Young Writers Society

Oh no, now the Poe in me is coming out.

#7:
The bus whined and stopped at the curb
A sneeze of air opened the doors.
My eyes were pulled from the suburb
When a heavy pack dropped to the floor;
My wand'ring gaze had turned to see
A woman in the seat across from me.

Her shins were placed as marble columns
Atop her slender, ballet feet.
Fingers, aristocratic, crossed in solemn
Like a mourning family on her dress's pleats.
Her eyes cast down, her nose turned up,
A wordless guest staring at her cup.

I could swear I'd seen her locks before
Somewhere in the ages past.
An audience to the candy store,
With her turned up nose pressed to the glass,
A dollar and some cents in her impatient palm,
But without the will to spend it all.

No, not so far, perhaps atop of my first car,
Loitering in the park, a beer after sunset.
Her virgin hand pointed at the brightest star,
And said that times like these we'd never regret--
We would just miss it with a weary sigh,
As the present drifted by.

Still no, please, let reason speak,
She simply was not a girl I knew,
And I realize now she's not unique,
Just a stranger through and through.
A pretty face worth just one passing day,
But not worth the lasting words I want to say.

And somewhere, yet those girls live,
A stranger to some creature's savage stare.
What kind of man could only give
That chaste beauty a lewd affair?
And still viewing this Annabel Lee,
I think, perhaps a man as vile and bare as me.

Now on a lighter (and shorter) note (finally?),

#8:
Regarding Quitting

I'm beyond my prime, and I keep a pack of lies
on me, like I keep my cigarettes.
Unabashed and brazen, that's how she would
describe me to our careless friends.
Weathered and considerate, that's how she insists
on treating me between weekends.
And over time, I form a crooked smile
as I abandon the cigarettes.
And over time, I take these lies from the pack
and flush them down forgiving toilets.
This porcelain confessional is my
only way of making amends.

I LOVED this latest one, and your sense of saracasm/homour throughout it! That was a brilliant line -

keep a pack of lies
on me, like I keep my cigarettes.

And I wondered if you were going to circle around or not to this interesting simile, and I was not disappointed! And such a clever ending, too!

This porcelain confessional is my
only way of making amends.

I actually didn't read the title until after I'd read the poem twice, and then it made a little more sense - but I still think you'd do well to leave it slightly more vague from the outset.

Thanks, Navita! I'm glad you get my dry and occasionally reluctant humor

Sometimes, I go for letting the reader and author reach the same conclusion either a) at the same time or b) with the author just slightly ahead of the reader. But, I've never been very attached to titles in this series, so no matter. I'm a post-mortem-publication editor's nightmare!

#9:

flashing strobes lit the dust
as the mice next door retreated
at the steady tremor in the walls.
she turned up her sharp hips and turned
down her head. her legs, dancing,
wormed their way into my pulse
and i knew the latent alarm
that she might feel my glancing.
her slender hands were raised over
her head, they revealed the fair skin
painting the hollow of her underarms.
her white shirt reflected blacklights
rocketing the surrealism to new
heights. we were a field
of wheat moving to a common
breath under the arid sun that
was no more than a disco ball hung
from a coathanger stuck on the
metal sprinkler. i'm pretty
certain they broke every
fire code that night.


--------------------------------
Just playing with movement, aesthetic flow, and the length of the lines.

#10:
Our personal universes are not expanding,
but instead collapsing in on themselves.
We do not spin and throw our hands out,
but instead sit and claim understanding.

This is a generation of silence, save for the
rhythmic pattering of keys and the squeak
of a chair waiting for us to return with a meal.
This is a generation of impossible knots, too meek
to be angry and too discontent to be bothered to move.
There is nothing to see, to taste, or feel
except the heavy (but warm) blanket of ennui.

The marches are beyond our scope and the riots
are without hope. Nothing gets done so nothing is done
save for the indignant pattering of keys.

And somewhere, in a dusty attic, surrounded
by tapes recording and clicking,
The Stasi listens to Dylan and other hollow men,
whose words ring true but nothing is sticking.
Switching stations, they find Eliot, and smile
knowingly at the words he knew,
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

And the Stasi, like us, will place a finger
on the dial and change the station once again.

I really don't know.

#11:
There's been a dust-up at the wedding
about expectations or money
or some such nonsense.

