Young Writers Society

Never shall there be peace.

In Amore Et Bellum
The road has been rocky, but once again I have found myself here, in April, bristling with poems. Times are busy as I approach the most important exam of my schooling and my upcoming graduation, but this time I feel ready to sit down and spit out 30 poems this NaPo. Last year I never got around to adding all my poems and only managed to arrive at a total of 19 only posting 13, but I have high hopes that this year will be different. Wish me luck?
- noninjaes

Poems So Far...

0. Whether the Weather, Whatever the Weather (I Dream)
Today I dream of April
today I dream of rain
and summer flowers yielding
to skies of autumn grey
White winds thundering
damp earth shuddering
winter creeps behind the storm

Today I dream of June
and a midnight sky
sans the moon
Frost is building on the windows
toes are freezing in the night
the darkened days are haunting
in ice-nipped winds
and cloudy nights

Today I dream of November
today I dream of spring
and pollen burning
sinus dripping
Ah- Ah- Ah-
SNEEZE
Bless my garden growing
bless my flowers blooming
curse my darn'd fever

In the humid morning sun
December never truly comes
I melt atop my sticky sheets
and dream of April rains-
not summer's heat.

1. The Thought Process
blank melancholic empty
shaking like too many shots of caffeine
making my heart sprint in jagged
palpitations
and my tongue stick to my teeth

the world buzzes
around me
it hums about me
outside is alive
inside I am not

white glow static glare
the tap tap tap of the keyboard
nothing
backspace
deadlines
procra-

-stination
the clock ticks forward
how do pixels even tick?
sorry
I'm stalling
ten o'clock
eleven o'clock
nothing

still
shaking
like too many shots of caffeine
(maybe too many shots of caffeine)
my heart is racing
the page is pristine
blank melancholic empty

2. playing with fire only gets you burnt
The man that slips. His hands that grip
the ledge he holds. The cards he folds
to bet his life, to burn the script.
The man that slips, his hands that grip
his dying soul, his body cold.
The man that slips. His hands that grip
the ledge he holds, the cards he folds.

3. bandaids won't fix what ain't already broke
isn't it funny how we crave something beautiful
sometimes
like our own dirty emptiness
needs to be filled
with dollar poetry
and virgin romance

until we whitewash our walls
as if there were faults in the grease stains
on the tiles
(from mum's spaghetti)
as if there was a mouldy void
we were desperate to fill

with kleenex and clorox
and plastic summer roses

isn't it funny
how we're never quite enough
until we're filled with synthetic pain
and shrill derision
for something
anything

isn't it funny how we crave something beautiful
isn't it funny how we never crave ourselves

4. I won't need a gps, I know this road too well
highway, endless, single lane, ninety k's
two hands on the wheel
fog
rising thick between the valleys
like waves crashing
their frothy peaks filling
the hollows beneath her eyes

wind chill, rain, headlights
rushing
twenty k's over the limit
are they out of their mind?
irrelevant
they're gone
into white upon white
the horizon is a blur

too many years ago, she remembers

white fog, white sky, white knuckles
it's a ghost town out here, he said
the hills slope with empty green
would hate to get stuck out here, he said
headlights pass
rushing
this fog's a killer
rain pounds against the windshield
he wasn't wrong

half a k down the road
she sees it

indicator, brake lights, gravel
fresh tulips in the back seat
(they were his favourite)
black umbrella in the front
icy fingers prick against her skin
coat, umbrella
useless
mottled wood
mud stains
a name, haphazardly carved
a pen-knife, probably
like sharpened nails clawing at a memory

she leaves her tulips
she leaves her respects

indicator
crunching gravel
fog reaching through the barrows
rain, unrelenting
seeps cold into the windshield
seeps pink into her cheeks

two hands on the wheel
she blinks
highway, endless, single lane, ninety k's

5. I haven't slept since last week; why won't you call me back
bitter sweetness, restless
tepid three am's
so dark so cold
so much lead between the eyes
can't think, can’t
breathe, can't
pick up the damn phone
already, please
leave a message
after the beep

silence,

i'm sorry

6. Earthshaker
I should have heeded those seismic tremors I felt the moment you stepped through my door.
You were porous, igneous, like nothing I'd ever seen.
I was enthralled, I can't lie. I fell for your subduction.
When the ground shook and the sky shattered, I should have known.
Instead, I became like sand;
Sedimentary, sentimental,
stupid.
I was mindless, you made me metamorphic.

