The Illusion of Choice
A man picks up his phone,
And it feels like something new...
It's as heavy as a boulder,
Right behind him is the view
Of his city,
Wet from rain treatment...
As Phil turns 'round his phone
He's assured that it's indeed the one
That has been assigned by sight...
So it's Phil now at the window,
Gawking...
He is
Eking out the night...
...Beside him is a half a pint
That burns his throat when
Quickly drunk...
Downstairs upon his
Workbench waits
An envelope that's not been torn...
It's the voters registration letter...
All his family in that jagged tree
Has assured him that if he decides
On a candidate who is deeming to be
As a shining star for our countries vest
Then he's deigned to furnish
For the ballot box...
As you must lay down with a
Snappy thrust
What you think it's right
In a Swing State's patch...
This feeling of pure
Circumstance
Is a stirring jolt
Of a college thrill,
And it makes hairs dance
On the back of neck
Where they slide the pick...
Where they slide the pick...
O, If I were a Leninist
All dressed in black...
The ways I ache, and the lack of luck
Would just make my list,
And the coliseum
Where those runners run
Would add more to thought;
Never feel store bought
Where the crowds would come
When their underwhelmed...
For a quick bloodshed,
Or a bath and jack
Where we yank the fat
'til it's less then loose...
A man picks up his phone,
And it feels like something's
Older...
It's as heavy as a breaking sweat,
Right behind him is the closed out scene,
Wet from rain
As Phil whips 'round in shock...
He's self assured that she's been gawking...
Now he's
Eking out the night for spite...
A silent pistol shot is bled...
He can stare upon her ice white walls...
Her tits of parables and ferns in pleasant
Plaza window cases...
...Beside him is a half a pint
That burns his throat when
Quickly drunk...
Downstairs upon his
Workbench waits
An envelope that's not been torn...
7/13/24
Bunny Villaire
From an intro inspired by Tears for Fears, into a moonlit buzz of wonder, and then on to two new bloods that absolutely steal the show with their words to ride shotgun across the moon so graceful, into a summer to greet the juxtapostion of death against dread.
Here's the link to Prose. Radio's Episode 55.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZo89vojB_E
And here are the requested pieces featured.
https://www.theprose.com/post/822872/time-too-short
https://www.theprose.com/post/823028/a-summer-passes
And.
As always.
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose team
Shape Shifter
She's as feline as they come...
A lithe leg dangles from the covers
Unmasking as it hovers
Her flush of amorous erotical ascents...
The bushmen drew her neck upon their walls
After they had spent themselves, and dried out
Their reserve...
She funneled breath into their hands,
And made them understand
That there was more to foraging then simple
Stomachs could receive...
They would try to conjure her by evenings...
She's a monolith...
A crest...
Her essence resuscitates the ranks!...
Watch her as she moves with little strain...
A bird like no other,
Opening her wingspan on
The highest perch...
O, now she's burning...
She's a fire on the hill!...
...Take me lover, and I'll lay
My heart down at your feet...
You send me screeching to a halt
Each time
Our eyes by chance do meet...
Want to bury my head into your heat,
And open you to air...
Hear your singing voice ring out
While we ignite over the waves
That foam and crest
Just like your shuddering flesh
When I am kneeling
On your stage...
7/12/24
Bunny Villaire
For Mavia
Art by Tatsiana Yelistratava
A closer look...
The man walks up, and stands by a lake...
Man standing by a lake looks down...
The lake is clear...
The lake is wide...
It stretches like a flat cool blade
Out into distant horizon line...
Ir seems so calm...A bird flies out...
There's stones beneath it's still, wide face...
Red, green, and brown...kelp floats about...
Uh oh...Here we go!...
The lake is doin a jig, hey, shit...
A swirling eddy has opened up and the man's becoming
Fascinated...
"What's this he says?..."
A funnel spout of water ripples; wraps around
Like arm in arm...
The sun reflects in spots, and shimmies...
His mind's eye dances down the drain...
There's writhing fish, and algae, coral spinning
Within the soup that's churning mad...
The man is in vortex of thought...
Watching colleague stretch her back...
She asks him why he asks such things...
He tell her cuz he thinks too much...
He's on his phone; chats with his boss...
His boss tells him he'll pay his miles...
A rainbow fish brawls with the tide...
Man feels an ache within left eye...
His boss tells him record your miles...
Fat sun now dips like tongue of dog...
The man is plunged down in the eddy...
Maybe he'll come out other side?...
He fights the onslaught of swirling pools
That soak his jacket, and fill his shoes...
