Young Writers Society

The buzz on the tongue of a hermit poet


Past NaPo years:

1. Fishmonger

Fishmonger,
I breathe into your lungs by imagining you into existence,
your shelf of white beard,
chest hair like the steel wool I scrape against my dishes.
I imagine you and another heart starts up in my head,
another soul conjured from nothing, or from a word.
Imagine a red-headed hot-air balloonist,
an Amazon fulfillment center employee
who goes fishing on Sundays and never catches anything,
someone’s grandma who used to work at a tomato soup cannery,
and your head, too, will fill with bodies.
Where is she buried, the one who first bathed in this glacial lake?
Where are the bodies that carved this temple out of a mountain in India?
I imagine their femurs stretching like a highway beneath the dirt,
and suddenly my mind sags with the weight of them.
Bodies living and bodies dead crowd that labyrinth of flesh,
crown my thoughts with brains that can imagine.
Matryoshka dolls, we hold ourselves inside.

Ohh that's a really strong start, @fortis! I love every image in this one - they're all so unusual but so very effective, like the "shelf" of white beard definitely helps me picture the fishmonger! At first, I interpreted the theme as being about how we remember other people and then they become a part of our lives and identities. But then I realised it could also be about fictional characters, especially in that first line, which is also one of my favourite lines from this poem. <3

2. Saying "Amen" Is Like Bursting Out From Deep Water
a villainelle

I go to the lake to say a prayer
and fill my pockets with rocks.
I do not need air.

The lake's slate crests are snowcapped with dawn's lilac glare.
Saying hello to God, I step off the dock.
I enter the lake to say a prayer.

My clothes are heavy, my feet are bare
and clusters of mussels cut them where I walk.
I do not need air.

I sit cross-legged in sand, and there
close my eyes against the murk. I talk.
"I've come to the lake to say a prayer."

The pulse of water tosses my hair.
If I cry, the lake does not mock.
I do not need air.

I'm empty of everything; the lake doesn't care.
So rise, rise! unloaded of rocks.
I went to the lake to say a prayer.
I scream "amen" into midnight air.

Extra poetry doodles!

collab between Meshugenah and me



ghost cat



I'm gonna love this house

Some more poetry doodles.
Wasn't able to write anything decent today.

??



bitter



Bad day for writing

3. Chord
after W. S. Merwin

While God Created, we were writhing in an ocean of formlessness
while He forged the sun, we saw without eyes and heard without ears
while He spread the sky like a curtain, we raged and tried to rend the veil
while the Earth gathered itself under His direction, we clung desperately to each other
while the lava flowed and he called the rains, we evaporated
while He mixed the oceans, we ripped open our not-skin and bled our not-blood
while He formed Adam out of clay, our bones were peeling off our bones
while He banished them, we were chafing against ourselves in a dark and hateful place
while He burned within a bush, we couldn't comprehend the concept of having hands
while He watched His son weep, we gnashed and couldn't bear it
while He said that His creations were good, we fed ourselves into His terrible machine
and we arrived in the bodies that we'd learn to destroy in time

4. Sick of Squash
for Marge Piercy

Dear Marge,
remember last July and all
the green zucchini washing up? The hauls
from nearby neighbors' gardens overflowed
onto our porch. The veg that they bestowed
was not unwelcome... till it was. We drowned
within zucchini seas. We screwed around
with every kind of dish: zucchini bread
and pickles, roasts and casseroles. We fed
on squash till we were sick, but still the whales
(the biggest ones) continued to assail
our porch. We took them in, but sickened by
exotic recipes (jam, "apple" pie,
and "meat"balls), we left them on our table.
There, they turned soft and rotten. Unable
to bear the shame of food-waste, we started
passing to our neighbors any newcomers:
reverse burgling zucchini and cucumbers.

5. (poof! submitted somewhere!)

6. Cross-country (a cinquain)

The fly--
swatted and smeared,
watching the world go by
through the fogged window of this bus--
travels.