More from the Words That Move digital writing sessions with Max Stossel.
These are sessions where we talk for 30 min based on a prompt, write for about 35, and, if called, share for the remainder.
WTM – 1/26/25
prompt: ownership
title: The Owners
When he passed;
Quickeningly
Did old testament call
And those to whom he belonged
Came for what was owned;
Taxes took the chattels;
To Cancer the organs;
Likeness, shoulders, ribs – claimed
By digestive Radiance
And what left over
To the Air breathed
And exhaled spotless;
The homestead
For Earth to gnaw;
The deeds, and what done
And who cared
To Silence settled;
Dimming Dusk clawed
The dreams half-finished;
Belief and faith and prayers
Into Tangible’s maw.
Each of those owners,
Stripping the edge
Of a hollow coin
For accounts marked infinite.
No contest could we children raise
To credit so fundamental
And capital so fathomless.
So what left-over?
Trauma that drives ill;
Sickness and agony for the lack;
Few meters far to fill, and agape to feed;
Oaths and declarations lined void;
Wildfire spread till it expends.
For all that, we do without,
While here, finds our lot;
In fades and foams
Through endless sea;
In sweeting dust and pollen
Bloom anew;
Where nothing is owned, or owed,
And all things only for a while.
WTM – 4/13/25
prompt: three things to take with you in a fire
title: Materials
When the burning starts
What survives?
My legs carry me
Clothes ride my back
Snacks fill my pack
Arms free for the stroller
What else to save
The fridge is light
Milk’s expired
Chairs giving
Room’s tiny
Walls are peeled
Code my diaries
Scan the pages
Store the files
Do servers perish
When networks refresh
And formats die
Load the update
Renew log-ins
For offices, streams,
Memes and genes
Immortalized and
History encrypted
Identity saved
Into torrents
That drip-feed
The data-chain
Of commerce
And politics
Engines without
Entropy
So young and
Built to combust,
The cores fuel for
Formation
And inspiration
Of ideas ill-defined
As they are
Indefinite
All that matters
Of matter can be
Abstracted
And dissolved
Into spirit,
Emotion and
Meaning that
Line spaces
Unbounded
Between temples
In forms purer
And securer
Than the cloud
Could ever hold
But yesterday
Changed theory
Said memory
Might not be
The indestructible
Wave-form
They imagined
No, photos of
The corneal
And echoes of
The cochlear
Are chemical,
Consciousness but
A drip collected
And dated to perish
Like milk in the fridge
If they too are
Unsalvable
From smoke, ash, and tears
What then remains
Not even the fire will last
WTM – 8/19/23
prompt: memory
title: Regret Surgery
Today I check in
For surgery.
Nothing cosmetic
The makeup of
Creases, flabs, faults,
greys, flats, stigmas,
breaks and divides,
valleys and crests,
things that go higher or longer
Than they should be,
The irritating sensations
That tingle your nerves
And swell your eyes,
All these I keep.
If you dislike them,
Book your own surgery,
Have your noses
Desensitized
Fingers sheered
Eyes extracted.
All I remove is
The third eye
That filters, grooves,
deepens, sharpens,
curates, spices, elevates,
abstracts, has
The capacity
To find truth,
And know good
And redevelop the
Negatives out of
Every photographic frame
Of what used to be
Every twenty four clicks
Each slide in the carousel
Projecting poetry
And painting ever
Faster on the plain
Of reality, and faster
Until the spiral begins
To excavate the skin
We live in, turning
The view right side up
Later, when I wake
From the anodyne,
Fall back into bed,
The splayed connections,
And ripped iris
In the doctor’s hands
As he says, “It’s gone”,
I’ll no longer see what was
Or could be
I’ll be cured
And no longer regret.
WTM – 6/18/23
prompt: father’s day
title: none
What I want them to say
Or to know
They would say
He was great enough to block out the sun,
And every extremity
And in that shade we felt scared, alone,
Of the eclipse as of the monster
Children feared ate the light
But they’ll say
As we grew, he diminished
They’ll say, it was then
As our eyes trained and found the linings,
As we saw his edges
And it became clear
That the shadows
Were not the truth,
The chiaroscurostic
Outlines of his likeness
Lose definition into
Patchwork of cold
Splotched impressions
They’ll say
We stood up, and saw
Beyond him to take up the world,
To the canvas, the wall,
The untouched for the first time
And found something
Of our own to make true.
They’ll say, we didn’t grow sad,
As he withered into nothing,
And what lies in power, before it expires,
Becomes the impression we take
To the next life
But maybe they’ll remember
That time in the shade
Remember that even under
The cold and heavy bearing
That kept the truthful sky
From our eyes
They’ll think of what it meant,
To be guarded, covered, shaded,
Stifled, and choked,
In his fearful cloaking,
But awkward as he was,
Whether big to our soft eyes,
Or small at our grown feet,
He did what he could
To keep us there
In the space made ours
Under aged wings
What he did, and what he gave
To make it a home
flies on the ceiling 