Young Writers Society

April 15

old saigon

squealing strings, tightened, sobbing,
the lady next door just lost her son;
they have very little of him to put in a casket.
those monkey-fingered viet kong,
with their long yellow faces,
and gin heavy breath, smoke their green cigarettes
and hover like starched nurses.

look at all the buildings – it's quite a sight,
schooling trashed and dreary veterans
with their legs cut off at the knee
so that the new skin is shiny and pink,
like the cheeks of spanked babies.
there is a tetanus in the air,
the clouds are souring discharge,
the sun is a wobbly, uncared for wound.

and here comes the fanfare
gaudy trump and ripe anchorman voices.
in the evening, the streets are full of empty bottles and gumwrappers
in the morning, the crevices are filled
with old, caught prayers and ashes.
the pretty girls with primped, scoured faces,
candied breath,
and lips that breed like plated cultures
turn to each other and say,
I'm a sucker for a guy in a uny-foruhm!

chloroform,
green and sick as young brides,
their faces hinged,
cupped in the depleted lap of the pillows,
dry lips,
the dreams are all shapes and shudders
and the daises on the bedside are unreplaced and wilting,
heads bent, tilted,
like curious children.

--

Pst! Anyone reading anymore?

Totally meant to post these comments yesterday! =] I'm still reading, just swamped with school. o_o; Which is making me fall behind on my own NaPo. Ahhhh. -sob-

Anyways. xD

auctioning off the pentacled dewdrops,
which the grass tips hold like peace offerings.

-drools-

Then, the one you actually wanted. =]

the mindless pieces, revolving,
in little blue cars, with snotty, pink-faced babies,
wriggling like mosquito larvae in their booster seats,

I don't know if you should use 'Pay Day' as the title to this one, because Pay Day is an actual game, so it got me confused for a moment. o_o; Anyways, on another note, I think the best put-together of the four is the last one. It keeps to the theme of the game while still adding that deeper, prettier, faded thing you went for with all of them. The 'Pay Day' one, in my opinion, is the least cohesive. It speaks about babies at first, then ends in jailers. You can make the concept of babies and revolving have the same tone as the rest and keep it in line with the rest that way.

I completely loved the Scrabble stanza, and the Clue one was great as well, but not as creative as the others.

on kentucky avenue, the children sit outside on the porch,
barefooted, toes like ant eggs, their lips fat and hungry.

These are by far my favorite lines. It's so unique, Kylan. I like it. =] Refine it just a bit and it will be gold.

his collar is yellow; he speaks of cosmos and sin,

Yellow! =D Also, the repetition you used is great for this poem. -thumbs up-

the pretty girls with primped, scoured faces,
candied breath,
and lips that breed like plated cultures
turn to each other and say,
I'm a sucker for a guy in a uny-foruhm!

This is my favorite. I love it. It's... wow, it's just beautiful. xD It captures the essence perfectly and uses fantastic comparison pieces to build that essence with. ^_^

Keep writing! I will be here! =D

April 16

snakes in the long grass

look at em scatter
thoraxes abdomens
black-bodied as ants coming up from
puckered holes

bless their dead bless their wounded
the slow fat cops slum down the streets
and the women folk tie up their skirts
shanty-toed
thick-armed
good red ankles
strong working
heads full of tales and nonsense
as they drill in steel mills

the b 52s rape through the sky
shredded shrouds of cloud cover
cast aside
a bruised and naked sun
like a mean pregnant animal

bombs spit from the teeth of the squadrons
watermelon seeds
black and nigger-eyed
the men role their cigarettes
and watch the prisoners
whose heads are hollow and transparent
like radio tubes

antennas
a dispersal
the frantic SOS
they die in numbers
fat and juicy as locusts

their bones crunch underfoot
their songs are forgotten

April 17

fugue

i_

a milking of my lip tips,
a slim drawing out, the eyes thump in their sockets:
the hatching of new insects,
slimy, stained wings,
plastered to their bodies
like nightgowns.
I speak,
and people gather my words:
worm-eaten manna.

