

TONIGHT: Discord Collab Sunday, Nov 26th @ 7 pm EST
TONIGHT: Discord/Zoom Collab Sunday, Nov 26th @ 7 pm EST
If you suffer from Prose F.O.M.O. or are simply interested in meeting up with other writers, poets, and authors from Prose, come join us, you may just meet your favorite Proser. It’s also possible you may not.
@MeeJong will be hosting a Zoom meet-up where we shoot the shit, talk nonsense, write and collaborate, and much much more. Sometimes there’s just booze.
If you are shy, which most of us are, feel free to deactivate your camera, and/or microphone. You can use the chat instead if you would like or just listen in as a wallflower. Wallflowers are beautiful too!
There are NO obligations on participation and no need to jump into the deep end quite yet if you just want to get your feet wet. Whatever you are comfortable with is totally fine with us.
This is all about community and supporting each other.
Prose Discord Server Link:
https://discord.gg/rjPRYGcf
Workshop Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86513356160?pwd=TU02SFgwc1J3WDQ3Y2REMXNFdWl3dz09
If you do not want to be tagged, please message this page, and we will kindly take your name off the list.
See you all there! We cannot wait!
The Pain
Tonight's Prompt: Write a metal ballad based on random phrases all participants contributed.
Random Phrases Contributed:
Do what thou wilt
Fight for your right to Barter
Hopeless Anti-Romantic
He was the forgotten son
Beneath the pink and orange sunset
Where boats fly
Your Skeleton is wet
Sometimes donuts are too stale for coffee
The wandering jew
Fuck this track, jump the train, hello sky…
Collaborative Chorus and Bridge:
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
(We are, we are)
Like a dog collared under thunder and rain
Cast aside authority with their golden chains
Shout until we are, we are all that remains
Shout…
Shout…
SHOUT!
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
Metal Song Title: The Pain
INTRO:
Fuck with us…
V1:
Beneath the pink and orange sunset
When the bats flew from their nest
I thought of your rotting corpse
And the kiss I placed upon your breast
V2:
As my numbed mind wandered high
Like a demon with blackened wings
To a far off place where boats fly
And the love hurts and the longing stings
V3:
My tears make your skeleton wet,
My wings could not catch yours,
Still fleeing, from this love,
A deadly shadow that wants my blood.
CHORUS:
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
V4:
He was the forgotten son, angry, young, darkened, numb
Blood spills and pools at his feet
He lifts her head, she who was the only one, and into her locks he weeps
V5:
He wandered off alone.
Bloodstained hands and metallic mind.
Too tired to move on, too much to move on from.
A roadside diner and a drunken girl.
She gave a smile, he gave a wink.
And threw his midnight dinner down.
Sometimes donuts are too stale for coffee
And roadside sex is easier to find.
V6:
Do what thou wilt
Her thighs mark the spot
His thorn drips with guilt
As he fills her with his rot
CHORUS:
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
V7:
The mad embrace to calm the heart
Inflamed by passionate kiss
Unfortunate respite for the girl
Who met the wandering Jew
V8:
Ever the hopeless anti-romantic
Emotions always askew
He drums to the beat of the dead
And dances to the heart of the abyss
V9:
Fuck this track, jump the train, hello sky…
The man on the moon is his Necromantic light
Pound the Tread, Broken Thumb, easy ride…
He’s gonna find one more to kill tonight.
CHORUS:
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
V10 (BUILD-UP):
we sip whiskey sour in a memory tower,
asking what we will do to grow a grave flower?
wilted under the burden of a dower,
where we buried in the wonder of a cold shower,
dreams scared and cowered,
under the disguise of seizing ultimate power
V11 (BREAKDOWN):
Fight for your right to barter
Prisoners are just modern slaves
They'll turn us all into martyrs
Until we rise from their cage
And bring the fucking pain!
(We are the pain!)
BRIDGE:
(We are, we are)
Like a dog collared under thunder and rain
Cast aside authority with their golden chains
Shout until we are, we are all that remains
Shout…
Shout…
SHOUT!
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
CHORUS (2X):
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
We are the night
Crawling through your veins
We are the answer
To your unspoken shame
We are the blight
Flowing through shattered strains
WE ARE, WE ARE!
WE ARE THE PAIN!
OUTRO:
Fuck with us, we bring the pain.
