Can stories be poetic? I think so? What do you reckon? Read on...

The giant red globe of the sun hung over young Omega’s head. That great orb filled nearly a quarter of the sky. Omega found it hard to believe that the sun was a “red dwarf star”. Yet who was he to argue with his elders?

A chill wind blew along the desolate beach. In the distance, some giant ***** were on patrol, looking for a meal. Above the *****, some rowdy gulls were waiting to scavenge anything the ***** might leave.

Not much to report here. The usual dismal scene. Nothing here to reflect the importance of these moments. Omega had seen moving pictures of other planets, on which they had things called “days”. This particular “Earth” here was “tidally locked” so that the same side faced the sun at all times. The sun was always there, solidly positioned above Omega’s head.  Here on the equator, they “enjoyed” maximum warmth: yet it was not too much above the freezing point of water!

Mother appeared.

Mother: “We will be ready to start in ten Lunons, Omega. I will call you then.”

Omega nodded. He gulped, nervously and mentally reviewed why this ritual was necessary. What had the elders said?

Oh yes. The Universe began 110 trillion standard years ago with the “Big Bang”. It had expanded at an incredible rate. In those early days the universe had teemed with stars like the sun. Most of those stars had travelled together in great wheels and clouds called “galaxies”. Those galaxies had been full of light and heat, and life!

Yet all that abundance had been before the “Degenerate Era”, when the universe had thinned out so much that no new stars were formed. The remaining stars had died and died. So now the sun above Omega was the last known star.

They were about to enter the “Black Hole Era”, when the universe would be dominated by Black Holes of course. After that would be the “Dark Era”. Finally, about 500 trillion years after the Big Bang, the universe would undergo “Heat Death”. Well, that was what Omega recalled from his lessons.

What was bothering The Elders was the state of the sun. It was foundering. Soon it would just blink into darkness. Before then, the world would just get colder. A bleak prospect.

Mum reappeared. She ushered Omega to “The Circle”. The children were joining with the adults and Elders now. That central obelisk, encircled by the populace, was brightly lit. They all formed an unbroken chain.

Omega felt a great glowing from within. It was happening! Warmer and warmer. Brighter and brighter. All of them shone and flowed and coalesced. Then they each broke free and flew apart!

It was done! Every one of them had transformed into a spirit energy being! Each was now a shining orb. So alive, and free from what would have been a slow freezing death under the last dying sun.

Such joy. Eternal life achieved at last. None of them had heard of our Earth. None of them was human. There were similarities with us, but they were quite alien. Who cares. They were sentient beings who had escaped the death of the last star, and ultimately the universe.

Paul Butters

It was four o'clock in the morning. Robert wondered why his name was Robert. He decided to get rid of the "Bert" because it was the name of a Sesame Street character or the name of a ******* in Tempe, Arizona. Then again, he thought, "Hey, just Rob makes me sound like I change tires for a living or that I work out at a gym that discriminates fat people and blacks." Rob or Robert took a second to evaluate his last thought and if thinking "and blacks" made him a racist person.

Robert sat on a bench and wondered if the woman beside him was expecting Forest Gump-esque wisdom.

Robert thought of a friend he had in grade eight, named Alexander. He thought of how Alexander had a glass eye. Robert wondered how Alexander had a glass eye but could not remember or did not know why Alexander had a glass eye. Robert, then, concluded that sometimes he will not know something and how that is okay because most people don't know anything--it's a collection of approximates that stay in our heads, he thought. Robert asked himself if his last thought made him intelligent or dumb and pretentious. Robert decided that he did not know. How meta, he thought. Robert, then, decided to stop using the word "meta" so much, because it made him feel like a professor with bitterness and something to prove.

Robert watched his sister struggle with an eating disorder. She was in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm. Robert did not know if he would struggle with anything as hard as his sister struggled with anorexia. Robert, then, had intense but fleeting anger at every person that bragged about being anorexic or made it seem cool.

Robert sat on his toilet and wondered what his true identity was and what his true nature was. He wondered what was inherent and what was synthetic. Robert, then, wondered if a synthetic personality was inherent. Robert asked himself if he was a good person. He wasn't sure if sitting on the toilet, in his grandmother's house, and ******* to interracial ebony teen ****, on his iPhone, made him a good person or not. His concerns soon past, though, as soon as Lauren started to **** the pizza guy's white ****.

Robert walked down the street and was contemplating some of the issues that plagued his ****-infested mind, while he was on the toilet. Robert saw a girl running from a guy. Robert asked himself if he was a hero or inherently good. Robert, then, concluded that he was inherently a coward, since he did nothing and hoped that somebody else would save her.

Robert didn't meet a girl and knew that no one would write prose about his meeting a girl and their mutual love for one another. Robert was eating a steak sub, while thinking this.

Robert returned to the hospital, to pick up his sister. On the way home, his sister talked about how attractive her nurse was. Robert asked, "What did he look like?" His sister, then, said, "It wasn't a he. My nurse was a girl." Robert was okay with his sister being attracted to girls, but hoped that she didn't get more than him or more attractive girls than him, because, for some reason, that would make him feel insecure. Robert decided to stop eating so many steak subs and to work out. Robert asked his sister if she wanted to get steak subs. She said, "sure".

Robert was working out in his basement. He heard the sound of retching, upstairs. Robert followed the sound of the vomiting and opened a bathroom door. He saw his sister stick her finger down her throat. He said to his sister, "That isn't anorexia." His sister said, "I know. There's a lot you don't know about me." Robert said, "I'm sorry."

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

O'er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro' the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,
****'d demons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench'd my youth's aspiring ember,
Liv'd there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Bold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn'd it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel's whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.

There's an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,      
   Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;  
   Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,              
   And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.        
   There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there's moss about the pool,
   And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:          
   In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,      
   Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.    
   There is not a living creature in the lonely space arouna,              
   And the hedge~encompass'd d quiet never echoes to a sound.              
   As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find              
   When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;              
   I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,                  
   As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.              
   Then a sadness settles o'er me, and a tremor seems to start -          
   For I know the flow'rs are shrivell'd hopes - the garden is my heart.

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule- altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac
advised Burroughs Olson Huncke
the bearded lady in the Zoo, the
intelligent puma in Mexico City
6 chorus boys from Zanzibar
who chanted in wornout polygot
Swahili, and the rippling rythyms
of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen
we had a long evening's conversation
Then he tucked me in my long
red underwear under a silken
blanket by the fire on the sofa
gave me English Hottie
and went off sadly to his bed,
Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad
to have met a fine young man like you.
At last, I woke ashamed of myself.
Is he that good and kind? Am I that great?
What's my motive dreaming his
manna? What English Department
would that impress? What failure
to be perfect prophet's made up here?
I dream of my kindness to T.S. Eliot
wanting to be a historical poet
and share in his finance of Imagery-
overambitious dream of eccentric boy.
God forbid my evil dreams come true.
Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg.
T.S. Eliot would've been ashamed of me.