the trees and their erotic embrace,
limbs twined, nodes and buds,
sprouting up like the wrinkled noses
of newborns,
a long and tiered phylogeny,
the crack-ups,
the screw-ups,
the moonlight walks beside us;
perverse, tarnished quandaries.

ii_

slipping, slipping
the slick avalanche
I cling
folded and leather-skinned
as a bat,
the frantic echolocation of my smiles
pingpingping,
a rapid pinball, the whorish lights
the sun sinks and blanches

and the thunderheads gather,
big, beehive perms,
the absinthe in your words,
the worn stitching of your traveling bag
let's go somewhere, kid
let's shake the crummy dust of this two-star town
off the soles of our feet
and see the world!

but I can't get out,
look at me, a firefly in a jar,
fading luminescence, like the once-beauty of an aging woman,
filling out, dimples on my elbows,
fat and gray,
death comes smiling and tabulating,
like an accountant.

iii_

ring me up,
as I take one last look at the tree limbs,
bending, seated,
they contemplate like gods.

I am hatching,
and being swallowed up at the same time,
a pill, a daily medicine,
the people push around me, cuddling me,
I curl,
embryonic.
I sleep,
and the egg shells fall away.

April 18

cats (ii)

her fingers work the soil,
pushing, mounding, shoveling trenches.
she buries the papery, rooted bulbs in their holes,
like dead soldiers – mum-faced and gassed.

she watches soaps and drinks her gin
out of a teacup, and wears thin, billowy dresses
that flower around her,
a head like a pollen laden stamen, wagging, sagging.

her teeth are false; they fall out often.
her eyes bulge from their sockets, shiny and old,
she subscribes to trashy magazines, tv guides, star watchers,
and her house smells of cats and romance novels.

thin skin drawls around her facebones – she yellows.
her new flowers are fat and blue,
like the faces of smothered babies –
she walks barefoot.

age follows her around like a stray,
and she decomposes royally,
a cigarette naked and stemmed between her fingers.
you can see that maybe once

she held a job, a husband, and the nights were full
of sleeping children and table talk
and snapshots, but this was before,
the cats started purring around her shins.

I'm still reading. And, this is teh awesomeness still. More constructive criticism to come later.

April 19

Ninh Hoa, 1972

he saw her first,
through the taboo haze
of the tinshack canteen,
the bald cueballs,
the smoke in the room bloated yellow
trapping him like an insect
in creeping amber.
she is bent, plowed, her hands are hard,
she is angled, strange geometries, triangles
in the way she holds her hands,
downcast eyes – tiny, origami mouth.
he sees the shame, she is half in, half out:
a protesting newborn, crabby, old face,
roped with cords, expectations,

flesh,
burning, candied, blubbered.
the lights are low and corrupted,

the ground is muddy,
he hooks her around the waist,
says something quiet and ritual.
she doesn't understand.
her lashless eyes grounded – she steps
the night leans in like a nurse,
she knows he probably only shaves once a week.
his skin is probing and sloughed,
fingers red and segmented, like fat, bulbed ants
he whispers in her ear;
the words are cold and slithery,
behind his eyes are good, faraway parents,
a girlfriend who writes him three times a month,
a football scholarship.

ten dollars will buy five pounds of rice
and maybe taxi fare
and a couple cheap packs of cigarettes.

hookworm drawl,
scudded laugh light,
there he is in the dark and in the sheets,
laid out like a roadmap,
trails between his belly button
and his stiff eyelids,
the room colors and sweats,
like a poisonous frog.
the trees turn rigid, bony
there is a prayer latched in the stars,
the slow birds whoop,
creaky phalanges, he breathes satisfaction,
she heads back into the naked, native night,
which accepts her,
like a tithe.

--

I don't like that one.

