Monthly Challenges are posted and waiting for you to throw down and get that crisp ten-spot. Hell, two cups of coffee if you're with someone you like.
Here's the link to today's video. You do not want to miss these writers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoTlqXtTJM
And here are the featured pieces:
https://www.theprose.com/post/809685/...
https://www.theprose.com/post/809767/...
https://www.theprose.com/post/809985/...
https://www.theprose.com/post/809337/...
And.
As always.
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose. team
I feel alive
I feel alive within my element of style (harried, frenzied, dogged...) reading (a book titled The Knitting Circle authored by Ann Hood) inside me man cave with the portable heater cranking out British Thermal Units (a measurement of heat energy, whereby one Btu is the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit, whence Btus per hour (Btuh) is the benchmark used to estimate the capacity of heating systems, such as gas furnaces) at a cozy seventy plus degrees fahrenheit (breadth, scope, width...) while the outside cool air, a crisp temperature, not quite ten degrees centigrade (an old fashioned name for Celsius, which freezing point of water for Celsius is 0°C, whereas the boiling point of water is 100°C abbreviated of Celsius is to °C, which temperature scale invented and named after Swedish scientist Anders Celsius (1701-1744) in 1742), whereby yours truly (me) salvages sanity within a webbed wide world on the heading toward brink of near anarchy come Tuesday, November 5, 2024, when the overstuffed ego freezer (sporting his trademark orange coiffure, which reminds one electorate named Matthew Scott Harris) of an oversized troll) rubs his bear size paws with sinister glee. Other than the dark shadows looming along the edge of night within the outer limit of the twilight, I feel glad to be stayin alive in Schwenksville at a safe distance from the melee will most likely erupt.
Mine heart doth go pit-a-pat at pleasant unexpected telephonic, fantastic, and electronic receipt of your message, however brief, though avidity, benignity, conviviality, docility, electricity, friendly gentility, humility, integrity, jocularity, knowledgeability, levity...zealotry about you teases my curiosity got woke within the bosom of me, an adventuristic, altruistic, (albeit spiritually) animalistic, anachronistic, atavistic, atheistic, copacetic, eccentric, existentialistic, fantastic, generic, linguistic, nihilistic, realistic... married sexagenarian.
This Pacifist bard of Perkiomen Valley regaled at Alpine Fellowship conclave regarding erosion of Democratic rights grave alarming usurpation of power - Republicans each and every one a nasty and brutish knave intent to pronounce decree sentencing every Homo sapien to pave (courtesy their lovely bones) back breaking laborious bloody path trumpeting, signaling and attesting slave versus master linkedin relationship essentially scuttling emancipation proclamation lifetime of human bondage forced to pledge flag of servitude amidst wreckage broken souls washed away courtesy totalitarian wave.
Foreclosure on purported inalienable rights life, liberty and pursuit of happiness though hard won freedoms crimped foregone conclusion demanding fealty and loyalty to sovereignty therefore necessitates electorate to stage coup d'état and overthrow autocrat ideally thru peaceful modus operandi.
Though aforementioned verses hypothetical, mine overactive imagination can easily envision governmental, née societal debacle witnessing yours truly, an extremely shy Norwegian bachelor wannabe gobbling up ample powder milk biscuits to acquire courage to protest (no matter the temperature seasonably cool today, and stand firm against one unnamed political party aiming to upend voting rights, thus disenfranchising most economically vulnerable people (predominantly) persons of color to cast their vote for representation.
Absolute zero chance for change unless even those risk averse (such as one garden variety wordsmith) to protest without resorting to violence and staking a claim to denounce opposition against exercising freedom for citizens to elect eligible candidate.
I too would join aspiring bravehearts (each of us participants tightly grasping an amulet), not looking for fame nor fortune, only martyrdom and sainthood ha, nevertheless able, eager, and ready to risk life and limb in an effort to preserve (even at expense getting into a jam) principle figurative bulwark buttressing buzzfeeding land of milk and honey myth.
Throughout American history many patriots as well as indigenous tribes bled, the latter viciously tracked down nsync with ominous dread, no matter how fast they fled taking refuge courtesy sympathetic abolitionists, who silently motioned at (hiding) in hogshead.
