Young Writers Society

I realized today is the 16th, so I'm still 2 poems behind with this. Bad poems, bad poems!

4.14. Old Words (The Hurt)

Clasping hands, we leap from the page
they placed us on when we were young,

standing behind the words and moving
alongside sentences far older than us

we use the vowels as ladders and rise
to grip the page numbers and push

we fall down the captions for ages
and slip from the dog-eared margins

into a world where words are elevators,
not heavy stone blocks or steel bars

tear up the pages to make a snowstorm
full of old words that mean nothing

anymore.

Well, certainly shorter than some recent ones, and I think NaPo gets harder and harder as we have more and more things to do during April; you've found a good trick for this - you change your style every so often to keep it fun and interesting. On the days when you can, you write enormous poems, and the cute little ones are for the other, more hectic days.

So...pretty much all that rambling of mine to say that I thought you pulled it off pretty well, considering you're so busy. I don't know why - I'm really attached to this poem (of course, when you have the time and energy, it'd be good to smooth the corners of it a bit) - I'm one of those non-materialistic people who doesn't get much satisfaction from shopping at all (but LOVES exploring marketplaces of different countries), and who is instead rather attached to what I already have. It's a strange sentimentality, and it came out emotionally well in the poem - I love the ending: 'Leave up the drapes.'

Precisely what I would have done.

And I have full confidence that you will manage to catch up your poems, Clo.

Now I'm only one behind! This is regarding people ignoring me as I pranced around with my signs and my duct tape as I partcipated in the awesome DAY OF SILENCE!

Also, I'm aware this is bad, ha.

4.15. Ignore-ant

The art of ignoring takes much practice,
to turn your eyes at just the right time
so they are aware they have been denied,
you only perfect this after so many tries.

Then you can ignore everyone, doing anything,
start small and ignore the men + women on the streets,
next pretend not to see the protesters with their signs,
completely fail to notice the girl with the duct-taped lips.

Ignore the emails about awareness program events,
avoid co-workers with active political agendas.
glance away from the posters lining the class
and toss away flyers without recycling them.

These people may have points, but time is fleeting
and ignoring is a talent meant to be displayed,
let it linger, make eye contact for a second,
then smile and slowly look the other way.

Time then to ignore the signs in your own friends,
that something is genuinely bothering them today;
sign the papers without reading the fine print,
read the poems without thinking of the message.

These are just getting worse and worse, and I'm still behind, haha! I wrote this one for my boyfriend of two years, Nigel, because we are both zany non-theists who support other non-theists on campus in our minority-dom. He wanted me to take a shot at it. Oh well, for having no time to do much and writing my love crappy poems that he loves anyway!

4.16.

What should the world throw out today?
Ignorance, excess, and war?
Will this help us? Well, it may --
but there's something better for
efficiency's sake, by a smidgen --
let's throw out religion.

I quit.

Just sayin'.

Don't quit! I'm 8 bad poems behind! Keep going

Aaaaww, Clo, you're only 3 poems behind (in my timezone, anyway), and of course we're not going to produce an absolute masterpiece everyday - just do whatever you can . Listen to Kamas - don't give up!! I really miss your writing.