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WWPH Writes 63… seeks love this holiday season with two heartfelt works… Misfortune of the Perpetually Single Gay Male Romantic by Piérre Ramon Thomas and …nothing like the sun by Jamie Kern.
Congratulations to our WWPH Writes the Holidays winners! Thank you to all who entered our end-of-year tradition here at the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. See our announcement below and read their work in the next two WWPH Writes issues.
Please consider an end-of-year donation to your Washington Writers’ Publishing House. We plan to kick off our 50th-anniversary literary celebrations in 2024 with your help. We have a jam-packed 2024 plan highlighted by our first-ever work in translation, Aguas/Waters by Miguel Avero, translated by Jona Colson, to be published in May. We hope you will consider donating $50 (or more) to keep us going for the next 50 years!
Thank you for making this WWPH community thrive for all writers and readers,
Caroline Bock and Jona Colson
co-presidents, Washington Writers’ Publishing House
WWPH WRITES POETRY
Piérre Ramon Thomas, a Washington, D.C., native, holds a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Journalism. He was a Spring 2023 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fellow. Thomas’ published works can be seen in BlueInk (2021 and 2022), Magnificat (2022), and The Nomadic Poet: A Collection of Poetry & Prose. He’s currently working on a memoir of his life. For samples of his writings, visit www.pierreramonthomas.com.
WWPH WRITES PROSE
Jamie Kern is an amateur writer in Virginia, one of the original members of the DC Writers’ Salon, and a science nerd. He aims to imbue his poetry and prose with notes of science, and his science with ripples of emotion.
…nothing like the sun
I do not want your sparks, Juliette. Do not strike your flint against me. That early shimmer, those ephemeral flashes harboring both hope and destruction. Your sparks – recklessly alive, propelled in all directions by too much quick friction. They fall upon the earth; they smolder and fade. They catch in our hair, in our clothes, in our eyes. They burn. They blind. That flame too hot, too soon, too short-lived. When just one of those embers strays too far into our scattered kindling, it ignites. Uncontrolled, your wildfire does not cease ‘til it has razed all our lands. ‘Til we are once again left dark and cold. No, my dear, this brief five-act play bodes poorly for us both. This type of “star-crossed” romance does not end well. Your sparks are nothing like the stars.
And I want the stars.
The stars begin with your very elements, the remnants of your scattered past. Slowly, methodically, intermingle them with my own. Let us, molecule by molecule, layer our former worlds upon one another. Let the gravity that this ever-denser cloud creates build as we become closer. Until, with this ample time and fuel we have provided, we begin to fuse. And as all our twos coalesce into one – as we cross into a star – this transformation releases its energy, penetrating the darkness.
No, Juliette, this is no five-act play; this is a saga. And it does not begin with your sparks, it begins with our dust. But it ends radiantly ever after.
©Jamie Kern 2023
WWPH Community NewS
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