Prose Poem

Okay, it is time to introduce you to the hybrid known as "prose poetry". Not really a poem, and not really prose, this homogenous mixture of the two is in prose form, but has the lyrical qualities and rhythm of poetry. Let's see what you make of this one.

BACKGROUND: I wrote this one a few weeks ago and while it started out to be about someone I knew a long time ago, it of course wound up being about me (much like all art is mostly about the artist), and my inability to let go of things, to admit defeat, and the need I have to solve every situation. Enjoy!


Those in need of salvation are dangerous. At first it is flattering, to repair something so broken. It is an apotheosis, to pull a soul from so near death. Beguiling in its nature, pity breeds love, a kind of sick love that leaves you breathless.
They regard you with such idolic adoration, that even the whisper of your name sounds like a prayer.
It is a gross intoxication, like the taste of rotten fruit, yet so addictive, some think it is the closest they will come to God.
The curtain flips on you in an instant, from crimson to a dusty black. There are only two paths ahead and both are grim.
Either you grow to hate the sound of prayers, and whispers, even the sound of your own name said so pleadingly in despair. Or you live short days, trying to save them, from unknown foes and mirrors in their heads.
Both roads end in failure, and the fall from grace is thorny and red. The loss is so inevitable, it leaves only annihilation and horror in its stead.
Gingerly you stand amid the wreck of what you used to be, cutting your feet on broken dreams. There is no one for miles, old friends and lovers long left behind; a small trade for such godly worship as you have received.
Yet you are deceived, fool, because the battle was always destined to be lost. And while you wasted years trying to save them, there was no one left to save you in the end.

In need of a title.

All right everyone, I know I've had a bit of a hiatus, spent the last week enjoying life, rather than writing about it, but two days ago this came to me, and it might be the best damn thing I've ever written. Tell me what you think and give me a title idea if you can. I'm at a loss.

Background: This is in response to a prompt for a sestina in my poetry class. A sestina is one of the hardest poems to write because the rhyme scheme is very specific. Each line must end with a series of the same six words and the scheme goes like this:

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE

Enjoy and let me know what you think. I'm really proud of this one. 

Unforgiving Dream (temporary)

I remember the first day I saw the knife

Small little thing, tucked away, hiding the sharpness…

Its glisten drew my eyes, like in some “Sweeny” dream

And beckoned me to take it in my own idle hand.

The handle felt warm, fleshy, as though some  body

Had already held it pressed against their skin.

I smiled, coyly, and touched it to my own skin,

The blade’s cold, quiet danger, made the knife

Feel to me like your caress. My body

Became listless, my senses lost their sharp

Bite, and when you touched my hand

You, me, the knife, all three fell into dreaming.

And as we slept, we all three dreamed:

I of your sinew, muscle, flesh and skin,

You dreamed of holding someone else’s hand,

Between us, with hollow dreams, slept silently: the Knife.

Should it have tossed in its sleep, its sharpness

Would have cut us both in our slumber. Three bodies

Intertwined, each one a slave to our own body’s

Needs. Yet truth does not come from dreams

And we must both awaken, with a sharp

Snap of the head and a flush of the skin,

Back to reality where between us is only a knife,

And two severed hearts, unable to handle

Even the slightest touch of a human hand.

Both trapped inside our own body

Of lies, and the only solution… the knife.

I believed, for a moment, the dream

That I was worthy to crawl inside your skin

But you are well protected, your edges sharp,

Unforgiving. Yet I tried to file down the sharp-

Rough parts of you, and somehow hold your hand.

I let you take me, and felt you inside my skin.

No longer a foreign prisoner of my own body,

I’ll weave real from the fabric of the dream

With sheer will power and if needs be, the knife.

Within my lonely life just for a moment, somebody

Took my hand and pulled me into a dream.

It all started and ended with a knife. 

In the Heat of Battle

Written today, hot off the press as I would say. Don't judge it too harshly, it needs more revision.

The web is thick with sieve and fluid.

Clinging to my flesh,

Osmosis through the skin,

Seeping into my blood,

Crushing my lungs,

Filling my heart,

Blinding me,

Freezing my tongue.

I’m lost in the thickness of it

The rotten smell

Creeps in my nose

Traveling through the cavity

Fogging my brain

Stealing the rich thick color

Killing the neurons

Blocking the synapses…

I can’t think!

I can’t breathe!

Where do I turn?

What do I do?

I am a pile of flesh

With no working organs

This mess I’m in

Is killing me…