The groom punched his newly-made father
and pulled up his underwear sharply
for good measure.
"That was her college fund!"

The best man overturned a table before
throwing a bottle of 1962 Riesling
at his brother's head.
"Get out of here, you alcoholic!"

The bridesmaids scratched and pulled
then engulfed someone's mother
in the hairy mess.
"I--you--the day--get off--bitch!"

And no one noticed that the bride was
face-down in the cake while the DJ
played remixed Enya.
"?"

At least they settled things civilly.

#12:
"True romance exists only in desperation,"
whispered she, pressing into my back as we
moved from the darkened house into temptation.
Perhaps we'd be better off eternally unhappy
and shuddering with every stolen day and alone
every last night than sitting side-by-side with
our T.V. dinners and our T.V. show
arguing about who is right.

We know we'll never end up together but
there are fires down on South Street tonight,
and I'm feeling lucky and I'm feeling light.

She reveals a bottle of tequila and a china cup,
muses over the contrast, and downs a fiery breath,
before stowing it in her purse again.
We make our way onto the floor and feel the heat
of the lazy-colored-lights as we push away our fears
with wild hands and completely miss the beat.
But there's nothing here for us, nothing to be gained.
And when we left, we never noticed that it had rained.

We know we'll never end up together but
these distractions are filling us up just fine.
What's yours is yours and what's mine is mine.

We tug on each other's hands as the darkest part comes on,
feeling the warmth and the ridges between the fingers,
squeezing so hard to make sure the feeling lingers.
But when I'm gone, she lays out on the lawn
and doesn't know whether to laugh or break down.
She wonders what will linger and what will disappear.
As the dawn banishes the night, it confirms her fears;
she curls up, wishing the thoughts would not come here.

We know we'll never end up together but
we'll give it all our youth for one romance;
love is only love when we have no chance.

#13:
A year before, a dream had told me
that today would be the greatest day.
And I spent a year wondering if
1) this were true or
2) this were untrue or
3) in some grand joke, I would die.
And in my morbidity I
believed in number three.
The day before, I left a note as some
swansong or manifesto of my regrets.

I found myself sitting on a park bench,
watching the volunteers hand out rations
to the poor on a clear October day.
A graying man approached on unsteady feet,
his jacket bearing that familiar stench,
stale human odors mingled with the street.
He held up a ticket, unmistakably ages old,
and proudly told me, "I'm going to the Indians game!"

I nodded and waited for him to move on.

"You ever been to an Indians game?"
he asked, lingering further.
"Once," I lied, hoping to avoid a lecture.
"When?" he pressed. "Against who? Who won?"
"Oh, I don't remember."
He straightened up and said,
"That's the trouble with you kids. What are you? 19?
You never remember where you been. The good times
are lost on you, and you mope about the bad when
the cards are down. And what'll you do then?
Nothing. You gotta remember the good, man! This
is the best thing you've got, and when you're old
you won't have a thought and you've got nothing to hold!"

Before I could pose so much as a reply,
the graying man looked at me sly and said,
"Now, I've got a game to go to!" and tottered off.
I sat longer, musing and wondering why
and where this lecture had come from.

Ten minutes later, the same old man
came down a different street
on his same unsteady feet and declared,
"Going to the Indians game! They'll take you all on!"
"Crazy old man," muttered an older lady.

#14:
I sat on the beach, dress shoes, khakis,
collared shirt, and pea coat wrapped
about my shivering frame. Two and
a half hours from home at 12:30 a.m.

What had caused me to miss my exit home?
I reflected. A simple mechanical error
or a complex internal terror?

To stay the trembling mind, I worked
on building a fire. But the burning paper
blew away and extinguished as a dot.

I retreated to the car and slept.

At 6:30 I rose again and returned to the sand.
Like a soldier pinned, I huddled on the dune
that failed to keep out the chilling wind.
Battered and beat, sand gathering at my seat,
I bowed my head for the coming defeat.

Pink tinged the sky, and seemed to still the war.

A figure in the corner of my eye
meandered along the shore. Also bundled,
it bent, picked up a shell, examined it, then
returned it to its place. I watched the figure
with mistrust and strained to see its face.

A man, it appeared.
He noticed me, and slowly neared.
Picking up, examining, and putting down shells.