While death is nearing, a voice approaches
Out of the darkness...so warm and rich...
It sounds quite husky, with cave acoustics...
It asks him with a funny swagger
To let his last breath free and come...
Share in the new life at the bottom...
An epiphany he'd never guessed...
The sunset cascades out from water;
Changing the sky from blue to gold...
The boss's voice from tunnel echos...
"I want to pay you...Just chart your miles..."
The lake is clear...The man is gone...
Two birds fly in and skim the waves...
7/9/24
Bunny Villaire
a supernatural reckoning
While on her walk
She found on the ground
A beautiful feather
From a red-tailed hawk
She immediately accepted
This favorable sign
Messages from the spirit realm
Are often unexpected
She believed this feather
Was confirmation
That we are all
Mystically interconnected
Nature
Humans
Earth
Spirit
At the very same moment
The girl bent down
To accept this feather gift
A hawk
Dove down
And plucked
A fear-frozen chipmunk
Off a nearby rock wall
While its clenched meal
Twisted and squeaked
The hawk swiftly flew off
And out of sight
The feather dropped
Out of the girl's hand
As she decided
This was no other-worldly revelation
No message here
Other than simply:
‘It is not a good day to be a chipmunk’
The Box. Only way out, hidden, secret codes, moments and conversation, and Last.
In number 54, Mavia sends in another guest narration with her signature sound over more signature pieces you'll read on Prose., and nowhere else like it. From a Challenge from Last, titled, 'The Box,' five pieces are featured, and we're here to tell you, these five pieces are five fantastic features from our pages.
Here's the link to Prose. Radio to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeFLfe0NQ7g
And here are the pieces featured.
https://www.theprose.com/post/817327/the-box https://www.theprose.com/post/817596/my-hidden-box https://www.theprose.com/post/817543/on-the-top-shelf-of-my-closet
https://www.theprose.com/post/818141/the-box https://www.theprose.com/post/818635/children-like-them
And.
As always.
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose. team
Kenin
There are good people.
My husband has Parkinson's. Every day of the week, regardless of the weather (excluding blizzards and hurricanes), he walks 5K. I walk with him on weekends but only when the temperature is below 55. I love our walks; the nature around us is beautiful. But for exercise? I prefer to be out of the heat and humidity.
He prefers the outdoors. He walks every day because exercise is the only thing all the Parkinson's neurologists agree slows the progression.
Slows. It is still progressing.
When we walk, we hold hands. Not only has that always been our normal, now it keeps the tremor in his right hand from affecting his walk. When he walks alone, he bounces a lacrosse ball. It helps with dexterity and distracts the tremor as well.
He is well-known in our town. People wave at him from their cars, sometimes stopping to say how inspiring he is. He has been hugged by strangers who see him in other locations and recognize him, "you're the guy with the ball!" More than one person has used him as an example to a child as someone with discipline and drive.
This morning, he was walking with his ball and it hit a rock, careening into a hole about four feet deep. The hole is covered by a board, but, obviously, there's enough space for a ball to fall through. Cars zipping by, he lay on the ground and stuck his arm through the hole. He couldn't reach it. I suspect at this point his tremor was a bit uncontrollable as well (he walks before he takes his medication because the side effect is his right leg twists inward making walking very uncomfortable). He gave up and continued walking home, sans ball.
Maybe three minutes later, the time it took to walk from one side of the high school to the other, a pick up truck pulled over and parked. A nicely dressed, clean cut man (my husband's description) got out and started walking toward my him.
Ball in hand.
Apparently, he's a cop in our town and sees my husband often; one of the many who waves back - my husband always waves when the police drive by. He saw what happened.
"How did you get it?" my husband asked.
"I moved the board and jumped in the hole."
Nice clothes and all.
My husband thanked him repeatedly and has told me I must remember his name: Kenin.
He was so moved as he told me the story. He kept sipping his water to calm himself. I was crying as soon as the pick up truck parked and the guy got out, figuring what was coming although I assumed he was gifting him a ball, not that he'd climbed in a hole to get my husband's.
For every person who makes me angry and sad because they are impatient and unkind with my husband, I must remember there are good people around, too.
Marbleization
There is an exquisite palatial colonnade rising from a granite stylobate--thus, a foundation and its marbled columns. A lofty horizontal mezzanine of contiguous lintel perches well above even the greatest men's heights--an entablature of architrave, frieze, and ouroboric cornice--that comes full circle for the inquisitive, orbiting eyes that follow it.
