Young Writers Society

Hello, I'm aiming for most weeks' poems to be good enough to make it to the publishing center, but for weeks when I really don't feel like I've achieved that, I'll post poems here.

This week's attempts:

You can have this poem. Eat it if you'd like.

Divide it into seven sections like a cake,
tape it to your fish tank
or drive over it with your Ford Escape.
I don’t really care what happens: do whatever it takes.
Get your markers, get your glue,
grab scissors and a magazine too,
and a newspaper from 1992.
It’s all the same to me if it’s all the same to you.
Slather it in wheatpaste and stick it to your door.
I have nothing to do with it anymore.
Give it to the rich and give it to the poor.
There’s really nothing else it could be used for.
Steal it from my house and sell it for parts,
or apply with it for a degree in modern arts.
Zest it like a lemon and bake it in your tarts.
Find its longitude and plot it on your charts.
Tattoo it on your body, confuse a coroner,
use it in your marriage proposal just to upset her.
Take it to improv, mislabel it humor.
Try to convince your doctor it’s a premalignant tumor.
Use it at the derby, pony up and bet it.
Fall in love, try to bed it and wed it.
Crumple up the paper, burn it and forget it,
just don’t let me live to regret it.


Why I am Obsessed with Clowns (unfinished)

Because when I looked past the bloody Halloween masks
and into the mismatched brocade and motley,
when I saw the exaggerated faces caked with paint,
when I saw the round or lanky bodies built to tumble,
to teeter on the wire, to fall, to crack a grin,
I saw the place where atmosphere bleeds into space.


I am at the Ren Faire and the Nerds are Hitting on Me

because I’m juggling
they want to tell me they juggle too
and I want to tell them
to go away
and I want to tell them
that it’s okay
that they don’t have to tell me anything
I can read it on their hopeful faces
but here I am juggling, so what was it for?
I want to tell them that even though I’m in a skirt, I’m not a girl
and I want to see what they make of that
I want to tell them that the person who used to call me a nerd
meant it affectionately and I loved her for it
and I want to see what they make of that
instead I tell them it’s cool and ask them how they learned
and they tell me about their dads
and I imagine the noble tradition of nerds
learning how to juggle because their dads taught them
and it makes me feel alright
and they smile and tell me their names
which I immediately forget
and I feel like a curse or a crab
or something inhuman that was blessed with hands
that used to not know how to juggle

Villanelle Time
I thought the time was made to tell
Where the sun was in the sky.
For this, I write a villanelle.

When morning broke, I had to yell
“IT ISN’T YET MY TIME TO DIE”
I thought the time was made to tell.

When noontime struck, they tolled a bell
While the sun shone golden hot up high
For this, I write a villanelle.

When evening came, my spirits fell
I realized I was just a guy.
I thought the time was made to tell

When night crept on, it gave me hell
The stars were like a thousand eyes
For this, I write a villanelle

Then midnight, with its glassy spell
Broke me from a trance and I,
I though time was made to tell:
For this, I write a villanelle.