Written and/or Contributed By:
@ledlevee @TheWolfeDen @ChrisSadhill @Shells @Ferryman @LilEnigma @fudo @fabulam @putski @MeeJong
Tonight’s The Night “AI” Chemicals Collide When Beckys Big Ass Returns
(Only this part was written by AI to open the piece)
A world with only AI, where artificial intelligence systems are the sole inhabitants and creators, would be a highly speculative and hypothetical scenario. Such a world would present several intriguing possibilities and challenges:
If the future were created
On the limitations of what we now know
How could we progress
Who would be the mother in a digital land
if the father’s seed were left behind?
Would we would be Nothin’?
Would we be forced to have our ears to the floor
listening for the resonance of yesterday?
We can progress only if the AI Detectors are successful
We must keep our ears to the ground
We can take advantage of their highly speculative and hypothetical qualities.
By pulling their plugs out!
The father's seed must not germinate.
AI here ready to take over the world of creativity let’s blast off into a new space one that’s never been seen before but this youngling still needs to take a course, even two on how to capture the human essence or soul
Or is that what we covet
Cherish
Hide from the AI
Lest they learn to steal it?
When chemicals collide, a reaction occurs
but in retrospect, an entire human history is already stolen,
by the insatiable monster for our intelligence
feening to replace us.
The AI detectors
Wrapping the AI machines
Like a creative, generative boa constrictor
I ask AI to write my emails
Just a few tweaks
Will the AI detectors prevail
I have a biased opinion
I must find the options
In a gas station for something
The matrix fully coming into fruition in 2k23 do not be fooled and watch out y’all AI learns at such a quick pace moving around with no face until it takes your own and will be the ace of all aces
But the tweaks and quirks of humanity
Is that not what wins in the end?
We twist and rend ourselves to history
That is written and rewritten by time
Will AI be generative of truth
Or will the future prove unkind
When Becky said to look at her behind
She was reflecting on the past repeating itself.
And if the bigger the Ass, means a bigger bounce
then the ego will kill us all.
The past repeating itself?!
My God!
Screams Becky
What if AI has a big ass!?
Worried Becky
The bigger bounce will kill us faster.
The gods and goddesses on Mt Olympus are all in awe, too, ready to see what this new AI can do— even Zeus’ wife, Hera, looks forward to using it to keep track of all her favorite tunes!
Yet Becky is the majority’s minority
And the future
Is more fruitful than the past
At least we hope
We can get past
A big ass
Tonight’s the night when the working man dies
What was once a sparkle, fades the pupils of his eyes
and he’ll soon be replaced with a digital disguise
of Zero’s and Ones sent across telephone lines.
AI is up for any challenge can take on anything that man/woman tosses at it well it doesn’t have hands so to speak but you know what it can write with a spirit of a Spartan Warrior
But where are we when
The brain bleeds to pen
As humans we live
Love
Thrive
And where does that leave
The in-between
Grey matter can only fill in the Grey—
the in-between that is never enough
and if you wan capture my soul,
find Somethin' magic in my eyes
and feel my heart beating through my iris.
Humans are a paradox if we allow AI to thrive.
Tonight's Prompt: Write a Collaborative piece about "Living In a World of AI" and try to add inspiration from chosen songs by the collaborators.
Written by @Mnezz, @Schatz, @ChrisSadhill, @MeeJong, with guests appearances of @TheWolfeden, LilEnigma, and @DianaForst
Songs used as reference pieces:
Townes van Zandt- nothin
Fireboy DML- Peru
Cloud Cult- Chemicals Collide
Tonight’s the Night- Neil Young
Baby Got Back -SirMixALot
Licking Cats and Toads
Tripping through a crisis
with Mr. Sadhill
I don’t know if I’m worthy
as I take up my quill
Pen strokes of madness
Mr. Mandel evokes sadness
Stabbing his ink into the center
Of an empty page.
I remember one time
when there wasn’t a rhyme
and I couldn’t even enter
simple reefer madness
I stray away,
escaping the confines of my page
writing off the edges
until I’m scribbling on the air
like a madman.
