Young Writers Society

Kylan wrote:popping your empty smiles
like pills.

I love these lines!

Yeah, this last poem was difficult to write, mainly because I was confining myself to shorter stanzas. Basically, it's about being trapped in an office job on a spring day, which is also a statement about being trapped inside expectations and situations, while outside, the good things are decaying before you.

Eh.

-Kylan

from under the blinds,
I see the sun – you can't hide it

Yummmmmmm. I really like the way this sticks out from the rest of it, kind of. It's like "I'm here, and I see what's happening and I don't like it!"

(staple-tooth, sticker sweet:
punch me another day-stamp, log me another time-card.)

If this were a dessert, I'd be very fat. ^__^

Kylan,

What Hannah said.

And, of course:

chimneysweep wrote:handprints on the glass, the mildewed panes,
little sticky whorls and constellations, pulled away,
a rubbing of tilled skin, ghostly lines, like intestinal worms,
strung out pearlstrings, hot with your chest warmth.
the red, the fever, slips across the glass – rouged, pasty
and the sexed shadows, the incubated strip and tease,
you can feel his hand on your back;
don't go out tonight.

his fingers travel, thick, cankered.
he is hairless and pink, like a hatchling,
mouth disjointed and pried, the earthy tongue,
the squeeze in his smile, the worm tilts, gulps,
slippery segments.

Love it.

I really like paperclip, but the format is a little iffy for me. It seems to me that the lines should be tighter together.

Ta,
Cal.

Even though I know nothing about poetry, I really enjoyed 'paperclip'. I thought it was different enough for my taste. I suggest you do something completely different. All of these poems have similar set ups. Even though it's your style, venture out of it for a little bit. You never capitalize anything. Do a poem with capitalization, just to make it different. I don't know. If you ever run out of ideas, totally get out of your way and make it different.

I like different.

-Jared

April 7

bluebells

from the belly of the forest,
comes the sound of falling snow-drifts,
white and boneless,
like pale plague victims, deposited in mouthless sepulchers.

your feet are bleeding, cut by the ice,
red stains losing heat in your footfalls, applied like blush,
the air whittles at your nose,
the sky swarms, provoked wasps, complex steps and mazes.

the trees slump, collect, hands outstretched
like mothers reaching for their baby, their baby
sticky and purple with birth fluids.
you are received. you hold your breath.

and your breath forms ice lattices, delicate as flywings
and you watch it rise, as you sink,
the cold creeps through your veins,
slow, stately, a slim blue light husking your eyelids.

fingers and toes unfeeling as screws
wrapped up, condensed, eyelashes clotted.
it's a tiredness: nodding, steepled, the tolling of a heartbeat,
fat in the forehead, lonely and profound as a monk.

April 8

shock therapy

___________wait –
there it is again.
___________the slow, steady footfalls,
up & down the stairs, heavy tramp
filling my ears like a mushroom,
hobnailed, hopscotched,
squeaky boards, crying like baby mice
pink and wriggly:
I could break their necks with one hand.

___________others regard me.
they study, examine me, some kind of specimen.
___________pickle me in formaldehyde, file me away on a shelf
between the brain that's been in the building
since 1962 & the slim collection of cnidarian worms
for the biology class,
curling like widows' fingers.
they strip me down, have me read charts, tap my knees.
their eyes are brown & forever, like wormholes.

___________don't cry.
they like the weakness; it entertains.
___________hold out, a tree with empty arms supplicating
to the strictfaced winter sky, naked and gray.
answer their questions, but never let them know
what you really hide away behind your hands –
the thin giggles, the corpulent, hasty dreams,
scrabbling in your head like overturned beetles.
the sleep, it never comes

___________so we wait –
counting the footsteps on the stairs.
___________there is an orbit in your smile.

April 9

buoyancy

hot sand, mounded, rumped,
like the packed and lumpy skin
of an old whore, beneath my feet,
scathing my toes.
(somehow, the grains are already
in between my teeth.)

trash and rot in the tide,
the smell of decaying crabs, snails, kelp
hanging on the wind, salty and deviant;
the clouds open and close like sleepy eyelids,
bright-eyed doll skins, washed up secrets,
the procession of the wailing sailor's wives
up and down the beach
which curves like the arms of a mother,
against the hard, milkless breasts
of the cliffside.

broken shells, the sand fleas,
the great bullwhips of seaweed sunning like
bulb-headed snakes,
flagellating.
I walk along the tide,
the indecisive, humping swell and wan,
engulfing my feet like a protozoan,
purple-roofed mussel shells are tongueless, shambled –
I turn into the waves, rolling, keeled,
my pantlegs are soaked, I undo my tie.

but the waves always carry me back:
a cyclical migration, balloon-lunged, salty-eyed
the air warm and milky, like the breath of babies.
the sky bruises, peels
I shiver.

next time, I will bring weights.

the air whittles at your nose,
the sky swarms, provoked wasps, complex steps and mazes.

This is beautiful. Especially the verbs you used, Kylan. Really great. ^_^ I didn't like this poem as much as others, but it was still nice. =]

I do, however, think that shock therapy is an extremely interesting piece that I'll have to come back to read a few more times to really let it sink it. Fantastic, though, you have me hooked.

And then, buoyancy. First of all, "buoyancy" is my favorite word. So. o_O;

(somehow, the grains are already
in between my teeth.)

