Young Writers Society

Half the time, it's impossible to tell you what I like best because it all works so ridiculously and stunningly well together.

The other half, I'm too busy grinning to even try.

Loved the Burbs; the characters are fresh, painted with your characteristic flair and intensity. In particular:

Quantum jazz
we need some eel contingency plans,
some free-form photons some E flat
concert flute and particle pianos.
Delia caught in an origami of trap doors
...
a trumpet section of lights
...
Delia meditates in an octagon of urns
each one contains: decaf, sugar, milk.

..
of anemic clarinets.

A continuously strong piece; in particular, I enjoyed the mix up of physics and music, unspooled in a completely believable style. It's that weirdness and simultaneously believability that makes these such fun to read.

I rode my bike down a saxophone

Oh, I'll bet you know how good this is.

and he's got this equation, he's all
"delta T, delta T. Change in time over the speed of light," and so I have to be like,
"fuck you, Pablo. Physics is jazz."

...

"fuck you, Pablo. Mountains are jazz."

Fabulous.

Also:

Dana doesn't come around no more
she blitzed the oxeye meadow before
the horizon could pitch the sun
over the mountain.

How do you manage to crash together such lyric imagery with such a colloquial tone? I'm rather drawn to the effect.

a skin diary penned by sunlight
and tool handles, sharp rocks
and rose stems.

Oh, yes.

the actress that plays the high school student on TV
is actually 24, you can tell sometimes on the corners
of her mouth when she laughs.

There's something distinctive about this poem from your others -- the gentleness it begins with. You don't disappoint with the imagery that follows, either, but that undertone of softness remains.

with the wind that lobotomized the barns
and the serotonin trampolines,

Only you could pull that one off. Or this:

I've been looking for past selves
on shelves of convenience store snack food,

...did you find them?

--

Really, extraordinary work. I love the playfulness in these; how much they dare; how extravagantly they twist up the metaphors and spit them back out again. Highlighted some favourite parts for you, but I liked them in their entireties for the most part.

Also, Hicock and Berman were great.


Thanks for the reads. I look forward to the rest.


Navita

IF YOU CAN'T SAY LOVE

Aggie and I drink Canadian tea
the ones that have too much sugar
but we pretend we are lovers,
she teases my hair and my spine.

My ribs are to become
gun goalies for war soccer.

I can't say, 'die.'

Aggie in a disposable camera flash

The snow falls around us like dead birds

In a bar in Iowa, Aggie and I
we sing karaoke love songs
to one another, and suddenly
I can name every note
of her laughter.

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I think that I've read every piece in here and just kind of sighed out "Excellent," after each one. Great little thread you've got here.

WAR MOVIES

Col. Alvaro Goza, his mustache
and the scars on his hands
like tangled telephone wires
does battle with the demon
of incomplete vending machine transactions.
His kicks and curses echo
through halls of former
blueprints.

He pulls his revolver from his holster
and fires a round through the plexiglass
he returns to base with an armful of snack food
victorious sodium and calories.

Loved that last one especially. xD

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THE TRIALS OF THE FALSE KNIGHT

and under blue bricks and vines,
the mist of the marsh and I
walk to the white flag
fields, meadows
with cherry weeds
and passive wetland grass
pulling tattered sheets
to dawn's corners.

mist says I've got strong steps
but I've got this vacuum in my chest,
sucking in the gold charms of the barroom
gentlemen their teeth and their stripes
it serves as a stand-in for sunshine
for me it is a source of vitamin D.

I've got these friends
that I might never see again,
their denim forms over the sea
like the ghosts of summer sharks

I am the foam on the lip of the beach
the scent of salt rain and sea grass,
sand and whiskey on my breath

mist says I am too hard on myself
but Lord knows I'm easy. I see my father
and me as a child, a child on anthills
with pockets full of ants,

a child who has not grown armor
no sword, no lance, no competing
for the heart of the queen or for the head
of the witch,

I want to write her sonnets instead
but I can't stop making this bed.

...a late entry, but written in April.

SWEETHEARTS

It is in the rain cabinets,
the pools of laundry
and broken habits
drenched

overtook by the steady march
of wind-channels, bare brick
reinforcements. Lightning splits
the sky in high, clean wounds.

Kate doesn’t whisper in my ear,
only the whiskey in my blood
and the breadth
of our shoulders

sometimes I fake happiness
other times I don’t. Other times
I am Laika, a sputnik poet
the feathers of a blue bird.