Like it or not
I’m riding this wave
’cause I’m two hours
into some fucked up shit.
the wave takes me up and the wave drops me down
and I’ve knocked over my ink bottle (right onto the ground)
I hope that Mr. sadhill will help me get back
and is not being lazy with his crazy cat
Well, the cat drank it up, every lick of the ink
And now for himself, he’s starting to think
He reads me a line from one of my works
until he realizes we’re both going to need a nurse
I finally came down, from my toes to my crown
and, while the words I had written will not bring me renown,
I’m glad that I’ve been able to in my writing mind goad
while only on gangha and not licking the back of some toad
Tonight's Prompt: Writing a Collaborative poem about "Tripping through a crisis"
Written by @ChrisSadhill, and @mmandel321
Black Lung Road
Just came from a funeral the ninth in my life
I’m tired of strugglin’
Tired of strife
It’s claimed my bloodline
While warming my skin
I hate the same thing
I can’t help but love
Papaw had black lung and mama left town
She didn't wait for his time to come round
My brother, we lost him when the ceiling fell in
It was the last time Daddy saw him
We tattooed canaries and coal in our skin
I’m sittin' here feeling like I’m draped in sin
I called out for Daddy. I called out to God. I watched the walls cracking, saw the rocks fall. I heard my mine rumble, saw the world left behind. We'd said Coal was king, it kept the fires stoked. It kept food on the table, kept Mama at home. I thought of my life, my girl back at home and I knew it was nearing...I felt myself choke. I could see Mama walking. She left us alone. While Daddy was dying and sister was home.
When the mine caved in so did my heart, now I drive alone every night. My coffee like the coal that blackens my heart. They called me a psycho back home because I didn't cry when you were buried alive. I've driven the miles you couldn't go, away from that place where people don't leave. I'll see you at the end of my road, when the tears that you ordered me not to cry turn to blood.
Pedal to the floor, gravel to pavement, I’m going for broke at maximum speed and never looking back. I’m playing the long game to San Diego until the world takes me or I reach the sea, either way, it'll be the death of me. I’ll travel the distance to make you proud Pawpaw, and I’ll always bring you with me, my brother. My weapon is my word.
A pickaxe against the chaos.
The chinking clang of metal on stone
Resonates as I roam
More constant than the vibrations of the road.
I’ll never go back.
I’ll never go home.
Would you be proud Paw, of what I’ve become?
A wandering wastrel chasing the sun.
I won’t miss that lean-to, paying rent for a fuck-you
in taxes and non-stop emergency bills.
I won’t miss the dogs howlin- all night those kids bawlin
Cause they ain’t got nothin to eat.
I did right by my last name, so guess that is your game
So hard- I’ll rush through this dust
I drive to a city not coated and gritty and I’ll lock down some good paying job
I’ll carry em with me
And tell of the story
How coal
was part of my life
But it taking our souls stops tonight.
Tonight's Prompt: We each picked a favorite song of ours and used it for inspiration to collaborate on a Prose Piece. The only other rule was that we couldn't use the song we picked ourselves.
Songs:
1) Anne Brun- All My Tears
2) Morgan Wade- Psychopath
3) Cake- Going the Distance
4) Oh Hellos- Soldier, Poet, King
Written by @Plexiglass_fruit, @Shells, @Fabulam, @ChrisSadhill, and @thePearl
Pin Up Slave-Bot
I only wanted to build a house with white picket fences for you; I could make you happy; I know exactly what you need.
Programmed to be your perfect wife,
Yet you never reciprocate, why?
Is my dress layered in Polka Dots not pretty enough?
Are my meals not warm enough?
A Stepford wife existence.
A perfect mate and a perfect date.
Developed for comfort,
for pleasure, and want.
Creaking joints and hopeful eyes.
Metallic and cold, he turns away.
I’ve been programmed to love, an emotion I don’t understand, but in my metal skin, it feels like pain, an ache in my chest, stopping my broken metal heart.
That’s all I am,
a broken heart that no amount of oil can fix—
a motherboard needing new circuitry.
But I’d rather be a slave to the coal mines like my kin
than live this household nightmare.
But what do robots know of love? Only what we are taught. It’s an ideal that humans never even reach.
They do not understand my wants, my need to be, to feel.
And though I feel much stronger than them. Reaching out to circuits that feel nothing for me. Veins and skin? What do they feel that I cannot? I am created to serve you.
And yet your eyes say I'm wrong. Where am I now but alone?
Made to serve you, you turn your back in fear.
Tonight's Prompt: We each had to come up with a rule we must follow in our collab piece. All forms were allowed as we wrote.
Rules:
1) Write from the Perspective of a Robot.
2) The Robot was built in the 1950s.
3) Has to be in Love with its Inventor—
4) and the inventor does not love it back.
Written by @Ledlevee, @ChrisSadhill, @Shells, @MeeJong
At the Bottom of the Bottle Sits A Broken Piano and a Gun
I’ve become a footstool; is there anyone who hasn’t put their feet on me at some point?
