misnomers.

contradictions.

euphemisms.

fucking-pathetic-isms.

yeah, maybe i have some fucked condition where my arms are always either on fire or as numb as my empathy.

yeah, maybe i live in a house where the only relevant dinner conversations vary between divorce and ambiguous cynicism.

yeah.

maybe sometimes i lie on my bedroom floor for hours.

but that’s not why i’ve run away.

that’s not why i’ve been AWOL for so long.

it isn’t because of sadness.

it isn’t because of self-loathing.

it isn’t even because the floor is comfortable as fuck.

it’s because

it’s because

i’m

apathetically

unconditionally

horribly

irrationally

inevitably

scared.

of what?

well,

maybe it’s because i happened to luck out

because i happened to write something that isn’t shit

scared that maybe it’s done.

i’ve hit top.

oh bottom!

i’ve hit you so much

i could call you a slut without even blinking.

but top?

fuck this is scary.

it’s scary being appreciated.

it’s scary having things expected of you.

it’s scary to not be useless.

fuck i must sound crazy spouting all of this

but i can’t help it.

i have words.

i do.

but me?

i’m just a person

just another guy

just human.

and i will admit to all of you

that yes!

I

AM

FUCKING

SCARED.

I go over the words

One by one

As if counting change

Naming stars

And animals

Until it’s perfect

Or perfect enough

But I’ll never really know

Art and truth

Will continue to argue

And wrestle

With angels

But what do they know

Those winged beings

We never see

But believe in

Like love

Wind

Perfect ideas

Invented by imperfect people

Sitting in wheelchairs

Theorizing the beginning

Of everything

If 6 was 9, everything would be fine

I would be more or less in my prime

Not to say I'm not, but check the rhyme

I'd be from a different generation of Hip Hop

I wouldn't be so familiar with Scott La Rock

I wouldn't have been breakdancing out on the Block

I would be young as hell and still in my teens

I'd be hypnotized by the bling, bling

I'd be as young as my first child was supposed to be

Before he got aborted, but that's history...

Some say I was born way ahead of my time

But VIRGO would still be my sign

if 3 decades later the planets had still aligned

But I'd be less wise,if the 6 in my life was actually a 9

By: Tony B. Conscious

copyright 2015

“I wrote a book.”

This statement does not define your career as an author. It is the point at which your career really begins.

As indie authors, we all are in the business of selling. It’s not just about writing a great book. It should not be a one-way street. Give and take is golden.

There has to be humanity in this “social” media world.

Practice makes practice, like a doctor who practices medicine. They do their best but there are no guarantees. There is no exact science in marketing a book. There is no “perfect” because we are human, which makes us vulnerable to making mistakes. All we can do is our best. There is something notable about that.

Being an indie author leaves us vulnerable.

We put so much of ourselves into this and so much of it we can’t share with the people closest to us. Friends and family who want to hear about the books are rare. It can feel like “my books” are a dirty subject. Writing is still our job, but you can’t really talk about it. It’s not unlike having an elephant in the room. Most people work jobs where they are asked about them. In our case, most of the time the subject is avoided and it is intentional.

Sad but true. 



What I have learned ever since I started marketing my first book is don’t expect your friends and family to be interested. Expectations will lead to disappointment.

...

For the full article by novelist and returning contributor, Brenda Perlin, please visit The Official Prose. Blog later today at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

My starwalking poet brother blues fan

Is drunk on street dreams in Yankeeland

And I'm coming down too far gone to play

But I can't seem to put my guitar away

Because there's so many people to be sung

And no time before the last dog is hung

Public relations to appease

Fires to build before we freeze

Finding out if we're the cure or the disease

Could keep us occupied indefinitely

The strobe light in my soul goes mad in the Fall

A face for each flash; I see you all

With love no one could sing, so I let it lie

Light a cigarette and blow smoke at the sky

Because booze or your favourite drug

Won't sweep those feelings under the rug

Cyclone strong and Spring breeze subtle

And therein lies the trouble

Well, is it you or time or me

If there's a culprit for someone or something to be?

My starwalking poet brother blues fan

Is drunk on street dreams

in Yankeeland...

you were always bleeding out moon beams over the kitchen sink or digging up soil in the backyard because you thought it would make you something holy. you liked it best when i called you a tattered king, you were the only one i knew that could wear their mess so bravely. you taught me scars could be a second skin as long as you didn’t pick at them. when the demons try to communicate, you don’t have to respond. they’re just speaking out of turn. when the angels try to communicate, don’t ever respond. they’re just filling up your wishing well with water and leaving you to drown at the bottom. you told me my poetry sounds a lot like slamming doors and it tastes like after a nosebleed when you can’t wash away the metallic aftertaste. you told me my bruises were just sunflowers trying to bloom from under the skin but if i touch them too much i’d stunt their growth. i liked when you came around because it all went silent and you liked it because it made your brain work again. so we sat on the floor and i rehashed conversations with fallen angels that painted their hands like ladybugs and you told me about conversations with dying stars that were always pumping you full of other galaxies so you’d survive on other planets because heaven knows you were too good for this place. you promised you’d take me with you when the time came and we’d find a place where it’s spring all the time so my hands would never freeze and you’d never have to worry about lakes drying up again.

