Young Writers Society

She
Snip, snip
doesn't realize
Thank God
that she's
Snip, snip
cutting away what has to be
at least a year
though probably more.

I've always
Snip, snip
cut my hair when
seeking a change
or, in this case,
making one but
Snip, snip
when the cut
Snip
was made I always
felt faint.
snip

This time
a relief
Snip, snip
fell hard on my shoulders,
a welcome weight as
Snip, snip
she cut away Pawpaw's death and
Snip
Casey's crisis and
Snip
Mom's grief and
Snip
the long strand of anxiety,
Snip
useless,
needless
Snip, snip
anxiety.

Memories are to be
swept up.
No, I couldn't wait
long enough for the foot
for Locks of Love.
Imagine more memories
weighing down my head,
creating a crick in my neck.

Wax my eyebrows too!
Make the outside as
average as I wish
the inside could be.

Memoryless.
Snip
Featureless.
Snip
The weight is gone,
but I can't help feeling something
is coming up
Snip, snip
short.

"Too bad we don't have a better view
of the ocean," he says.
I murmur agreement until I think of the
walk that took seconds.

He would be one to
sit in the condo
and admire
the view.

When I saw the first fin it was glorious.
I suspect I can't be jealous.
It was beautiful for others too,
and, eventually, I joined the group,
watching in not so silent appreciation.

The boat, I felt, was selfish,
intruding on a moment to be observed,
a moment not their own.

9:37 is early for the young familes
and old couples of Edisto.
Right now I am alone with
the seagulls who complain
in a pool the ocean forgot.
I imagine flocks of old biddies
will soon replace them.
9:42 is early for the people
of Edisto.
My footprints are lonely
in the high forehead
of a receding tide.
I replace the lucky hermit
with apologies, complimenting
is brown green shell.
9:50 seems to be the time of waking
for the guests of Edisto.
I make my way to the boardwalk
as three children study the wade pool
and scream their finding to one another.

His fiddle must have been magic.
Close enough to see the bow move,
I heard it take on the cadence
of church bells
then a child's laugh
and a boat's horn.

From time to time
melodies too good for
ungrateful tourists
would float to me before
morphing into my mother's voice
telling me to get up
and take advantage of the day.

The first one played cool jazz
and always stopped
playing
before you thought
he
should.
The trees were soaking sound in
and breathing it out.
I was not tired, but we stopped.
The music was in the shade
and the cool breeze.
It followed us as we left.

Two squares over
and bright, brassy,
staccato
notes
popped through branches.
There we stopped only to
check the map,
but other strangers dawdled.

Wrought iron and tamed ivy
give us that southern refinement.
Ornate sculpting and marble
give us poised power.

Our words hold no twang
but a gentle lilt.
We are for the educated,
the enlightened,
the great,
the powerful.

Continue gazing, peasant.

they bleed meanings and jokes
onto the sidewalk
in different colors

arteries run through
fingers and brushes
and chalk pours through
those gaping tunnels
of creativity

none seem to mind
that the first good rain
will wash the stains away

We stumbled upon it.

It wasn't as morbid
as I would have guessed.

They were at peace,
and it was beautiful.

Their peace
was a gift
to us.

The first day by the ocean
I walk alone.
Mother and Casey squawk
though perhaps that's unfair.
They just don't understand
that I am going through a ritual.

The ocean deserves an offering.
If she is not a god
then she's the closest natural thing.

I have no bottles
filled with secrets
and wishes to offer.

I make do with
half formed bits of verse.
That I realize will not make
the trip to the condo.

I don't mind.
I only hope/
pray with my half formed,
neverending poem
that my words tumble
in the waves
even if they become
pulverized.

They'll be a part
of a holy being.

I just hope
their fate is not
that of the beached
jellyfish:

to be still
to be silent
to be dead
to be avoided
by the hungriest seagull

Stained glass sparkles
in the face of a dying sun.
White marble is fitting frosting
for the decay beneath.

The buzz of construction
is disguised by music and bells.
Blue blood is diseased
but every colored jewel glitters.

Petroleum
in all of its glory
bakes a sweltering world
as a society built
to ignore heat waves
races to keep up
and boils over.

Tradition is hard to keep
in the oven of progress.

The young debutante rolls
with artificial breezes.

The old beggar walks
undera condensed sun.

She floats down steps
she doesn't know are crumbling
and stands tall
in the face of judgement.

Cars fly by
but she is an unchanged
spectre of the past.

A temple gong
overrides the honking
and coughing
of beautiful technology.

She pulls her skirts
scandalously high
and slides through the street,
untouched or untouching.

The cool shadow
of doctrine swallows her
and she smiles,
having fooled it.

His shoulders do not stoop.
Knowing what some think,
he charges into the decorated corpse.
Jumps the steps held with glue
three at a time.

His shoulders do not stoop
though his face is weary
and, a cigarette dangling from his fingers,
he stands on the stairs,
ridiculed and rejected.

The temple gong
is a heavy weight
on sore shoulders,
and he would rather
walk the other way.

She
struggles
to beat the
broken timers.
Minutes count down in
monotonous seconds.
The breathless jog to nowhere
-though the rumors hint at somewhere-
goes by in time lapse photography.
The finish line is nowhere in her sight.

The finish line is just before her feet.
The mad dash to the rest of her life
will surely end in broken limbs
-though legends hint at treasures.
Seconds fly by on
broken timers.
The finish
is a
start.