This ancient structure has withstood the acidic tincture of time. It sits empty, its very structure remaining as its only raison d'être, now a self-referential monument to itself. But it haunts careful observers as a monument to hidden things.
There is a serene beauty, yet this is a deceit that belies terrible truths. The laminar ambiance is riddled with an insidious turbulence: there is something foul unfolding that is unholy, riding the inhuman convections of an ill wind.
The veins in the columns' marble come together in the mind's eye, depicting what went on here yestergo. As an inner vision dilates, accommodating to a confluence of illusory cracks, lines, and marbleization, this erstwhile monument of grandness becomes an entablature of horror.
The first column's imperfections present a tableau of anguish on the irregular faces that begin to stand out.
The second column comes into focus with a history of the ruthless quashing of insurrections.
The third column is rife with the machinations of dismemberment as a punitive education for those who learned quickly.
And so it goes, like the Stations of the Cross, each tall monolithic column continuing the parade of tragedy, pathos, and misery--all man-made--like was this place of hidden history. It stands as a monument to Man's inhumanity.
The final column, standing before the first from which this tour of psyche-blistering began, signifies how an end is merely a beginning of repeated anthropomorphic cruelties. There is as much distinction between this last and the first as there is between any two randomized columns and their nightmares.
This final column depicts the erection of this edifice and those who struggled, suffered, and died building it--for whom?
It was built for me!
And it was built for those who know why it must be torn down. The reasons are as plain as the lifelines on the palms of one's dirty, damned-spotted hands. And fear not, "those ignorant of history doomed to repeat it," for it does not matter.
Night Toucher
I saw you crawling
Here and there
Amongst the graves of man...
I called you back...
Your face was rare...
The blood from my veins ran...
A parasite with cup
Shaped mouth!...
A man with insect eyes!...
You wore a penetrating gaze...
That tripped all
Wires inside...
Both bulbs upon your
Puckered face
Held static left and right...
I felt that I'd
Fallen asleep,
And woke up in a fright...
...And sure enough,
Right there I was with
Cold remote in hand...
I lay upon my bloated couch...
An exile from
Far off lands...
The TV stared me down
So bright...
I felt it's toxic touch...
I'd fallen hostage overnight
Like some
Anemic lush...
Just where were you,
My windblown heart...
My star-eyed, lone wolf girl?...
You left me tossed
Down in the dirt...
My corkscrewed mind unfurled...
I lost my license to survive...
I drifted over waves...
Upon a stormy baleful sea...
I struggled on for days...
When oil clouds and tempest cleared
I came out with resolve...
...Now here I am,
On my two feet!...
I walk with sailor's gait...
And if I cross you
On the street you'll
Come to know your fate.
7/7/24
Bunny Villaire
Play Me Chords
You can drag me by the heels
All the way from here and there...
You can sandwich what you feel
Inside the confines of your lair...
Shoving money in your pockets...
Filling bags for future vaults...
...But there's something so elusive
That gives chimes a nighttime waltz
And the boy with brown skin knows it,
While the girl he's courting comes...
To be swallowed in the darkness
Where their cosmic pining runs...
Play me chords to ride tomorrow
When my glass is lashed by rain!...
Play me chords that defeat sorrow
And remove the heavy strain
Of this burden, and it's cousins
With their multitude of gills
That deprive a man of breathing
'til he's free of earthly ills...
You can send your thugs of torment
To come down upon my head...
You can summon me to trial,
Taking care my rights are read...
All the legions of your lesions
Only manifest in droves....
...They'll return whipped to a foment
That will massacre your pose...
Look no further to the future...
There's a testament that's right
Opened, as it floats above you
Always level with your sight...
Play me chords to ride tomorrow
When my glass is lashed by rain!...
Play me chords that defeat sorrow
And remove the heavy strain
Of this burden, and it's cousins
With their multitude of gills
That deprive a man of breathing
'til he's free of earthly ills...
As all prophesies play out
From the tiny to the tall
We are led to this arena
Where all dominoes may fall,
But the guards they have patrolling
Fall asleep from time to time...
...We will rise, and make a motion
As the pregnant sun declines...
We just need a toothy soundtrack
That will gather ears of corn...
It requires an alliance
With our earthly flesh and Lord...
Play me chords to ride tomorrow
When my glass is lashed by rain!...
Play me chords that defeat sorrow
And remove the heavy strain
Of this burden, and it's cousins
With their multitude of gills
That deprive a man of breathing
'til he's free of earthly ills...
7/7/24
Bunny Villaire