Young Writers Society

Day 18

The Gale

where we split the world in half with a comb in Atlas's head
and asked the Gale
"write to us the gradient and expression of the land
let us see our bodies in your curves and taste your
writing in lips that stalks us as a minotaur in the maze
and whisper in your Gale the rage and peace of the sea
remind us the fluidity of blood and the reassurance of death
and we will reflect on the equilibrium of your grace and fury"
so was said and
we built temples in your name and monuments to stand the test
of time, time left thirty minutes before the test is over, time ticking
before you left the message "I am the Gale, but I have always been and-"
and we lost the letter in the wind, when you walked away

I

I played with sticks by the creek and skipped rocks on the streams,
this is what I wrote when I came green and literate, reminded of an old
More dream about flighty Browning escapes in fudge tongues, my tongue
to your tongue writer's inter-meshing, I

was crushed under weight as the Gale filled me with gasoline
and drove me from Canada to Mexico and flew me to the moon,
set me on fire like the Burning Man and, ecstasy, ecstasy in deconstruction

I God, God I
remember you said you were the devil, appearing in a Gale to raze humanity
to the height of Babel and, and on and on, but-
I found the letter you wrote "and the future is something I don't know"

don't
you? think climatologists have the easiest jobs ever? Who can predict the weather?

Gale I, I Gale, galing like Hypocrites in a line, pretty little hypocrites dancing with sheep
did you know you immolated with your archetype and consumed yourself; yes

the Gale, natural calamity expressed in the inexplicable;
whispering to me lies
and I ate them each, each of them
in hand individual I ate, cherries from a tree
sent to a market, I hand picked
each one to feed my children, and poison,
necessary to save them from purity

Gale, force of nature unstoppable force
I am the void and I watched quietly
to help put you to sleep when the end of your days comes
when the end of days come.

A Response to Your Response to Others, And Also, To Your Work, And I guess to You, Too

there's a chaos to your writing,
a desperate overture, like some crazed musician uncaring of form
and i think it's weird that i find it hardest to follow
the repetition. glib lines beginning with the same phrase
but ending in another, glib lines casting dizzy circles
like some bullshit tonguetwister a three year old can manage
but an adult stumbles over.

what do you mean?

you asked me to come here, to this place and review;
i decided otherwise, if this poetry is your [expression of] art,
art expressing you,
i say art's purpose is to deceive. it's self-serving
beyond anything else manufactured in steel mills
and plastic mines. so i looked elsewhere
and found you hiding locked in another's
words, unable to escape your impaired vision.

you asked Kylan to leave Eden - mine, his, yours? -
an audacity with balls bigger than God's
fruit could ever hope to produce, i thought at the time
till I read your works again and saw in them
the very fears you counselled against, a biblical theme
rampant in humanity's wreckage, your words
twisted coils that befuddled reason just as much
as that hated hateful document that dares to cry
for hope, dashed, and a wine already sour
running out.

that couldn't be it, though, surely
we're not all so vain? so blind to the flaws
we outline living in our traitorous flesh
weaving blindfolds from mirrors. WE
can't be so self-serving as to see
only ourselves in others, beseeching
them to see reason that we don't
lack, can't find, can't hope to produce
anything other than fucking clones
and we all saw how that shit went down
in Star Wars.

then i found your father
and jesus he's fucking huge -

did you know i thought you a man
at first? now I wonder why you
wear the mantle of a man you despise
and i can't tell if its imagined in an
absence glaring canyon-wide
or if his shadow covers your skin.
look up, is he there?

that's what it boils down to, if
you paid attention this far down
uncaring of the attrition attrition plays
on words, on a mind struggling to find
meaning and Murphy can go fuck himself
'cos it's all going wrong and watching you
watching him watching Hawthorne
go nuts on workers lost to observation
is costing me my fucking sanity.

sorry, my point is that there's more
to me than I ever assumed, but less
than I hoped and i found it here in
trying to review you - meaning
dad, absence, fear of vanity
clothed in honest appraisal and scarlet satire.

by this time clarity's lost, bias
never leaves but sits unnoticed
by the fireside and we all pay attention
to the dancers leaping in their bright grace
over ash, and all the strands play cat's cradle
with more intricacy than i can replicate
without tying my hands in knots
that can only be unpicked by faith

i simply don't have.
do you know what I find most amusing
of all? i don't even know your name
but i tried to pick at your heart
with decapitalisation in the misplaced belief
i could make you bleed on uneven
words.

Day 19

everything is different now

Creatures of the Night

There lies the road at midnight, dirt paths
littered in bread crumbs, and faceless trees whispering
warnings in bark tongue creakings,
hushing human breathe and thoughts of wanderers
too far strayed from pastures and meadows,
to this enchanted twilight wood; remember Wanderer,
Of creatures of the night, when midnight's close at hand
the cracking, rustling of bones in leaves under step, Wanderer
dream deeper of the voices hidden amongst the trees inside of dreams,
for once you start to listen, creatures of the night dominate your mind

Come walk to the fireside canopy in the deepest reaches
of twilight's forest, where Macbeth still dances in denial
with his visions of witches three as he awaits his midnight trial, and
come closer to the fire and taste the shadows of the forest
mixed with the skin of children's naive, yes add yours to the pile;
Wanderer of creatures of the night, when midnight's hour come
and the forest breathes as your breaths and you walk timed unison upon its tongue,
Wanderer dream deeper upon your fears so very foreign, far from home, stripped
down to your bones as you start to listen to silence, creatures of the night dominate your mind

Day 20

my own memories?