I really loved this phrase. And the whole poem, really. The imagery and the slime that pervaded throughout was just lovely. Yay! <3

April 10

cats

for suzanne

slinky, rising eyes
glowing and saucered, disembodied
like lightning bug bodies, hovering

staring, weaving
calico convergence,
mewling as the night saddles the window sills.

lispy footfalls, slender as alleyways,
smelling of rat and tongue,
they troll the fenceposts like wardens

hackled child-cries, split ears,
ghostly orphans, drowned in the river,
bodies bloated, floated.

curling around the leg, shoelace tails,
hollow-eyed, milk chins, fetid
napping, skittish as lidded eyes in heavy dream

that creep through his mind,
padded, purring throats, buzzing
like a caught fly

splintered, drawling, scratching at the door,
cinched up in suits, peppering their cigars,
trivial conversations, scratching, scratching

at the ends of his fingertips, stimulated
like emerging, crumple-winged pupa-flies,
their sick, inexperienced faces

their sickled tails fragment his dredged thoughts,
cuddling, lapping,
their eyes, nightlights in his nightmares.

--

(inspired by the work of Louis Wain)

April 11

they came just after dark

here it comes again:
the sun breaking its back over the bottleglass horizon
the smell of your skin, warm with night,
unshowered, frizzy hair,

the window panes haze over,
like dead, milky eyes.
somewhere, panzers are blubbering over a hill;
the whorehouses are booming
with untrousered soldiers,
young and green,
wriggling in sin like tadpoles

last night, we walked through the slumbering buildings,
wretched and harvested, burned out, bombed out,
full of cries, soot, bulletshells,
which tinkle beneath our feet cheerily
as we nudge them aside,
we held hands –
the skyline was emaciated.

at least we still have the neon,
pink, dirty,
an uncleaned, wailing baby,
to show us the way home.

(there are skinny sproutlings in the ash,
startled out of the ground)

A poem for me about Louis Wain! Woo hoo! I'm glad to see I inspired you. It was kind of descriptively chaotic, but then some of it was spectacular. My favorite: curling around the leg, shoelace tails, . Having cats, and knowing what bones cat tails feel like, that gives me the creeps. xD Shoelace tails is amazing.

April 12

small things

the long drives through corridors of redwoods,
roots spreading like the fingers of indians, tipped by red confessions.
the slow mornings, the unlidding of the sun,
auctioning off the pentacled dewdrops,
which the grass tips hold like peace offerings.

the tomato sandwiches, sticky fingers,
pollen spreading like gas in a trench
the fat fruit on the easing branches,
bent, elbowed limbs,
depositing their tithes.

guitar plucked, shivering string: steely, fierce as a refugee,
simple harmonica, fanned by a gray hand,
sparks, slithering off,
an ascension of whisper and fallacy –
reading poems by the firelight.

the quiet.
stillness, unwinding fingers
hush – until you can here the whipporwhils
hold your breath,
shut your eyes, re-open, shut: shutter-shots.

the wheat, lit heads by a blessed sun,
church clothes & milkweed,
industrious silkworms,
we hold hands & throw pebbles into the water,
the freight train bellows & we wriggle our toes, maggoty –

shy leaves part like shallow gondolas,
the moon turns sick & orange,
the radio molds away with static

April 13

yahtzee

i. Confidential

mr. green in the lounge with a revolver,
and the corpse in the main hall,
fingers gnawed on by rats,
his face wide, staring,
sucked in, cornhusk cheeks,
skin settling along his bone structure;
he breaths out tired stories.

ii. Triple Word Score

laid out tiles – barren,
hooked up with rabble, a total of
eighteen points, arranged, picketed,
they gather like old men outside the soup kitchen
rattly jaws, stubbly cheeks, smoggy breath
their fingers poking out of their gloves,
stemmed and black as quarter notes.

iii. Pay Day

the mindless pieces, revolving,
in little blue cars, with snotty, pink-faced babies,
wriggling like mosquito larvae in their booster seats,
hands wrapped, corded
sucking the air, the hair,
the thin gray twine, crooked and thorny as barbed wire.
they sit in the empty, broad backed houses,
that creak and sigh in the heat –
mum, woven mouths, silent as jailers.

iv. Do Not Pass Go

the red hotels,
scrunched together, packed,
beggarly, toothless grins,
and the leafing of oily fingerstained money,
bills crumpled like raped maidens,
the properties extorted, rented, repossessed.
on kentucky avenue, the children sit outside on the porch,
barefooted, toes like ant eggs, their lips fat and hungry.
they see the plunging lines, the pluses, minuses,
they chew bubblegum and speculate
over dow jones and coffee beans and life insurance.

--

I'm fond of this one.

April 14

our lady of

inside, it is hot and stuffy.
the women fan themselves with hymn books,
mouths open and red, like smushed bugs.
the organ breathes slow and tired,
bronze pipes stacked and slumped:
fluted bamboo.

ringing, squalling bells,
nodding and yawning like sleepy children,
scolding pigeons; flurry of poop and feathers,
the crosses stand in the yard,
men and women amble in, dressed in sunday best,
faces perfect and vacant,
like prepared corpses –
stinking of chemicals and mothballs.

the words lull,
slipping down, graceless as slugs,
we mumble prayers, massage the beads,
the bread turns to mush,
screaming, redfaced babies disturb the small, shaped thoughts,
eyes pinched shut, like snuffboxes.
the lights falls through the dull windows,
white and dawdling.

preacher, priest
eyes tired and black and thin as drone bees,
winged eyelids,
jointed lips,
his collar is yellow; he speaks of cosmos and sin,
the people nod.
the people nod.

their heads set in motion like heavy, white blossoms in the wind.