all i can remember is that you spoke in starbursts. you were born under the shade of elm trees and for the longest time you were convinced you hatched from an egg. i never believed you, said you would never break something that fragile. you held sugar on the tip of your tongue and i watched it dissolve and made wishes on all the granules. you tasted like the kind of water you only see on brochures, all magic and no bite. i can still remember touching your canine teeth and the way they were duller than the butter knives in your kitchen drawer. we didn’t believe in psychics or palm readers so we wove our own stories into our lifelines and tried to find a way to tie them together. you can be in california and i can still be stuck in this no-name city but sometimes my fingers twitch and i know you’re reaching out for a broken drum stick or trying to make origami cranes again. i tie red ribbons around my wrist and if anybody asks why i try to explain that i can’t paint the whole town red for you but i can paint myself whatever color you’d like tonight. you put blue streaks in your hair and neither of us talk about how it clashes with everything you wear. we live through colors because we felt black-and-white before each other. we send photographs, we write letters, we pretend, we invent, we believe, we dream this impossible thing and keep it in between pillow talk. you paint one of your nails sea foam green, i paint one of mine crime-tape yellow, tell you i’m a walking murder investigation and your fingerprints are all over the evidence. you make me promise to keep it that way.

The reoccurrence of violence

Struggles and despises

Constant like the rain

Deeper than the tide is

We mask our fear in courage

To hide our shameful thoughts

Covered in false pride

We create emotional droughts

The sweetest things in life

We often over look

The deepest things in life

Are often found in books

I look deep within

To see if I am alive

I look too far inside

And can barely find life

What matters is always personal

True value is so subliminal

Each breath is worth the last

The future comes way too fast

Prose. Partner and an undeniable cornerstone of the Prose. community, @rh, recently asked you all to participate in a poetry challenge with $250 "on the table" as incentive.

He created the challenge (theprose.com/challenge/2379) early last month. With the help of some colleagues and, after several days of deliberation, he has decided on a winner.

Who will it be?

There is no one better to ask than the creator of the challenge himself, @rh:

Before anything—A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the challenge. I have been nothing less than floored at the turnout of entries and the talent on display. To the super-swell individuals who helped me narrow down the winner: another big thank you.

What would compel someone to cough up his own cash for the sake of a poem?

I’ve said it before elsewhere but it is worth saying again, writing has always been good to me but I haven’t always been good to it. This is my way, aside from writing, to make up for that.

Poetry in particular has on no uncertain terms saved my life, both in reading and writing. Before Prose. I had not written a single serious poem in close to a decade. It wasn’t until I dipped my toe in the water (on a piece titled “one final heartbreak”) again here that I ended my estrangement between my first love.

Poetry, the exemplar of what heights the written word can achieve for hundreds of years over, has in recent time fallen by the wayside. Certainly more people write it than they read it and that by itself is enough to lament over. I want to read more poetry.

No, fuck that. I want to read more good poetry.

One more thing before we get to the winner.

Kelly Knox (@kwknox), in addition to being a valuable set of eyes as a judge, will be doing an analysis of the winning piece AND other entries of note. Please take the time to view his contribution, as it is just as valuable in my eyes as the money.

Deliberation was hinged on balancing three basic criteria listed on the challenge-- form, content, and fire.

Form:

Did the writer demonstrate a command of language? Rhythm? Did they push a new form or execute something more traditional?

Content:

What did the writer convey? Did it matter?

Fire:

What kind of feeling was behind the work? Did it smolder, explode? Did it leave something behind for the reader beyond images?

To this end, I feel the winner is clear:

"Antigone" by @EBJohnson. (Look for the link in the comments below.)

In her work the writer took a chance with experimenting with a new form which drove the piece forward. By the end, the imagery was with you still and it managed to do what good writing should do for other writers—push you to do better.

Kelly Knox will go into more depth with the entry as well as the other notable submissions.

...

Please visit The Official Prose. Blog for Kelly Knox's full in-depth analysis of the top "Poetry Matters" entries, as well as clickable links to the works mentioned here, later today at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

There's only one way to live life:

without regard for anyone else.

This is not about being selfish.

It means:

dining on free-range cheeseburgers,

drinking fat-free thunder,

swimming in lightning,

breathing 100% pure love,

knowing that *any* thot is yours,

seeing what no one else has seen,

crying loose every stab of pain,

running under the sea,

flying in a black dream.

There's only one way to live life,

and *you* get to write it. . . .