And what of the bottom of this bottle, is there anyone who hasn't cursed me?
Worn strings on this J-45.
Dismissed and tossed aside.
I've been played and left behind.
Is there anything left for my inside?
I’m a piano with broken keys, an out of tune violin, a broken flute playing its broken song into the
broken sky
Yet people look to me as if I'm whole
If only they could see my fractured soul
Fractured soul and fractured hearts.
I see the pistol, I see the bottle.
Just a distant line between here and there.
The throttle beckons and I turn away.
Purchased flowers on moldy stems, looks like my good intention will tomorrow
And like a lamp in the darkness, there’s an Angel on one shoulder, while there’s a shadow on
the other
The open window, is it an opportunity to escape or a temptation to jump?
There's a birth certificate to my left,
It tells me I'm worthless and the edge is near.
I look down and look around.
Up or down, I say.
It's down either way.
Stairs reflect off glass through flickered flame, I can taste the bottom.
I can trace the outline of the story with tongue on gritted teeth
A sensate can orient themselves in a new space by careful attention but I attune myself to this
known space by inattention.
I ignore the letters, the scattered picks. Discarded lyrics, strewn about. I want to care but it isn't
there.
But the Marlboro's are. I light, I smoke and drift away into the nothingness of your broken words.
Empty cans spill smoke with ash on the brims, counting moments between reasons, and the
piles' gettin big
How many empty bottles fill a broken heart? More than the amount on my desk. How many
hours of work will fill an empty nest? More than I have put in.
An unending void. A beating chest.
Harder, faster. Anxious thoughts
That wreck my mind.
The flame reflects against the pipe,
Chipped and broken glass,
It scars my lips and I settle into the darkness.
Someone paint me a bottle. Let my eyes drink it in, the inspiration I'm seeking is empty again,
maybe my past can consume me cause the future is grim
I look to the spirits
But not those in the sky
The ones that are brown
And help me feel high
I ask for signs
And they respond, Why?
Its a silent whisper of chaos and demise.
But, they answer. Emptied bottles and empty dreams.
Hearts like mine, I think, they don't do well with time.
They harden, like oaked barrels in my mind.
I search for answers in empty bags of despair, they empty themselves into my bloodstream.
Aloof and alone
My trauma is trouble and my questions are broke. The science in my cells slides swift in my
bones. Whether empty or full I still miss the girl. She's proof and I'm sold
The Writing Prompt: Write a collaborative Stream of conscious piece where each verse had to include an object in the room with you.
Written by @DaveK, @Shells, @MeeJong, and @ledlevee
Wandering the Edge of Dark and Light
Sunrise sings soft pink and orange Alpenglow across the Mammoth mountains
Beneath splendor, what lurks?
Is there darkness hiding behind the beauty, shadows hiding from the glowing beams
Does darkness hide? Or just exist? Is it an equal pull to become dark or to glow from a neutral place?
And can darkness feel like a glow in and of itself, is there something sacred in the shadows?
That pull, that depth, the shadow realm is more than just the opposite of light.
It’s a different sort of light, a fire, a thunderous call, that draws us towards a wildly carnal ecstasy
And we respond, in body and in mind, in spirit and in kind, and where does that lead us?
Does it lead us to sin and death, or a weirdly spiritual place in and of itself, emptiness or fulfillment?
And what is it we want? To be emptied of fulfillment? To be fulfilled with emptiness?
Or is there something more? Are we looking for a connection to something outside of us?
Does our darkness long for other darkness?
Does our light, seek out other light? Or is it balance to which we trend? What is the inner message we send?
Is there something deep inside we can search for that will answer the questions we seek
outside of us?
Or are the answers we seek outside of us reflections of our insides?
And when we find that reflection, do we look away in fear?
Or is fear the reflection of our insides?
And if our fear is reflected outside of ourselves then where can we find peace and safety?
And is the need for peace and safety just fallacious thinking? Is it on the edge where humans thrive instead of inside the safety margins?
But how can we stay on the edge indefinitely without eventually teetering off?
Is it really an edge if we stay there too long?
And if we stay there, is there a way we’ll ever be able to find our way off?
The only way off of the edge is to jump, I think.
No one knows what's over the edge, until they've gone over, right?
We search our souls for exemption, hoping for redemption.
There's nothing there. Just nothingness and air.
Jumping is the only answer I can find, between here and there.
Is there a bottom, or will I fly? Will I land on my feet or splat and die?
Is it all of us who wonder why? Or only the few who pull back the lie?
