Young Writers Society

April 24th - carpe diem

your lower lip brushes the blue veins
on the back of my hand ever so minutely
and your breath is warm, I play dot-to-dot
with your freckles but you're getting new ones
by the second and I'll start all over again

the gravel on the hill is damp and cold under us,
but we skip all the efforts to move and
you point at the horizon – from here you can
reputedly see where the golden eagle nests
and its hunting cries echo above the cove
as we hum the same vague tune in canon

traces of pencil are hugging your fingers
and I digest the scent of just laundered cotton
on your shoulder streaming through my presence
like a waterfall at night after a flood
and a curtain falls in front of the sky blue screen

and the pins and needles it sends down
don't chase us away, the droplets fasten us
to the ground and we'll stay here forever.

April 25th - rabbit

with a spiral notepad under my arm
I cross the backyard and no one knows,
piercing a thicket as gently as possible,
I almost step on the first wood anemones
I've seen this year. it's dark enough for them
to be drooping, but they catch my smile
like hungry sundews and I leap over them,
placing a mental post-it note to see them again
in my occiput

and I haven't walked this path in ages,
people jog here at day time but now it's empty
it's that time of the nychthemeron
on which you can't tell whether it's
dawning or the limbo of day and night,
and not even the birds give it away with their song

in the trance of the air, I run
but not away, just forward
and there's a curvy birch where the road bends,
we used to call it a giraffe tree
and I sit down on its neck and lift my feet on the trunk
pulling out the pencil from my pocket

but someone is coming behind the curve
and a reflex seduces my limbs into jumping off
and rushing back where I came from,
this time I don't watch out for the anemones
and only behind a dense bush I stop

and breathe.

Oh...these were so pretty. Again! I was almost going to skim read them, but I couldn't - I was hooked from the first word. If there's anything I can really say to you, it's to never stop writing - your poems are so intimate, so cute and arresting!

Haven't got time to go into specifics, but I'll say that I'm having real trouble deciding which of the above two I like the best - I loved the ending of carpe diem, and (while I liked the beginning of this, too) the beginning of rabbit was rather enticing

Thank you, Navita, your comments are always very much appreciated


April 26th - now

she paints penumbra on her skin with eyeshadow
behind the fence, everyone is out and
there's a crack in her sunglasses, but it's half cloudy
anyway, with a chance of summer showers
as they so readily declared

with three long strokes she'll have
a picnic on the world map, maybe no curfew
this time and even through her closed lids
a technicolour hummingbird teases her
but luckily it doesn't know how to chirp

and the tectonic plates on her fingernails
tempt her to shred them, and would they really
conform if she drank more milk, no one knows –-
varnish doesn't cover the seams for good
she knows, has she tried or what

this summer, she'll wear her forelock up
so her face won't look like the polish flag ever again
laying her arms beside her ribs,
the kitten comes to snuffle them with its wet nose

and all she hears is radio gaga.

April 27th - countdown

only clocks know that the night is descending
when she leans against the leathery sofa skin,
how many times has she wished it was yours
or a different finger to unravel her tangly hair
and the spoonfuls of self-pity she enjoys
once a week with hot caramel sauce
have yet to sign in on her appearance

remembering how much she dislikes
citrus fruit flavoured lip balms is equally hard
every time, like going out with holes in your shoes
and she wants to be more than words in her
world where you have your own stamp
and a thumb under her chin

as the cat is baking buns on her stomach,
time has turned in and the night can be seen
already, there's a spot next to the redcurrant bush
where she can plant a rowan with memories
if she has some in the autumn

and when she puts on silver footwear,
every clack is for that evening, even if they say
you can't wear heels on pebbles
in any case she'll be glad to fall asleep tonight.

Two more days to go!

April 28th - third to last

maybe he's climbing up a vertical slope
with no safety net or
whistling in a cloud of wheat flour,
but she has done that before
and time is harnessed in front of the carriage
that he built for her, letting the wheel tweak his fingers
so that she could cross the pond on his waistcoat
with pride made of tulle on her hat

when lightnings strike, she locks him in a shed
with mattocks, and it just might happen that
the key is eaten by a frog if the spawn has woken
and through the knotted door she can hear him
change his mind for the oceanth time
and she blows a kiss for the taken key

today she can make him disappear.

April 29th - sonnet

she might be born with a will of her own
us curious, we'll have to wait and see
but for years already it has been known
her genes don't abide consistency.

if they want a child with certain virtues,
they'll have to name her carefully
because we should think the name they choose
will give her thoughts of fidelity.

when the mother's about to be giving birth,
the family is listing possible names
for the prettiest girl to be walking the Earth
after Diana and other sensible dames.

but I wish you had seen their faces so pale
when they found out their precious princess was male.

Ahh I just wrote a whole review for this and I lost it! Grr.

I really loved the last two lines here, they were very effective, and the subject matter is great.

Sometimes the lines are either two long or too short, which makes it a bit bumpy so I'd count the syllables as you read it so you can see which parts are jarring.

Also, your adherence to the form is making some of your sentences a bit convoluted, for example;

"us curious, we'll have to wait and see"

and

"because we should think the name they choose".
I'd try for something more natural and change the rhyme if need be. I may also consider taking the "we" out of this because that seems to make you go wobbly.

Looking forward to the last one. Well done, I've really enjoyed your poems this month.

Jas

Thank you Jas!

And a big thank you to anyone who kept reading/commenting on/liking these. Thanks for helping me keep this going with your presence, and giving me your opinions, and being overall great. This was much more fun with all of you around.

Let's get this done.


April 30th - sede vacante

their hems whisper with the marble mosaics
to the rhythm of veni creator spiritus guiding
them onto building new loyalty for the yet unknown
as in slow motion, they've witnessed wise hands
rise and destroy the fisherman ring again
and again

heavens pressed pause when they nodded
and rejoined their palms in preparation –
the unwanted are exiled with extra omnes,
and the heavy trachea of the sistine chapel
closes with her deepest inhale
in decades

ballot papers dethrone welfare
when shaking fingers make their choice
and cast them among others, where
significance radiates like plutonium in the sacred air –
old men are obstinate and chagrin sighs
of the public accompany the black smoke
twice in a row

how much longer for the finale,
more and more for habemus papam

What can I say? You finished on a high.Your imagery is beautiful and it flows perfectly and while I'll admit some of it went over my head I really enjoyed it. Beautiful.