When he was in range, he called, "How is life?"
A pause. Then, "What?"
He repeated, "How is life?"
A pause again. Could I trust the words I spoke?
I answered, "Good, I think. Life is good."
He smiled and looked to the horizon,
"I think it's going to be a good sunrise."

A hazy blue tinted the skies,
and we observed, together, the coming dawn.

"Good luck to you, sir," he said and carried on.
Picking up, examining, and putting down shells.

#15:
Caroline took a long drag and said,
"I know you better than you ever
wanted me to know when we kiss.
And you won't ever find
what you need in my lips."

There was no derision and no pity,
simply a variation of the statement
I'd heard all too often in this city.

In the clack and squeal of the subway
and the air hissing through the window's seal,
there were only discordant appeals to my identity.

Like the sky, a vacuum between the buildings, and
like the earth, in captivity between the sidewalks,
I find myself caught in the wires,
a raging ancient beast for hire,
a veritable fossil among the lights,
slowly turning docile.

#16:
Oh, Honey, I'm sorry I ever left.
I followed that siren song with deft urgency
and found nothing but a million ways
to say no.

Oh, Honey, can you forgive me?
She was nothing more than a marker
in the sea, just a means to catch
my breath again.

Oh, Honey, don't say a word.
I've gone deaf from the tremors
I heard; don't waste your breath
on this Midas.

#17:
Music Box Song

And when this story is over,
it will begin again.

I'll sit at the head
of the bed
and watch the night that
creeps in through the slats,
painting the floor and the
wrinkled sheets
in the color of defeat.

The shadowed valleys
of the dark alleys
that you move through at
the hours you combat
the alcohol will occupy my
tired mind
'til you come home with too much wine.

And you'll come in
drenched in sin
and I'll wipe it from your
face, like a tender chore
that I remember from the
better days
before you learned to live this way.

And I'll softly murmur,
hold you firmer,
and tell you about
how I'll never doubt,
and whisper to you
a pleasant tale
that one day we'll unveil.

And when this story is over,
it will begin again.

Hey Sarg! Even though I'm pressed for time for a review, just wanted to let you know that I AM STILL READING THESE BEAUTIFUL POEMS OF YOURS and to keep going! I love the clarity and your voice that comes in through the poems - sometimes annoyance, sometimes despair, anything, really - and it is so refreshing to come to each anew and think: hmmm, I wonder what this one will be like - always a new experience! I thought that one you did as no. 13 was really intriguing, since it read more like a story than a poem, but the formatting made it look all the more interesting. And I absolutely loved this latest one - you kind of reveal each detail piece-by-piece so that we give it more importance, and appreciate it more, rather than trying to cram all details in one go into a line; and this is something I really enjoyed.

And...I don't know of anyone who doesn't write poetry out of personal experience, actually, so I think it's really understood (you don't really need to say it - leave a bit of mystery for us, eh)!

Thank you so much, Navita! Thanks for taking the time to let me know I'm not just shouting into an empty canyon (or quacking, for that matter).

I wish I could comment on other people's stuff, but I barely have enough time to read them most days (but I am reading them (and yours!)). I still have 13 to do in 6 days! (I don't do weekends usually. Not around a computer enough.) I imagine we're all scrambling around.

Actually, part of me prefers that people don't comment (unless they hate it and want to tell me everywhere I went wrong. Then that's fine and welcome). Because then I feel the pressure to keep up some status quo. But, I try to force myself to understand that we all have ups and downs, and the home stretch can get mighty sloppy But I do appreciate your encouragement!

As for the personal experience thing...yeaaah, I know. But, y'know, we sometimes extrapolate the situation. Just wanted to let the people know that, word for word, this indeed happened in such a weird, fortuitous way. I'll try to be more mysterious, eh?

#18:
Let the intellects push the sun away
while I tear this hollow from my mouth.
I'll revel without the suspense of day,
plunge into the street's muddy gray,
and slake my thirst with steel.

Let the biologists map the body out
so I will plan and know my course.
The sharpened edge will mark my route;
this pointed compass leaves no doubt
that I will find my way back home.

Let the chemists mix another drink
to warm me after the chill.
My peeled eyes will never blink,
my bestial mind will never think,
The muslin facade has little to hide.

So cast these curtains aside
and, with a wary glance, step inside.