Young Writers Society

Today I Laughed Asphyxiatedly as My Peer Read Whitman Aloud, and I Was Not Alone

1

You are crude like fresh horse pies,
rats overpopulating a city
when the Chinese restaurant closes.
You are beautiful with inclusion of me
and her, and them, and him, and us
together, neither me nor you apart.

You are the deity overwhelmed with myth
whom I feared to see, my Ovid, my Hercules
I know so well, and yet, have never touched
[they say never meet your idols]
I did not know your name, but I knew you.

2

Will you explore the body
and the mind as my democratic oath
lingering on the lips of
time, together, never segregated again?

Will you embrace me as you did
her, no poem complete without us together
in pure urges of skin, and universe, and bone
touching as brothers within the brain?
My mind is foggy from your ecstasy of verse
acrostically stealing, my words
never parted.

Kyrielle, Peddler of...

I am not the faith's holy ghost
wand'ring 'round the soul perpetu'lly
I am just a peddler of most
anything. Is that hard to see

that Here I stand - me; unfettered
not bowing to your thoughts of me.
I am the nails dirty, untethered
anything! Is that hard to see?

I reach for tools, and rocks, and weeds,
and play in mud. This is me, free;
I am not in your box of seeds.
Anything is that hard to see,

Even that I am only one
person, dreaming of myself, unique,
my perspective may not be some
"anything," is that hard? To see

yourself as zero, null, nada
a gap in a soul, not to breathe?
This is me, an empty comma.
Anything is. That hard to see

up there above the clouds higher
than anyone down here will be?
Beyond the galaxy, reach her
anything, is that hard to see

and you will find me too, there
behind the sink, the fridge, the sea
hiding in your pocket mind where
anything is that. Hard to see,

but I am there, waiting for you
wond'ring when you'll come home to me
I am just a peddler in truth,
anything, is that hard to see?

Your style doesn't intrigue me,
we stand like books;
Brace cover to back cover to back
and threaten to topple over like them too
I will keep my pages tucked from your back
with my cover, and you will keep yours safe with your back
possessive like a hound with a bone, refusing to let go
gnawing, cracking, licking, suckling, you have your style
I have mine.

Sometimes I look for my lost pages
the ones who fell out because the glue of my spine
was weak enough to crackle and flake like dried milk.
I wonder if they're in you, stretching your mouth full
like an apple chunck caught in your teeth refusing to enter
a cat faced with a bathtub clinging to the rims it can find

Maybe my pages are making you look foolish
or old and used like a penny book.
If I found them in your leaves,
I don't think I would like them,
I'd reject them, think they were nothing new
say "I'd written that before" and be as unimpressed
as if your style was lacking in every way imaginable.

Side by side we stand,
porous and damp with library mildew
picked up to be smelled, not read.
Each of us offer our spines to them
not admitting whose pages are whose.

Where am i?

Rest on borrowed pillows
beneath gifted blankets
in a house which is too expensive,
behind windows with broken seals
and with nothing to own but
that which is given freely.

An employee of the system
self-promotion, negotiation
a debt which negates wages
any wages
what wages can you spare?
Not begging, but taking anything
nothing, a ten, a twenty,
it always seems too much

This is the existence in which i live.
Last in the syntactic order
above only shame as somehow
there is a positive face i steal.

Failures

Break fast across my tempting plate
a moment too soon for my stomach
to be ruled by my brain. A second
later and the guilt guts me like a fish.

The melting, gooey, sweet, liquefying satisfaction
bites at my desire and satiates it. Yes, this is guiltly making.

Thanks a lot Easter.

In the Barn

I was working with this little filly, a sweet-heart if every I knew one
and this day she just did not want to work.
I had to use the lunge whip and a plastic bag just to get her moving
then she was constantly turning in and trying to spook.

I think she finally talked to the bullheaded gelding next door
because she was trying to buck the saddle off like he'd done yesterday.
She doesn't quite have his lung capacity though
and the martingale made it harder on her.

Now she's acting more like a warm blooded than her typical self
but I'm sure she'll get over it after a couple half passes
as long as I can keep her on the vertical.
I'm going to have fun today.

When Loosed from Syllabic Constraints

Poet
The writer of dreams, life, nothing
Dancing in a tempest, scaling Mount Everest
Their world swollen in saturated words
Author

Two Point

Balance, center step left and right
and left again. I can feel the weight
back and forth, each movement given
each center feeling my soul down
his withers, my torso,
legs tight pushing me
push me, sweat my back

He pulls the reins
and I fight them back
and fail to guide him
and sit without him wincing.
I wince. I'm not strong when I sit,
I flop.
I flounder half way
a hesitation, he kicks up dirt

We bathe
both coming home smelling barn
dust, hiccups, sweat, and pies left gifts.
He is my legs, and I, his pole.
I am his spine
and he is my feet.

I'm digging dirt for hours after
crunching dirt as I drink water and brush my teeth.
ankles weak tadpole strings
arms shaky from bits and hands.

