Young Writers Society

Once more.

I seriously almost forgot to do this.

1. If time had been on our side

I watched your hips sway as you walked
two steps in front as always. You were
something - affected? - moving quickly
out of my sight.

Thinking now, had I waited, or called,
or kept my mouth against yours for a moment
longer than our breaths could hold in,
I wonder how long we could have paused
there in front of the gallery
where your art ranged from angry splashes
to cold details, eyes in focus, lenses obscured.

Perhaps if we had stopped, we would have known
what it was to be moving.

2.
My mouth is a ghost against yours,
a breath behind and gasping.

In December her collarbone sinks
deep beneath flesh and blood,
mouth round and harsh at each hollow
point of marrow. This is the quiet game
she plays with men who slip uneven
into the pebbled streets - can you
catch the raw bones leaving
her broken jaw?

A piece of me still lies beneath
the cold rubber of your skin,
plunged like a pin through muscle
and moment and into the heart.

3. Rooftop Garden

Clarity, I created this municipality of opportunity
against the garden you grew, tendril vines
sliced or diced for a salad of safety.

Connection, we waited here alone
expecting one last voice
to echo in a silence you knew.

and what I want to say is
thank you.

4.
Take my hand, count the lines and
[I asked your mother where you lived
and she looked and looked]
press your lips to the minutiae scar
from that one time when
[everything I know is borrowed
from books I read when I was so]
everything went wrong.

5. Cogito Ergo Cogito Sum

This is the story of me,
the autobiography of sound
and thinly veined maps
that explain the colour of my eyes
and the sharp bridge of my nose.

This is the moment between
Who I was
and
Where I could have been
like so many other things
fading into sepia photographs
we always forgot to take.

This is how my mouth learnt
that open means life
and closed means safe
and how breathing through
my nose became second nature,
as though everything I did
wasn't unnatural enough.

This is a moment in time
that I will remember as nothing
important, or interesting,
because everything I know
I thought before, and everything
to come is just a repeat of history.

I repeat, therefore I repeat.

6.
I etch sanskrit in the sand
before your lover's feet,
reminding him of that time
he forgot my name and said
so many words that did not mean
they did not mean
and you said
not me.

I blew cryllic kisses at his cheeks,
calling your hands to hide those lips
which move and shape like cornered snakes
lying in the dusty sand - his lips so dry and cracked
in the summer heat. In the red ochre land.

You asked me so many things
and all I wanted to say was not me
and not tomorrow and not
His mouth moving in tandem with my own
even as I begged to leave.
and you said not me.

You kept his hand against your throat
a moment longer than either expected,
he and your pulse breathing. I wondered
where his hands had been, and yours,
and why they mattered while I laid there,
pale in the red ochre land.

7. For Audy

Birds have hollow bones,
even that great galah with the voice
echoing in the summer nights;
his wings live on feathers and air.

So when your mouth widens,
I want to say that anything we do
will be grounded feet first
because we are not birds and when we fly,
we know the whole way down.

8.
I have forgotten
how many kaleidoscopes
I had to break
to see through your eyes
each one was too small
and too perfect
geometric and fractal
pattern pattern pattern
but you are not that lens
you are the colour and the light
smashed and remade
so many times that sand
falls from your finger tips
every time you smile
and that is all I wanted

i just want to nom your words. so beautifully yummy, the look.

I second Lava.

1. I like how that first stanza is so revealing in its choice of details, and then the movement towards that end really interests me, I almost wanna see it expanded upon, but the shortness is so poignant <3
2. Omg that speaker and that opening line!
3. Was this from the rooftop garden I was using to hide from the zombies? XD
4. I am actually digging the form here, the parenthesis I normally stray far away from in my own poetry but this makes me want to experiment with it!
5. That end stanza. Gah. This is excellent, I dunno whatcha talking about.
6. I dunno if my mind is being biased or not, but birds and hallow bones may be my favorite :3
7. I absolutely love the imagery here.

Write MOAR!

9. Canvas Umbrella

I am the woman behind
a Pollock painting holding canvas
high to catch the spill.

10.
It is Tuesday,
Summer wind considering
A pick me up
Against This mirror of the river
Tyne.

Tomorrow the sound
Of five thousand
Soldiers begging along the bank
Will drown
Into the sky.

11.

Today I learnt that oil
and canvas can wrap colour
around a mood I didn't know I had;
the cloying transformation
between unaware and alive.

Next time we practice
how sound reverberates
beats into your mouth
like a pulse under my thumb.

Number 6. is. STUNNING. I will take time to write more about these later. But I needed to say that. I love it. Now I'm going to go read it like 5 more times.

12.

I have made a plaster cast
of all your rings; ages lined
together getting further apart
with every slice and dice -
I'm sorry, was this yours?
I have already sunk the metal
of you into this kiln, the dust
left behind is swept into piles
- can you find yourself there?