Outspoken voices helped spur Emancipation proclamation and subsequent manumission
diametrically opposed to bedrock attitudes, ideologies, prejudices... kept in check by scare tactics thus disallowing formerly shackled to experience full fledged freedom, whether enjoying opportunities available to the leisure class or exploring inherent potential to amass learning and become financially successful, which suppression of free will, (within parameters of self expression - artistic, literary, musical et alia) gives credence to notion of white privilege automatic guilt linkedin with skin color.
Each generation of oppressed, especially those who break the color barrier subjected with bigotry (ofttimes subtle mistreatment) challenging well earned freedom rightfully bequeathed from forebears labor.
The ghosts of Africans who suffered pre colonial rule (namely European exploitation) robbed of their national identity will forever haunt the offspring, whose forefathers/mothers brutally desecrated haven housing rightful autochthonous men, women and children livingsocial within their own Lake Wobegone.
Sugar Coated Spectre
There is a ghost that occasionally haunts my mind and it has done so today. It's barley one thread among my tapestry nay my crazy quilt of memories. It does not visit me often but it's done so today and still is even now. The phantom in question just refuses to be excorcised.
This memory though small and briefe can still be painful. So one minute I'm minding my business and the next I remember it, the birthday cake.
It was large and rectangular and dang delicious. My sister had painstakingly frosted the top of that celebratory pastry as was tradition in those sweet juvenile days when I'd have themed birthdays!
All of this has come to my mind all day long. I also remember my birthday that year was the only time I got to eat it.
The cake was massive and there were plenty of leftovers. Unfortunately this all occurred when my mom went on some half crazed health kick that even drove a wedge between her and my father( over pizza). I still carry those ghosts in my mind's graveyard they pop out to haunt me now and again as they are today, right now!
My mom tossed out those left over slices of cake. Never again did I feast on them. She asked me first and I told her what I knew she wanted to hear. No I wasn't actually fine with it. IT MY BIRTHDAY CAKE!
I don't normally condemn people to the Abyss but if I had too it would be all those television doctors my mom watched I blame them for setting this in motion.
That's how a birthday cake can leave a scar burned into the psyche. That's how a scar festers and the mind becomes a haunt for a ghost of the past. The memory will pass but for now I must bare it!
Take a message to Michael
Another challenge for resident polymath not me, but concerned thee missus, whose name I cannot mention in mixed company, she prefers to humble herself to anonymity.
Though modest and confident, and as an aside able to sweet talk her way out of unexpected win/win crisis resolution, (which natural born talent to finesse confrontations, especially arising when strong arm of the law unexpectedly presents an unsettling quandary, her chutzpah called into action), whether pedestrian circumstances to sew as a swift tailor and to the uninitiated said spouse evinces a harried style.
We patronize Michaels (which craft of thee wife) even applied to her mock up as a pseudo surgeon, I can attest being stitched up tight as a drum courtesy tough as steel thread after slamming the trunk door on the pinky of my right hand.
After we went shopping at Wegmans husbandly duty (and contractual non binding obligations) witness yours truly packing groceries in the trunk of (technically mine) car, a white 2020 Hyundai Elantra, yours truly absent mindedly found the pinkie of his dominant hand left dangling by a thread after I slammed trunk (North American English) or boot (British English) on said fifth digit in medicine, recognized as the most ulnar and usually smallest finger of the human hand, opposite the thumb, next to the ring finger.
The emergency medical kit kept in the glove compartment of our vehicle rightly came in (pun intended) handy for just such a crisis, whereby with tender loving care issued from the wife who quickly sprung to action and whipped out her trusted implements of the trade.
Yours truly (me) bit the figurative bullet when my own Florence Nightingale ably, eagerly, readily and willingly gently took hold of my damaged digit and (without applying any anesthesia) gingerly pushed the nib of a medium sized sewing needle attached with flesh colored thread into the dangling darn little finger of mine. Among the requisite material, she retrieved a perfectly fitting splint, and finally wrapped the injured bad finger with an adhesive gauze.
