Young Writers Society

#15

I am transcendental
I watch the two parts of me
Traverse the known universe
In seconds and moments and
See there the shape of me rounding
Saturn's rings like a shot -
How impressive the speed of light
(I am as a star fading wherever i am)

When we are together again i speak -
How cool the stroke of my palm
Against your cheek in the cinema,
Dark and unyeilding before the film begins,
We are at our best here, alone in crowds
And waiting for something to begin.

#16

The need to sleep
settles inside my chest.
Behind my eyelids aches
with desperate closing
and my mouth rakes dry
inside a dream I live.

#17

Deep in the bush the blossoms
That bubbled and burst in fire
Took flight and spread in the dark
Smoke aftertaste of tragedy.
Like dry riverbeds and flood plains
Filled with houses, the fires took homes.
They reached up and strangled
The gentle colonies of human expansion,
Leaving behind what we can't touch;
Memories in carbon cases
(Isn't that what we all are?)
Crumbling beneath our feet.

#18

I press paper daisies,
Grandmas favourite flowers,
Watching their ends yellow and dry.
In a handful or two I could find
Her voice crackling down a phone line,
Pale spider hands clutching my arm,
Support I was more than willing to give,
For as long as I could give it.
Paper daisies crumbling to dust
In the hot dry heat of summer
Too frail to hold any longer.

#19

Tomorrow my world changes
(As it did yesterday and today)
But I will see again a tired light
My mind yearns for,
Clinging still to a dream it never left,
Knowing it is never to be.
Tomorrow my world changes
And tomorrow never comes.

#20

Am i likely to be cold?

The cardigan is cotton bamboo blend
In blue back, warm and breathing,
On my skin it feels faux mink soft,
The itchy rub that wool leaves behind
Is gone under the smooth knit.

Does it matter;
I am wrapped and warm and loved.

#21

I am, you are, we are

Some songs stay in your heart,
Beat sitting close under the sternum
It lingers outrageously.

I remember the Qantas ad,
Long line of children singing loud,
I caa hear their choir tones
As the camera pans over red dirt
And wide ocean waves.

I remember school assembly
Sitting in neat year groups two by two,
Hats on as the sun shuddered between
The green sail shades.
There we learnt in sign language
That single line that transcended us
And kept clutter in my brain,
Thick coating the back of my throat,

I am, you are, we are

Australia.

#22

Sleep is something else.
I tell myself 8 hours
With a half hour chaser,
Take it in and feel refreshed.
A stolen 7 hours
Jury rigged with 15 minutes either side
If I'm lucky.
Time wiggles in the arvo, and later
My easy 9pm warning becomes
10pm
11pm
Get to bed
And i find myself scattered,
Scraping nails through minutes
To collect enough to feel
Anything
In the morning i don't want to see.

#23

Some poems aren't meant to be written.
They sit, heavy hearted, waiting to be told,
and never will be.
They have awkward words and lines
that just don't fit together.
Or bloated concepts that swell
and fall flat, what good is that?

and the crumpled stamina of the poet
cannot withstand such incredible weight
and breaks into itself like a broken matryoshka.

Some poems aren't meant to be written
because it is just.
too.
hard.

#24

I am good at my job
(I am so tired)
I work hard and meet my
KEY PERFOMANCE INDICATORS
As they flash neon in my email windows
(I keep so many tabs open my browser strobes)
There is the implication that i could
DO MORE
To support my team, my company,
My role is always expanding, team dwindling,
And don't i care about my team?
And don't i care about my family here?
And dont i know there are others who would
Kill for this job
(No.no.no. i dont care)
I could do so much better
If i kept it up a bit longer, stayed the desk
Pumped out Just One More email,
Took the phone call at 5 mins after close,
And I could,
But I simply refuse
To kill for this job.

#25

Churning stomach and tight throat,
You swallow back the bile
And try and smile through it,
The anxiety rises and festers there,
It will be weeks
Until the shame and wonder cease.
You will argue that it grounds you;
Everyone is human, it makes me empathetic,
I just understand people better.
You lay awake at night and revisit
That one time when...
And the next morning your core is tight,
Like you've been doing crunches all night,
It aches to breathe, your lungs can't hold it all,
And in the back of your mind is that time when...
As though the night never existed and you are still
A teenager fretting over one mistaken word, a look,
And what you thought you lost.

And you are grounded,
Fettered to the soil through punctures
Still weeping into the fresh earth
That you mill with your straining joints.

And you are grounded.

#26

You won't hear them say it.
Somewhere the words echo
Back and forth like a real conversation,
But not here.
One day the stiff lips will open
And so too will a flood of -
What i hope you want to hear
Is that they're going to take time.
Everything always takes time.
Not just healing and friendship
And the things that go well,
They will tell you too that
It takes time
For them to choose you
And if you hear it, take
your time, walk away.

#27

Hello, i love you
I wish i could
I have no time
You see
Work has picked up
We're moving house soon
I left you a note
I've been very unwell
I should have called
My phone was dead
Charger left in the truck
You know how it is
You know how it is
You know how it is
I'm sorry

#28

Today the morning didn't settle the mist.
At 5 it carried long and heavy
Across the motorway and trees behind,
At 6 it still lingered, not drifting but waiting.
It was then I breathed and felt -
Constricted, claustrophobic in my own throat,
The cough began.
Not mist but haze living and breathing
From the back burning just begun,
A necessary evil ploughing into my lungs.
When it settled the sky felt unyeilding,
Saturation returned in full,
Breath reclaimed,
Until tomorrow.

#29

I write better at night.
Before bed - it seems like seconds
Before i am ready to finally close my eyes -
I think NAPO.
My phone is out and I log in;
Every poem is written in the box to
Submit
To the challenge.
Some nights I write (submit) and sleep
On autopilot.
I check the next day for what lines,
What images, what came from me
In that liminal space when I am asleep
But still standing.
Some days i am impressed,
Others I wonder why I bothered.
This year I am repetitive,
My brain wants to go back, revisit, try again
But only ever the same words
And the same lines.
What am i searching for at night
That i dont see in the morning?
What is it playing on repeat that i need to know
So badly it invades each poem?
I still don't know, so i expect more -
After all, i write much better at night.