Young Writers Society

I'm not entirely sure I'll be doing this, or at least I know I won't do the full 30 days, but I doubt I can stop myself from participating at least a little! I am therefore aiming for 15 poems this year and will try to post one every other day.

All the likes on this thread are making me feel guilty for not writing. So... I tried? I think it's missing a conclusion, and a title.

1.

I knew if I emptied the bottle,
I would find your message curled
like a seashell fossil,
its sacred history of the old world
weighted
in the embalming wine.

I knew when I stumbled,
half enlightened,
before the emaciated mirror - I fumbled
upon my imperfect reflection in the glass.
I was perfecting you.

I knew every bone jutting out of my grave,
every rib like the arching hull of the ship
in the bottle I crave, was breaking
over the mirror vibrating with
the after-image of one tremulous epoch
of you.


I'm so rusty. Apparently not writing poetry for months leaves you unable to write poetry.

I think the "rustiness" aspect of this just comes from how certain words stick out rather than being woven so for example: emaciated/ vibrating/ epoch -- I dunno about those word choices, but that is such an easy easy fix, this is cake and you've got it still. There are some beautiful images, love the bones out of the grave and the hull of a ship<3

Keep it up! Still lots of catch-up time.

Heather, write. Nao. This weekend, we're having a poetry party. Or something. I dunno, but something will happen because I said so (watch me be at baseball games or something). But seriously, write. Because if you don't, then I can't steal lines from you.

Another partial - maybe if I get time, I'll fix these up later. Mostly I'm just trying to find my feet so I can write one for the first round of April Madness!

This is also an attempted re-write of something I wrote earlier this year.

2. Moving House

Take down the lampshade,
your arms weighed with
cushions (handmade); the twice
paid clock from the states.

Pull down the portrait,
her solemn fate undergoing
silent debate. Fortify to relinquish-
wait. The moving van outside.

...

Original:



I don't actually know if I like this new direction better or not.

3. Blue Walls

Except for the cold-weather week
when your bedroom was a piece of sky
unfurled in a corner of the fish market,
your walls were always blue.

Even the first day at your dad's new pad,
getting high on re-purposed engine fumes
while he hammered a bed into the wall,
we created space.

The aerosol galaxies ran into aerosol skies and
when those ran out
we blue-tacked a cold star over the mould.

But after you left - to get an education,
like the mermaid who tried to walk on dry land -
you were new.

Your cobalt words had been ground into a mist so fine
I choked on my simple utterings.
I was mute

muted except for a transient raindrop,
like static on a television set.

Now I stand like a fish out of water
in your part of the neighbourhood,
hoping to evaporate or melt
into your ten foot paddling pool

but

your door is blue


I decided today to stop trying to write poetry with ideas and to write about something I feel. I feel like I'm going to see my best friend for the first time in a year and I hardly know who she is any more, or even what she likes any more, but she's still my best friend. Trying to put that feeling into a poem is difficult, but I think this is the right direction.

[b]#4

I was between the trains and so was he,
who set his leather briefcase next to mine,
a man grey-suited, black-booted and like me
reliant on the trains to make good time.

I thought perhaps he travelled, just as I
along some dreary path to sell his wares.
He had the beaten look and greedy eye
of men like us who've held too many cares.

Something something okay this is not so great...
and we two salesmen so much the same,
would anybody notice should we trade?

#5 Christopher Chorus Frog

Pilly-pog Dilly-dog
Christopher Chorus Frog
ate a thesaurus to
learn a new word.

Counter-intuitive
his book might be lucrative:
Christopher croaked out
the loudest we've heard.

This is just a reminder to myself to write this poem:

You are older than you were,

(stuff that goes in the middle)

but I am older too.

We need to drag you into a poetry pad sometime. I adore #4. And there's something endearing about that last one just the way it is...

Thanks Adna and hey if you see me on while one is under-way, I won't say no! I'm still trying to steal spare moments to put together something a bit more substantial.