April 20

tides

the porcelain curves and gleams
like the unworked skin of a woman,
widely traveled
streetlight through the dipped blinds.
the sink drips
and funneled light from cars passing on the road
worms into the room,
slips down the wall, cast-off, like baby puke.
lynched shadows from the shower curtains
the mirror faces her like a duelist.

a return of features, she holds the instrument
in her hand – the house is silent,
she can hear the mice working in the walls,
grabby, selfish thoughts come up like bile,
bitter, residual.
the face has thumped sockets, deep and blue,
like empty suitcases,
pursed, lipless mouth, face white, powdered,
prepared, kneaded, plopped.

the once sermons, the chaste campaigns,
she could feel his heart through his shirt,
the way a baby kicks at a plush stomach,
beers counted off, falling
crumpled as flyswatted bugs.
giggles of a different sort,
the patterned, milky feet,
seedling toes,
plant them,
dead –

the whispers hang on her ears like beggars,
she can feel the swelling,
a tide, pools with shelled tongues and disapproval,
rising like disturbed birds.
she lets the orphaned dreams loose.

April 21

housewife

the sagging poppy heads,
sin on their green bristles, distilling.
the envious parting lips,
an exercise, a conspiring glance,
hooded eyes, lashes condescending and jointed
as spider limbs.

they stand in lines, wasted bodies,
bent and hipped, starving, castled stomachs –
the ladies in waiting
and their darling song, unspooled,
they look west,
and the geese shape a plunging artillery.

they put their babies in strollers,
packaged like belongings to be moved,
fragile, walled by cardboard,
their eyes are as black as the faces
in the shoebox photos
contracted and smudged.

they go to church, they attend the socials,
the wear gloves to hide the fingers,
hooked like bee stingers.
they gossip,
their husbands are painted up in their words,
captured and defaced, like old monuments

from a bloodless, forgotten dynasty.

I am so good at procrastination. You don't know how many times I've had this thread open in a tab with the intent to go through and review the new poems. xD Obviously I never got around to it. <_<; But I'm here now. ^_^

black-bodied as ants coming up from
puckered holes

I think I would prefer this as a metaphor, without the 'as' in there, because otherwise it's a bit awkward for me. Why are ants coming up from puckered holes so specifically black-bodied? That's how it reads with 'as', but without it, the action is still applied to the former subject.

bombs spit from the teeth of the squadrons
watermelon seeds

I don't think the phrase 'watermelon seeds' accomplishes quite what you want it to. It seems childish and overdone to me. I do love the rest of the imagery in this poem, however, especially:

and watch the prisoners
whose heads are hollow and transparent
like radio tubes

It is love. <3

a milking of my lip tips,
a slim drawing out, the eyes thump in their sockets:
the hatching of new insects,
slimy, stained wings,
plastered to their bodies
like nightgowns.

This imagery is excellent, Kylan, as is the imagery in the rest of that poem. I think that fugue is my favorite yet. =D All the images have the same soft, fadedness, the same delicate balance. Eep. -clings to the poem-

and her house smells of cats and romance novels.

thin skin drawls around her facebones – she yellows.
her new flowers are fat and blue,
like the faces of smothered babies –
she walks barefoot.

age follows her around like a stray,

That first line there is beautiful and real. That middle stanza is a skillful use of colors. And that last line ties in the cat element so subtly that we hardly remember the title or the ending of the poem. This is a great glimpse at age. It was so real. Great, but...

and snapshots, but this was before,
the cats started purring around her shins.

This ending seems clunky because of the pause after before (I don't think you need that comma, in any case) and the grouping of so many unremarkable words for an unremarkable finish. Perhaps that was intentional, but if not, see if you might smooth it out a bit?

trapping him like an insect
in creeping amber.
she is bent, plowed, her hands are hard,
she is angled, strange geometries, triangles
in the way she holds her hands,
downcast eyes – tiny, origami mouth.

The amber imagery is great, but I particularly like the hard, angled math imagery you brought with your geometry and origami.

I don't like that one.

I think you might not like it because you have just a bit too much exposition. The specific bits of the man's past life, especially when followed by you basically saying outright that she's a prostitute, work to bring down the level of your poem. =/ Don't explain it so much. =]

she lets the orphaned dreams loose.

This poem is deep and I will need time to digest it, but suffice it to say that it is beautiful and satisfactory and I /will/ be back for it.

their eyes are as black as the faces
in the shoebox photos
contracted and smudged.

they go to church, they attend the socials,
the wear gloves to hide the fingers,
hooked like bee stingers.