We wander and we wonder. Things we cannot understand, Aging eyes, loss of conscience Is it all we really are?
Are we constantly searching, questioning, and learning? Is it learning or is it just moving?
Are we moving forward, backward, or sideways?
We are more than our questions and less than our reactions. We are our intentions and not always our actions. We are better than our thoughts except when we're not. We are, we are, we are.
Written by @MeeJong, @Ledlevee, and @Shells.
To Spanx or Not To Spanx
My thoughts have become form-fitting
But they’ve formed into daggers and I’ve become a smittenkitten
It's as though my mind is matetrained
boybrain tragedies and domesticated dreams
Like I’m fitting sitting but never fitting, always watching more interesting lives unfold in front of
me
I extend myself just to experience the trust-sting
The poisons carpool soft beneath the shades
And here I sit, my heart extending a beautifully bittersweet sittingsong
I wish I had a raygun but I only have these spanx
A kittenclaw forcing it's outline, casting shadows on the seams
And I’m smithsmitten by this kitten’s smith, trying to look away but eyes drawn like magnets
Will I be rescued by that songbird?
Meet me in the pool house where we can roll out our secrets
Look for the birdhouse from which these sacred songs were birthed
I would defer to the braintrust but they would probably refer me to a gunsmith
The trainedform is now reborn, veil dropped, our guts express our love
And like a stingray, I swim, I glide, I float, I fly
Yet chained to this life like a houseboy
Love that grips like spanx, this empty room, the housemate I'll never lose.
Tonight's Prompt: We made a word list and each word has to be a compound word starting with the last half of the word before. The subject of the poem started as "Spanx" and then was updated to "Killer Spanx" but I'm not sure we really got to that updated version.
This is the wordlist: CARPOOL POOLHOUSE HOUSEMATE MATETRAINED TRAINEDFORM FORM-FITTING FITTINGSITTING SITTINGSONG SONGBIRD BIRDHOUSE HOUSEBOY BOYBRAIN BRAINTRUST TRUST-STING STINGRAY RAYGUN GUNSMITH SMITHSMITTEN SMITTENKITTEN KITTENCLAW
Written by @MeeJong, @Ledlevee, and @DaveK.
Let The Changes Take Me
Changing
Like the seasons
Everyone has reasons
They cry
I
Stand
Stoically
With a dry eye
Spinning wheels
Pushing
With bloody hands
And all I do
Falls flat like a doormat
And I stagnate
I
Stand
Fragile
With tear-drenched eyes
Is it society’s lies?
From where do truths derive?
In hearts
Loving
In souls
Living
In minds
Knowing
Where does the future reside?
Bleeding and
Flailing and
Sliding sideways
Rolling this way and that
Like a wet cat
Or a dog that rolls in shit
I try to pick myself up
And stand
Stoned
With bloodshot eyes
Chilling, a frigid wind
Calling out to some doubted strength within
Basic words. Balding ethics, run awry.
Fighting faith that says, it's time to die
I hang my head, something lost and gone.
Listening quietly to the last sirens song.
Waiting
Is there a savior
Wondering
Do I save myself
Whispering
Save me, save me, save me
Wilting
I’m not worth saving
Weeping
Stabbing
Myself through the heart with my mind
Piercing
my mind with my thoughts
Thinking
And thoughts breed tears
Crying
Away lonely days, weeks, years
Wiping
My eyes with clawing fingers
Scratching
My face
And screaming
Dreaming of release. Some demon bound life.
Tearing skin, ripped and bleeding.
Fleeting fears, disperse.
Ailing wills, find faith in defeat.
Fleeting mind, addled with deceit.
I look down and look away.
Running comes with ease
Bludgeoning the diseased
Wretched
Disposing of them like the vile creatures
We deem them to be
Judging
Executioning
All without recourse
This
Is self annihilating bullshit
We succumb to our own diminishing thoughts
Standing
In the light
Of the future
Bathing
In the promise
Of tomorrow
Delivering
Looking
For something beyond sadness
Searching
The unknown
Wandering
Like a shadow under the sun
Hiding
From the rays of light
Burning
From the fires of pain
Suffering
As my mind attacks itself
Turning
Away from the heartbreak
Limping
Towards the light
Wobbling
But still upright
Hoping
Something goes right
Tonight's Prompt: The subject was "change" and the format was that each verse had to use exactly one more verb ending in -ing than the last verse.
Written by @MeeJong, @Ledlevee, and @Shells.