Young Writers Society

April 25

The Rand-McNally “Lights To Literature”, Number II

incense of an old book,
yellow, mean pages,
birthmarked with blemishes,
worried, cracking spine
the writing in the front
and the folded page corners,
snoozing on the shelf:
tired, split
prostitution.

chalkdust

you can see their brains cupped in their skulls
like caught insects,
plinking at the glass,
dumb, gnatted, lacey eyes.

noses pink as erasers
the cold is moving in,
relative, stringy,
speaking of arithmetic
and battle dates

the naked,
barebacked trees
stand slumped
as thumbing hitchhikers

Ihkee-Kolee-Kylan!

{Don't ask.}

The slim stars punctuate liberally. Little periods at the ends of her prayers.

Ahhh. -flail- So. Beautiful. And I'm sure I like it even more because it's about punctuation! -claps-
But. I mean, I don't know how I can say this, coming from my own, odd prose-poem, but it seemed just like your prose. xD Because your prose is so poetic. Anyways. What? I didn't like it all that much. Maybe it was just the subject matter. It seemed dry and dusty; maybe the imagery didn't speak to me. D:

They swim, anglerfish, tempting, swinging lanterns.

Liked that one though.

their heads are wobbly and over-large
brutish lanterns.

Teehee. So true. Such nice lines.

so that you can see all the new paths
in their brains, the bulbed neurons
forming like
eggs from the belly of the queen.

the moon is red and thick tonight:
a placenta.
the babies weigh themselves with sleep:
a drowsy pollen.

Oh, gosh. LOVE. This whole poem is lovely, especially towards the end -- it gets really lively and fresh and beautiful. Glowing like squid? Yum, Kylan.

his breath his heavy with unripe fruit,
his hands slung around my neck,
clasped yoke,
the sky moves blue and scrub-eyed:
hump-backed buffalo.

catfish whiskers,
the rope swing creaks, wheezes
like old men full of war stories,
tin battered eyes
your bones are hollow and full of venom,
curved like snaketeeth.

=D Oh, it's just beautiful all through here. 'hump-backed buffalo', 'tin battered eyes', 'curved like snaketeeth'. You win, my friend, you win.

Now, I would feel like a cheater if I copied in any of the Rand Mc Nally poem. It is all exquisite. I will eat it for breakfast every single day and never grow tired of it! I did not so much enjoy chalkdust, but that's okay. I am into lushlush things right now. Anyways, you're still fantastic.

-Hannah-

April 26

enola gay

the pigeons nesting in the old buildings
huddled like housewives
they make their balding nests
faceless, gargoyle eggs, snub-nosed
and the barren, strangled feathers,
sigh downwards
(ashes of a
paper city).

the sunlight weaves through
the brainless cloud cover,
tunneled, black,
visions of holes in an apple
clotted with the thick, intimate bodies
of worms, wriggling, pale
as baby fingers.

the pitted glory,
the young boys with their red faces
and their slung backs low,
hands that only know baseballs
and lawnmowers holding latches and triggers.
they get so old, so quick, so sad
eyes clicking, rotating, dull and cynical; they become
planetariums with innumerable
galaxies, gathered and footloose,
like jobless squatters.

blimp bodies, they expand with gases, cancer.
consummate evenings,
hog-skinned nightmares,
their city sprawls,
their city scrawls,
pressed into the hillside,
like a child's head against
a mother's breasts.

watch it
blip
in and out,
satellite on the lap of the sky
a twiddling ant,
with an important,
queen-sent job.

we role them into slag tombs,
white and papery
as cigarettes.

April 27

sermon

he doesn't know I'm there.
he continues to pace,
gesture,
to the ceiling
as if it cared.
his hands are rough.

I look at the lines on my own hands,
trails, ditches, trenches,
branching like pedigrees
the shadows on the stairwell
are silent, limbless
as veterens.

his sermon is new, stringent
lots of god
lots of damnation, feeling
his eyes
filamented, naked bulbs.

his collar is yellow,
he is thin, rattly, clanking
the light in the kitchen is slow, pumping,
greedy as a heart disease.
he recites a verse

and I go to sleep watching,
scripture filling up my head
like indistinct fruitflies
over ripe peaches.

Kylan,

Stuff I really, really liked.

Kylan wrote:The Rand-McNally “Lights To Literature”, Number II

incense of an old book,
yellow, mean pages,
birthmarked with blemishes,
worried, cracking spine
the writing in the front
and the folded page corners,
snoozing on the shelf:
tired, split
prostitution.

chalkdust

you can see their brains cupped in their skulls
like caught insects,
plinking at the glass,
dumb, gnatted, lacey eyes.

noses pink as erasers
the cold is moving in,
relative, stringy,
speaking of arithmetic
and battle dates

the naked,
barebacked trees
stand slumped
as thumbing hitchhikers

All this stuff up in here.

enola gay wrote:they make their balding nests
faceless, gargoyle eggs, snub-nosed
and the barren, strangled feathers,
sigh downwards
(ashes of a
paper city).

enola gay wrote:blimp bodies, they expand with gases, cancer.
consummate evenings,
hog-skinned nightmares,
their city sprawls,
their city scrawls,
pressed into the hillside,
like a child's head against
a mother's breasts.

sermon wrote:I look at the lines on my own hands,
trails, ditches, trenches,
branching like pedigrees
the shadows on the stairwell
are silent, limbless
as veterens.

his sermon is new, stringent
lots of god
lots of damnation, feeling
his eyes
filamented, naked bulbs.

his collar is yellow,
he is thin, rattly, clanking
the light in the kitchen is slow, pumping,
greedy as a heart disease.
he recites a verse

and I go to sleep watching,
scripture filling up my head
like indistinct fruitflies
over ripe peaches.