That one is lovely through here.

Ahhh, Kylan. Your poems are excellent.

April 22

The View (prose poetry)

It is a long way down. Beneath her hands, the iron railing is rusted and chapped, like thirsty lips. The metal is blotched, her footsteps strip gongs of deepthroated blasphemy from the struts and ribbing. There are a few birds in the sky. Miserable and thin-coated. The trees along the riverbank lean in with strict attendance, gathering like an audience for a hanging. She can see the faces of ancestors and sunday school teachers in the mouthless black. There are crosses and rosaries and pews, too. They crack open for her, like lunatics.

She is afraid of heights. Her sneakers slip, smooth rubber, red as a spanking. The tongues of water lip and fold, eager, squirming. The slim stars punctuate liberally. Little periods at the ends of her prayers. In the distance, across the valley, she can see the cars moving on the road. They swim, anglerfish, tempting, swinging lanterns.

The sky shrugs, faceless as a pallbearer.

Holding onto the wet, slippery cable, she looks down. She is embraced. Stifling, gasping. The wool in her teeth and the warm nectar of smoke and mothballs. She is swaddled by the dark, her eyes as sightless and wide as those of newborns, the cold hands of a nurse, the mewling of neighbors, bald and kicking footsies.

A countdown. It seems laughable. Her hands are freezing solid.

April 23

maternity ward

we had nine new babies delivered today,
the huffing, ugly mothers,
with groping fingers
and lips parting into
keyholes.

we carried the babies into the nursery,
breathless, red, scrunched things,
meaty and segmented,
they struggle like shiny larvae,
their heads are wobbly and over-large
brutish lanterns.
their ears cupping like,
blind, pink, hairless
mice.

the room smells of formula and fluids;
I can barely stand it.
their eyes open and shut, open and shut,
slow and lazy:
muted, heavy blossoms sensing light.
their toes perform tiny bee dances,
and their lips form concaves,
sucking for nipple,
clinging for hard, strict milk.
their skin is so white and dewey,
they catch the sun, harvesting.
they turn transparent, veiny,
so that you can see all the new paths
in their brains, the bulbed neurons
forming like
eggs from the belly of the queen.

the moon is red and thick tonight:
a placenta.
the babies weigh themselves with sleep:
a drowsy pollen.
the young doctors swap and scrounge and snip
thinking of all the cells and blastocysts
and embryos and birth certificates,

we close our eyes and sigh,
they're wilting already.

the mothers glow like squid.

om nom nom nom amniotic fluid.

(Translation: my love and (un)helpfulness for this thread, as ever, know no bounds.)

Nom nom nom. I eats ur wordage.

But, anyway.

Just to drop a line.

housewife wrote:the sagging poppy heads,
sin on their green bristles, distilling.
the envious parting lips,
an exercise, a conspiring glance,
hooded eyes, lashes condescending and jointed
as spider limbs.

This is love. Beauteous, beauteous imagery.

Cal.

Thanks Cal and McHelpful!

--

April 24

creekside

we peel back the stones, sour and black
yawning like toothless, miserly baby mouths,
the bussed, cluttering insects, mercury-eyed, shell-backed
fussy in the sunlight, telegraphic legs,
spindled, delicate.
we abduct like saucermen.

empty-stomached scarecrows,
we glean the fallen fruit, shriveled and crushed,
like the heads of aborted babies
we walk home, I have to carry my little brother
who tagged along,
his breath his heavy with unripe fruit,
his hands slung around my neck,
clasped yoke,
the sky moves blue and scrub-eyed:
hump-backed buffalo.

catfish whiskers,
the rope swing creaks, wheezes
like old men full of war stories,
tin battered eyes
your bones are hollow and full of venom,
curved like snaketeeth.
we are earnest in our inspection
of the undergrowth,
stained knees, green palms,
our eyes bright and rare,
like heirlooms.

the carnivores come and spoil the fun,
spoil the naked bodies, the hot fingers
stripped out and neat as you please,
gloomy clouds, penitent, groined roots
we scrabble, broadcast, squander
as the screen door rattles shut
and your mother calls from
next door.