The entire operation transpired while (sharp pain throbbed, pulsed, and needled throughout my entire right arm), I manned the vehicle with my left hand just barely avoiding one collision after another, yet could outgun police.
In an effort to head back to our one bedroom apartment in Schwenksville, an inadvertent heavy footed proclivity arose, whereby my skinny right leg pressed a tad to strong upon the accelerator, (excessive miles per hour speedometer considerably over the speed limit), but lame excuse of mine promptly dismissed, when stopped by an aggressive macho officer nervously explaining, jabbering, and orating away that every other driver appeared to be passing me left and right. Reasonable explanation immediately regarded as no dice, which compelled saving amazing grace angel in disguise to exit the passenger side of our automobile and brazenly embellished a spur of the moment cockamamie story, that beloved, fawned over, nursed back to health hirsute husband - gratis mother of invention wife, he unexpedly experienced feeling severely uncomfortably numb exhibiting a deathly (hallowed) pallor closely approximating rigor mortis, thus while self taught nurse satisfactorily bandaging a nearly severed littlest phalange of poor hubby, said twenty four hour attendant (and lifelong contra dance partner) oblivious to his sudden paroxysm completely disabling cognitive abilities.
Take a message to Michael
Another challenge for resident polymath not me, but concerned thee missus, whose name I cannot mention in mixed company, she prefers to humble herself to anonymity.
Though modest and confident, and as an aside able to sweet talk her way out of unexpected win/win crisis resolution, (which natural born talent to finesse confrontations, especially arising when strong arm of the law unexpectedly presents an unsettling quandary, her chutzpah called into action), whether pedestrian circumstances to sew as a swift tailor and to the uninitiated said spouse evinces a harried style.
We patronize Michaels (which craft of thee wife) even applied to her mock up as a pseudo surgeon, I can attest being stitched up tight as a drum courtesy tough as steel thread after slamming the trunk door on the pinky of my right hand.
After we went shopping at Wegmans husbandly duty (and contractual non binding obligations) witness yours truly packing groceries in the trunk of (technically mine) car, a white 2020 Hyundai Elantra, yours truly absent mindedly found the pinkie of his dominant hand left dangling by a thread after I slammed trunk (North American English) or boot (British English) on said fifth digit in medicine, recognized as the most ulnar and usually smallest finger of the human hand, opposite the thumb, next to the ring finger.
The emergency medical kit kept in the glove compartment of our vehicle rightly came in (pun intended) handy for just such a crisis, whereby with tender loving care issued from the wife who quickly sprung to action and whipped out her trusted implements of the trade.
Yours truly (me) bit the figurative bullet when my own Florence Nightingale ably, eagerly, readily and willingly gently took hold of my damaged digit and (without applying any anesthesia) gingerly pushed the nib of a medium sized sewing needle attached with flesh colored thread into the dangling darn little finger of mine. Among the requisite material, she retrieved a perfectly fitting splint, and finally wrapped the injured bad finger with an adhesive gauze.
The entire operation transpired while (sharp pain throbbed, pulsed, and needled throughout my entire right arm), I manned the vehicle with my left hand just barely avoiding one collision after another, yet could outgun police.
In an effort to head back to our one bedroom apartment in Schwenksville, an inadvertent heavy footed proclivity arose, whereby my skinny right leg pressed a tad to strong upon the accelerator, (excessive miles per hour speedometer considerably over the speed limit), but lame excuse of mine promptly dismissed, when stopped by an aggressive macho officer nervously explaining, jabbering, and orating away that every other driver appeared to be passing me left and right. Reasonable explanation immediately regarded as no dice, which compelled saving amazing grace angel in disguise to exit the passenger side of our automobile and brazenly embellished a spur of the moment cockamamie story, that beloved, fawned over, nursed back to health hirsute husband - gratis mother of invention wife, he unexpedly experienced feeling severely uncomfortably numb exhibiting a deathly (hallowed) pallor closely approximating rigor mortis, thus while self taught nurse satisfactorily bandaging a nearly severed littlest phalange of poor hubby, said twenty four hour attendant (and lifelong contra dance partner) oblivious to his sudden paroxysm completely disabling cognitive abilities.