Absinthe tastes of grandmother

Tereus and Philomela, was writ on her apron
she pastes crimson jam with a silver knife across white host bread,
my skin tingles as she licks her lizard's lips
like a secret snake playing wolf in her clothing;
grandmother lets me live with her in the mansion
in the hot red barren canyons of the Mojave desert
as she is lonely so much so much, she
was booted from the retirement home in L.A.,
weeding out bad apples was the justification said
and she still feels betrayed,
the headmaster stopped listening to her
he her idol she the student, right hand and left
her out of the decision, on the church service
the last Sunday of the first year
they held a secret ballot, all the occupants of “L.A.'s Finest Shangri-La”
voted to cast grandmother out

the teacup trembles like a timid chick
her bony baby hands quiver with taste of absinthe on her breathe
and I pour her another cup,
she makes me so happy since grandfather left our lives
says “Man” she sees me as one, my age is lost in pages of a life that rewrites itself
“Man you've done me so well, let me tell you of your parents who ran away
from the garden home your grandfather and I worked so hard...so hard to make perfect”
her eyes warmed my throat like some nostalgic mother's milk
made blood rush like a river drenched red outside Troy and held my complete attention
how I loved her memories no one else ever could remember, no library
could grasp catacombs of grandmother's Absinthe visions into the meaning of life
“Tereus and Philomela...they left the garden home by this mansion,
wonder lust and innocent
alone he slit her tongue, let it writhe upon the floor,
she was muted from grandfather's ears and Philomela had run my patience thin,
we had to leave our son to the consequence of his destructive ends,
and she gave birth to Tereus's child, a fleeced mute soul drowning in an oubliette
she killed her son and fed him to Tereus as a delicious soup”
grandmother wipes jam from her lips with the apron stitched with their names
coughs green fairy breathe into a pasty red smear on fleshy white cloth
“Man, that was the day you were born”

Wow.... I am dumbfounded I did not expect so much emotion, I will have to critique this tomorrow because you have so much here it is kind of confusing. Promises are just set times to disappoint others so I will not promise but I will critique this u may have to give me a few days.

From here out, I would appreciate any and all brutally honest opinions on anything I've written in here; I don't care from who. It would be much appreciated.

The honest opinion of a stranger is that

1) When you're not alluding to mythology or Shakespeare or similar items, I have no idea what you're talking about
2) I like the way the words feel coming off my tongue, but, again, I have no clue what to feel about them

Then again, I'm notorious for not ever understanding poetry, anyway.

I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly through a museum of art I'll never grasp. Sometimes I want to grasp them and will beat my head against them until I do, and other times I want to move to the next room so I can finish the museum and tell my friends back home that I was there and that I am cultured.

O.o

............

My new goal is to one day be this epic.

In my few weeks time here, getting settled, you strike me as an enigma.


But you are slowly becoming my favorite enigma.

Day 21

That Fly Sass n' Jazz

Man, Eliot get off my Dick-
en's! Such harsh words for
Art, you see these modern
people I know are just like you,
a sweet homeless black man
blowing out reluctant air in
his sax, and sex to get a release,
so much music runs a soul awry
his name was Oliver, he said
he knew a man named Ellington,
and he sang me Miles Davis with
a tongue parched for meaning
in these modern times that go
by quietly once the songs stop,
and we go home and the ending
wasn't written for this, because
Eliot, you knew it was easier
to critique art as separate; that
po' black man, he jus ah victim
ah sad times an dem inqualtee's,
but God bless his music let us
analyze his imperfections to death;
“there are no art geniuses” Eliot says
and I, Eliot I look for meaning
and there is no Eliot
was no Eliot, and reader
the words are yours, not Eliot's

hummed and strummed,
but sung with a saxophone
player's eulogy in Jazz jams

Day 22

school days that still come to mind

remember the blacktop hit your skin,
we were only ten, blood and fresh tar
was mascara, precious delights amen

remember the blacktop burn bare soles,
we were eleven and blistered skin
just made you laugh and laugh until we cried

remember when memories were fun to have?
friends, old and sixty, now poor and homeless
some are dead and some are in gangs
and others never come back anyway;
today you and I pull up the past,
to watch our grandchildren play catch

Day 23

untitled

grandfather, generations buried
along with him in the corn field
sewn like a patchwork quilt
with days and years in seeds,
stitches holding the earth together
under the foundations of a family,
a home laid stone by stone
by hands of grandfathers
now resting in the fields,
still feeding the seeds
from when they are planted,
to grow for their children
of the next generation,
grown to ears shucked dry
by the hands of sons and daughters

Day 24

the jazz singer

bass, moving mellow, with
jazz singer's voice, fumbles
his hands like joy jam-
med school tossed him
like a bad record, back
to the pubs and clubs, bass
voice did no bedside manner,
free this jazz singer, wanted
help folks breathe, to live,
yes this jazz singer
needs to sing in the wind

Hey Mustard,

For these short ones you need killer endings to make them have any kind of impact. Fix these endings for me?

Thanks (and good to see you experimenting with shorter verse)



Navi

Day 25

Limbo's Prayer

A phone rings in Hades.
It is said before children
go to bed "spot him, the
Morningstar, he will lead
to death," a cosmonaut's
mission takes the stars,
nursery rhymes sell quite
well on billion light year
visions, of children
dancing round and
round spaceships, saucer
thin to slip like records on
a player, prayers to the
Morningstar to wake up
each day. Message beep.

"human child let's dance
like romance all the way
to France, oh don't ask a
thing just dance, dance"