#prose-poetry β Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #prose-poetry, aggregated by home.social.
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To try and be a porous door, demanding consistent boredoms to vanish, translucent distractions take away the dimmer light, communication is a fog, a free form within, outside is the assumption, I canβt stand to repeat my problem out loud, but in action there is a crowd who will notice hostess decieving
#Creativewriting #Prosepoetry #art #poetry -
ππππ πΎππππππ π: βπ©ππππ πππ π»ππ πβ ππππ πππ π¬πππππ πΉπππ πΊπππππ -
". . . but the edges have eroded, bluntered and edgeless. Warfarin-thin. A swiftwater rush, . . . "
https://waywordsstudio.com/fiction/esmond-blood-and-tide/
#poetry #poetrycommunity #originalpoetry #writingcommunity #prosepoetry #flashfiction #shortreads #experimentalprose #fiction
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Shaving: A Greenland Diaries Flash Fiction
Nigel couldnβt believe his beard had gotten this long.
It was down to his chest, tangled and frizzy. It was black, but almost brown at its feathery edges. He could hear his father yelling at him to trim it, his high, almost husky voice echoing in his head. His father was ex military. He loved the clean shaven look and forced Nigel to follow that hairless motif, even though Nigel hadnβt picked up a weapon until the Drum started. Now, he always had one with him. The ravaged green world demanded it, even with the Drum destroyed and the Unnamed no longer hunting him at night.
Nigel wondered if his father was still alive in the nursing home in Saint Louis Park. He had barely been alive before the Drum. It wouldnβt make any sense for him to be spared.
Nigel had been lucky to hide in his Golden Valley home for most of the apocalypse. He had left for a few weeks to join survivors fighting an Unnamed by a lake that kept attacking them. It had been a hard fought battle. Only Nigel and a few others survived. None of them had the appetite for further confrontations with the Unnamed, and they all retreated to their former hiding spots. Those had been the last people heβd spoken to, except for a band of soldiers passing through who told him the Drum was destroyed, and the Unnamed were nonviolent unless attacked.
Nigel felt his dark, reflectionless face. His features were gaunt, weathered by a lack of nutritious food. His cheeks were flat, his nose large, his forehead dry. His lips were cracked and bloody in places. The weather had been fine. It was the fear eroding his flesh. The constant worry of the Unnamed returning, or a crazed Reanimated storming through the neighborhood.
Slowly, above his white bathroom sink, he began to trim his beard. There was no electricity for his razor, so he resorted to a pair of orange handled scissors he kept in his office for trimming documents. They were sharp, but loud as they crushed the fibers between its blades. In minutes, most of his beard was reduced to a prickly edge beneath his fingers. He sighed.
βI guess itβs time. They said it was safe.β
Ahead of him hung a wool blanket, yellow and brown, duct taped to the wall in miscellaneous streaks of silver adhesive. It dangled just above the sink.
It blocked the mirror.
Heβd put it up during the first week, when he noticed the shadows watching him. Now, with the Drum destroyed, survivors passing through told him mirrors and reflections were back to normal. They no longer held phantoms.
He slowly reached for the fabric, then stopped.
βI canβt do it.β
He walked out of the bathroom with a shrug.
βI canβt believe itβs okay.β
I really enjoy writing about these quieter moments in the Greenland Diaries, where characters are learning to live again after a horrifying ordeal that shook the foundations of humanity. These bits of flash fiction give me ample opportunity for it. You can learn more about the mainline series right here. Thank you for reading!
#author #blogging #bodyHorror #books #cosmicHorror #darkFantasy #darkFiction #decay #fantasy #fiction #flashFiction #grief #hauntedLandscapes #horror #horrorWriting #identity #isolation #liminalSpaces #machines #memory #monsters #obsession #patrickWMarsh #poeticProse #prosePoetry #psychologicalHorror #shortStories #speculativeFiction #survival #teraryHorror #theGreenlandDiaries #transformation #trauma #weirdFiction #writing
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I Canβt Leave: A Greenland Diaries Flash Fiction
Rob had memorized the pattern of abandoned cars in the parking lot outside the building. A red van, a blue truck, a few white sedans, silent and sun faded, lay scattered across the velvet sheet of greenery in the basin around the office tower heβd been hiding in. Heβd been fixing a boiler in the basement when the Drum began. Most of the building was empty that first night. Everyone had already left for the day. Only a handful were torn apart beneath the Unnamedβs obscene claws.
