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!

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

(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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.