I should have known,
(but still, you warned).
When continental plates collide
you'd make a mountain out of me
but only to watch me crumble.

7. A Study of Humanity and All the Pieces In Between
i.
I find myself walking
(on a line)
somewhere not quite between awake and fantasizing
where frosted glass blurs
like the shimmer of midday sun by a desert oasis
heatwaves thrumming through skin and burning
my body
alive

ii.
have you ever had that sinking feeling in the pit of your gut like a stone has bored its way straight through to your very centre and is pulling you down to the dirt as if lead isn't heavy enough (isn't cruel enough punishment) to keep you pinned to the floor
it's grinding against your insides so unclean rub rub away with the pumice i don't care if you think you're bleeding to death you deserve this goddammit your deserve this
guilt

iii.
people are often likened to thunderstorms
in the way the very air around them shakes
with the spark of their own anger
their own intent
rumbles unheard in the distance
your hair stands on end
the oxygen crackles
ignites
violent flash of indigo white and sparks
dancing in their eyes
as they shout
and slam the door

iv.
we are hollow folk here
made of darkness and numb
like the anaesthetic they inject
into our blood into our bones
to make us not feel
the surgery
they said it would fix us
our diagnosis
was broken

8. too many thoughts, not enough coherence
echoes
trapped between walls
like mirrors
reflections
deafening
they blur together
endless
a cacophony
static
i'm out of my mind

9. The Impermanence of Death
six feet, tombstone, and a hell of a lot of heavy between you and daylight

they found you wallowing like a common insect among filth
decomposing, deflating, like that weight on your shoulders was squeezing the damn life outta ya
I thought you were a dying man
I thought you were dead and gone
you'd picked up and left me like every other dusty mosquito that'd ever sucked my blood and spat it back out
and you expect me not to be mad
you dare to drag your boneless corpse out here and demand me not to be mad, huh
it's almost sad, mate
did you think I'd be glad, mate
but at least I don't hate you
no, not yet

just because you left this place doesn't mean you're gone, man
doesn't mean I won't keep grieving
doesn't mean you're dead to me

10. #302E0F
I wouldn't call myself claustrophobic
but when the silt surrounds me with nothing
but murky unfettered clay I can't help
but to think of your eyes your piercing stare
and how it drowns me every time I blink
until the dark consumes me whole and spits
me back out I am too tasteless too much
to swallow you cannot intimidate
me I am not afraid of this darkness
you cannot suffocate me I am not
claustrophobic

11. Among The Walled City
I was lost among these ground-floor streets
in squalor and darkness where the city never sleeps.
This maze of entanglement:
skyrise on skyrise, no forethought.
Just higher and higher as the people flocked
to this lawless sanctuary,
to these city blocks.

These alleys with pipework exposed and rusted
crawl with sad people, their lives unadjusted
to this dank air, polluted
by cigarette smoke and fumes.
This city is a joke
that they still call their home,
this place with no hope.

12. A Lie I Once Believed
you told me all is fair in love and war

like fighting this was such a crime
and loving you was not
like bullets never left a scar
and my heart was yours to rot

13. Blutack and Pinholes
you left me
with constellations across these barren walls
from the life you pulled from the sky

with these star signs of peeled paint and pinhole memories
you had me reading horoscopes
and believing

this milky-way sky was only temporary
that the sun would rise again to fill the holes in the ceiling
with clouds of crinkled poster paper to keep out the night

instead
a clump of drying old blutack and a fresh coat of paint
to pretend this universe never began at all