And then the office was empty.
Except for Rob.
He had always imagined himself different at the end of the world. At six foot five, all elbows and height, with an unkempt beard dropping to his chest and a perpetually worn Minnesota Twins cap, heβd figured heβd look the part. He had thought of himself as stereotypically male, chew, flannels, and a quiet, lumbering confidence. But when the monsters arrived and stalked the hallways, he learned quickly how fragile that image was. Back on his grandfatherβs farm, he and his friends in their local anti government militia had joked that if the world ever collapsed, theyβd be ready.
But once the Unnamed descended and began mutilating and resurrecting their victims, the only thing Rob grew adept at was hiding.
For someone so tall and broad, sneaking through the office should have been impossible, yet heβd shaped himself to its shadows. He learned to bend beneath desks, wedge between bookshelves, flatten against cubicles. Even when the Reanimated drifted through, he found ways to slip past them, though other survivors told him not to fear them. Those survivors were nothing like him. They werenβt afraid of the shadows. They fought them day and night. Heβd heard their skirmishes echoing through the Drum. Even now, with it finally over, the night outside carried only wind, insects, and the soft groan of the building settling.
How were they so brave?
A few survivors had passed through recently and told him he could go home, or even find work with the Reestablishment. But he couldnβt force himself to leave the gray block of the office. Every time he packed his few supplies, slung the rifle heβd taken off a dead soldier, and started toward home, he barely made it a few blocks. A shadow, a rattle of debris, a shift in the wind, anything could spook him, and heβd sprint back to the familiar corners of the office floor.
Day or night didnβt matter.
He just couldnβt leave.
Thank you for reading my flash fiction from the Greenland Diaries. In this story, I wanted to show a character you might expect to be strong because of how they postured their identity, but when the apocalypse appeared they realized it was all an image without integrity. They werenβt actually built for the conflict they thought they were seeking. Monsters are an excellent mirror.
#author #blogging #bodyHorror #books #cosmicHorror #darkFantasy #darkFiction #decay #fantasy #fiction #flashFiction #grief #hauntedLandscapes #horror #horrorWriting #identity #isolation #liminalSpaces #literaryHorror #machines #memory #monsters #obsession #patrickWMarsh #poeticProse #prosePoetry #psychologicalHorror #shortStories #speculativeFiction #survival #theGreenlandDiaries #transformation #trauma #weirdFiction #writing
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βIn front of the United Cigar Store this evening the men were gathered to burn dirigibles, sink battleships, blow up dynamite works and, all in all, savor the very bacteria in their porcelain mouths that would someday stop them cold.β
--From Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
That man was tripping. It might have been brain chemicals alone, but nobody else used those chemicals like that.
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#ProsePoetry
TrΓ€ume tanzend
auf der BΓΌhne der RealitΓ€ten -
Great stuff! I can't recommend enough!
OK, I'll try, but it's like I'm trying to slam dunk a basketball, when I can't jump 6" off the ground...
You'll love his books. They're great. Life-lessons. Tragedy. Comedy. And they're a good deal. Did I mention cheap?
#ShortFiction #ProsePoetry #Vonnegut did I mention #KurtVonnegut ?
https://www.DeepFried.storehttps://beige.party/@wampusmm/114491746174829658
#Bookstodon #SuggestMeABook #GreatWriting #WritersOfMastodon -
#prosepoetry
Dunkle Wolke
deine Traurigkeit
in jedem Tropfen -
Fibrous ribbons convulsing in the arm of a peasant who stabs the vicious mockery of a ruler.