Awesome imagery.


You can too write short poetry.



Ta,
Cal.

You're awesome, Cal! I bow at your feet.

--

April 28

sunday evening

it is almost fall
and look at the great, ripe clouds,
split and wigged,
fit to be picked
by rough fingers of
daddy's slaves.

hosannas in the mud and hay
and hear the rickety,
trick-knee trees,
branches clinging
to the caught spirituals,
thrum-throated gospels,
the black magic and the soulful
toes, grins,
their eyes secret and clear,
like moonshine.

rooted lips,
wide, maternal hips,
the valley sinks and shies,
clinging to the morning fog
like virginity.
it is sunday.

they gather,
scavengers around
green and leftover carcasses,
investing a few prayers and
blank-faced, cheap bibles.
shining, plucking faces,
teeth revealed
like abandoned shells left behind
by a tide.

their fingers
bend
like gourd stems.

April 29

medicine man

buffalo chips,
handfuls,
the sharp gnats,
woven heels, palms
lips like
yellow roaches
burnt, stoked,
the scuttling drawings
on the hide and walls,
promising,
begging,
the trees are diseased
and tired
like missionaries.
old beads roll
in your hand,
you recount the stories,
ceremonial eyelids,
careful blessings,
take these trinkets,
ribbons, keepsakes, manhood,
and put them with the beads,
that roll, hard and red
as nipples.
you conjure
the shadows, crows,

the boys shrink.

April 30

sybil

the green kitchen with
dripping faucet
and the naked lightbulb,
cupped, shivering,
like a fevered baby.
fresh window panes, unspidered,
catching the slow, pilfered dust
and the sunlight,
quiet, glassy,
as a librarian.

she talks with a southern accent,
all teeth and jaw,
the belljar of her body,
sweet, contained toes,
her skirt bunched up,
hands white with flour,
the saltflat of her breasts,
small and unfavorable.
but there's more to a woman
than shape and curve,
angles between shoulder and nipple:
protracted.

termite patterns at the corners of her eyes,
she colors purple,
candied smiles, rotten apples,
her tongue flickers,
a weak flame,
the dawdling poetry and the
lifted skirts,
and resentful, creeping fingers
mother, mother,
she reads the bible
and her shadow grows,
curved and blank-eyed
like sun-fat
preying mantises.

the people,
people people
all around the people,
under the light, dissecting scalpels
smell of ether, smell of doctors
color purple, crayon wax
blindfolds, young lady, act like a lady!
and the first ants come,
such fine tickling legs,
timid and lost as
settlers,
blazing trails
up and down my arms
and legs.

hold me mother,
but not too tight,
because it burns my skin,

it burns my skin.

--

*sigh* I miss it already.

and the barren, strangled feathers,
sigh downwards
(ashes of a
paper city).

Well, it's official. We should get married. Jus' saying.

his collar is yellow,
he is thin, rattly, clanking
the light in the kitchen is slow, pumping,
greedy as a heart disease.

^_^ You love yellow, I think! That line with the light is beautiful. =]] I can see the pulsation in my head. Creepy. -thumbs up-

trick-knee trees,

Holy crap, that is fantastic. Do more of that. I will have to keep that trick in mind. -snuggles with it-

This is what I learned about Kylan so far:

-He likes faded Southern-ish imagery.
-He likes the color yellow.
-He likes similes about babies and mothers.
-He likes similes that describe trees.
-He is a fantastic, excellent, fantastic, fabulous, amazing, fantastic writer.
-Nom.

=D

Good job with NaPo~ ~ ~

-He likes faded Southern-ish imagery.
-He likes the color yellow.
-He likes similes about babies and mothers.
-He likes similes that describe trees.

Haha! In other words, these are things that Kylan needs to change.

Agreed.

Also, Hannah, your poetry leaves me floored. I should probably say this in your thread, too.

I've decided the title for this collection will be "Greenwood": the last name of the main character in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Many of the poems were inspired by Plath's poetry and her novel, as well. Inspiration for several other poems came from learning about Abnormal Psych in Psychology, where we delved into disorders such as schizophrenia and disassociative disorders. Many of these poems dissect the pathways that lead into insanity and insecurity (attempt to anyway). Therefore, I will divide this collection into two parts. One part for the crazy poems, one part for the normal poems. I will name these as well, accordingly.

-Kylan

Haha! In other words, these are things that Kylan needs to change.

Agreed. Wink

Also, Hannah, your poetry leaves me floored. I should probably say this in your thread, too.

I've decided the title for this collection will be "Greenwood": the last name of the main character in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Many of the poems were inspired by Plath's poetry and her novel, as well. Inspiration for several other poems came from learning about Abnormal Psych in Psychology, where we delved into disorders such as schizophrenia and disassociative disorders. Many of these poems dissect the pathways that lead into insanity and insecurity (attempt to anyway). Therefore, I will divide this collection into two parts. One part for the crazy poems, one part for the normal poems. I will name these as well, accordingly.

Well, in other words, these are things that keep popping out at me and I'd like to see what else Kylan can do! -challenges-

Also, I'm still working on finishing Wuthering Heights, but The Bell Jar is next on my list! Remember that one poem that I said I couldn't quite grasp but would come back to? That mirror in that (there was a mirror, right? ... tides. yep! mirror!) one poem, tides, subconsciously reminded me of Plath's "The Mirror" (which, I think, is the only poem I've read by her). Now that you mention it. Yay! -claps-

So. When you publish all these fantastic things, you will tell me where to get them. Or else. =]

-Hannah-

Edit; Reminded me of "The Mirror" in an entirely random-Hannah way, I promise. I realize they're very different, but I think just the set-up image in my head is the same when I think of both. Or something. =D