Young Writers Society

Poem Twenty Four I Think My Tap Is Broken (Is that a sign or what?)

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

Take a wrench to the tap,
or a spanner, whatever
(is that the same thing?)
I don't care,
just do something!

This pathetic rain
is not an epiphany
or a phone-call home,
just the last
wasp of the summer
when I'm making jam,
or the pleading tears
of an ex-lover.

(I checked under the sink,
and under my bed
in case it was you.
It was not,I discovered.)

Poem Twenty-Five Trust Me

Neither bleak nor black as ebony,
more like the fifty shades of grey in
"All About Eve", say,
especially at the moments when
you totally believe her.
I could tell you that I've been lying
for the past twenty-four poems,
I could tell you I'm lying
for poem twenty-five.
Water absolves, you know,
cleans away sweat and blood
and dirt and ink.
I could grab a basin of the stuff right now
and throw it over everything I've said
and watch it run to the bottom of the page
but fail to reach its goal of unclean escape,
while words smudge and fade, vanish
beyond recognition.

I am a purple cat,a club-footed stool,
a pine cone's paradise.
What choice have you but to believe me?

I'm a bit behind...stupid exams.

Poem Twenty-Six Boring Phone-calls

*submitting*

Poem Twenty-Seven Going Home

I swear I can feel chlorine on my skin,
it's going into my eyes, stinging,
making me cry. What is this if not fantasy?

Every lily I sold will be dead by now,
every corpse it adorned was dead by then,
and my head spins, why won't

the water still? How can I ever
be submerged in such chaos? When I was ten
you clasped my hand and made

me promise that we would
always be friends but,oh friend
(sister?) where are you now?

I've had it, done it, lost it.
The shells weigh me down, sand
is nothing but loss and

every time the tide rushes up
to lap at my toes like some
too stupid dog,I turn my back-

you won't come back,
you can't come back,
I won't go back,I can go back.

Poem Twenty Eight For Ophelia

*submitting*

Poem Twenty Nine Beautiful

I slept in a hammock last night and
it swung back and forth, ship on the sea,
and I remembered you when
the one before this one
vanished like the morning and
you hugged me and rocked me
like I was a child
until light's white mouth rescinded.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, I can still feel act one,
can still remember my lines and the
steps I treaded still
fit my footprints and
the fishhook in my chest has
dislodged,(it still bleeds, but
I can breathe) and
the ocean is still like
glass; I see myself
wavering but so steady
inside (maybe, perhaps).
I drink juice in the sun and
I rock like you rocked me.

Poem Thirty My Sister Kara

My big sister Kara does not move
even though she's always moved
faster and further than me,
perpetually nonstationary,
and now...
I've seen more life
in wilting lilies.

I wriggle my toes
in the brown-green sea
and will it to reflect me
(it never does,
her neither, her neither,
but, love,
does this soothe?

I swish-trudge out 'til
I'm up to my waist and
I take a deep breath and
dunk in my head and
try to sit on the bottom,
but I'm pushed up, and so
I swim and do not focus on the horizon.