#7
You'll know me by my Unshaven Legs
Give me a month where the people know my name;
sing the chants of the Truth
and the lies of the rivers riding freer than a horse in the mud
(Not some show-horse neither, but that
"Ain't got none 'o them clean
and been brushin' fer hours" type!)
Give me the crows and the woodpeckers
au natural hacking like ruffian ax men on their lumberjack syrup bottles
Give me the sweat of passion boiled in a half gone pot from scrubbing
and I'll throw it all together, show you my melting pot
in three stanzas, three sentences, and less than a hundred words
#8
Etch your soul with sole food rubber
danced upon the fleet of exasperated clans
charging through their natural obscenities
Finding strength in falling words.
#9
Sometimes I hate writing at the bottom
always fearing falling off the edge of this world
It's like the crawling pink just gently searching
invading one march at a time, one battle line gone
another turn of the dile and somewhere back here
I'll find my Capital.
Eventually, maybe
in half an hour there will be no more extending down.
This line will not be 190 for long, but somewhere
like ten thousand one. A building repetoir of others
carving my back out, buckling down.
It's not that I mind other people writing
but when I crawl towards the end of my page,
I want to see what I say. I don't want to fight
for each time I have to hit enter, and hope
that if I stop typing, I will still be able to see
exactly what I had said. The mystery no longer
yeah, that's gone now.
I pause for just a minute or two,
and you're gone. I have to type to keep up
like popping above the water
drowning if I ever stop to breathe
and when I do pause, just a minute
before the current pulls me under.
my head bobbing up once in a while
Lords forbid a fish grab me and someone's
posted an entire twelve line poem!
Suddenly I'm so behind, I'm nowhere in sight.
Now we're at 240. I haven't written that many lines.
I wrote twenty one, and I stand now farther
like I fell upon an escalater and ended up on top.
This must be how the worms feel.
(Fort: I'm sorry D: My poem took up a lot of room o.o)
<<; but now my numbers are out of wack!
GO, NAPO! OMG RHYMING <3

A slighted half a sonnet waits for thee

For what care I who calls me well or ill,
I can be called the devil for my penned
notes and with that notion. Call me death
I am no more so just because you call

me death. I am less so called tramp when you
have called for your cane to whip me, brusing
and betraying yourself. Call me tramp, tool,
mad, a wolf calling to the wind, ill blight

upon the surface, called home for recourse
recalled broke, redestributed virus,
I have no stones to call back, I must use yours
so supply me well. I will call the time

you called death, or life upon me, discourse
permits I called you primary resource.

I saw you standing there
suede pants, leather boots, a jacket of sheer,
and I wondered why you bothered.

I think you thought I thought you were pretty,
I think maybe you were trying to attract me,
or maybe you were trying to dissuade me from
ever looking at anyone else the same way again,
I don't know. I didn't look at anyone the same
but I don't think it was for the reason you thought
I would think of. It was because every time I saw a man,
I knew he made a conscious effort with his clothes too,
at least as much as I did on a day to day basis. I knew I
was not the only one dressing up.

You made me chuckle, smile, sunbathe my teeth,
and maybe that's what you wanted, but it was
at your expense. Sometimes men can pull it off,
they can look like fashionistas and be suave,
they can prance like princes on a puckered seam
exposing their vulnerability sticks like a badge
and playing hockey with their feet, sliding about
wearing skates or goat shoes, or "messenger bags"
as a school bag. Some men have taken to wearing purses
real honest to god sized baby bags. They have just as much
that they need to carry around as women do, why not? Just
don't think that diving in a purse
is some warp-zone you don't experience.
I know you get that too. You always have.

We may seem like the fairer sex,
but in a court of law, we cannot always hold our tongues
we cannot always say, "Yes, I will assume the defendant
innocent
until proven guilty."
just like a man, judging, harsh, irredeemable, forgiving, merciful,
handsome, pleasant, respectable,
gentlemanly.

When did womanly become such a term of sexuality?
When I say womanly, do you think of a woman
who upholds her Ts and J's just like a man?
A woman who will hold open doors for the elderly
or catch a flying hat for a man
defend another woman getting hurt
and never raise her hand against her sex?

Or do you think of curves?
The hips jet out and the chest supported like
they have some Amazon back fit for striking axes
because of all the weight they hold from day to day?

Do you think of long, shaved, shiny, plastic legs?
A sweet smile, and small red lips, with a little face
and no jaw to speak of? Or maybe for you it is the jaw
and the eyes, those fiery opals of purity
because Lord forbid womanly means impure,
loose, base, opinionated about involvements.
Lord forbid a womanly woman, wasn't Lady Like.

What is a Lady to a Gentleman?

Is she your MatraD? Your nursemaid, your dress-wearing
corset tightening, eyes fluttering, doll? What is she to
womanly? Is she womanly's daughter because womanly
is flirty and has a slash up her dancing dress
exposing her legs, or maybe just tassels around a bodice
which should have a tutu? Is she making this +18
but a Lady Like Lady would always be x > 12?

They're different. Womanly, Lady Like, Gentleman, handsome
beautiful, gorgeous, beautiful, sexy, saucy, loose, gentle,
emotional. Should these terms be so limited to one sex?
I know a saucy gentleman, and maybe that's a contradiction
but he works it well, just like I know a gentleman who can work
his gorgeous wardrobe. A worldly man, a worldly woman,
and when I see Top Models, I think them handsome, not beautiful.

Their regal jaws, and unique faces, their rich skin
or blanched limbs, the bone-i-ness of them, they're handsome.
When I see you standing there, in things I don't expect,
I smile because we are the same, even if you think me different.
I can see in that, you have need for direction too, and while I might
not look at men the same, I appreciate people more.
Even the well dressed have days of sweats and hoods.

Acrostically So

All I want is a class in anthrophonology
Now that would be the class of anthroplogy
Then mixed with the class of phonology
Hence the combined name of anthrophonology,
Really I think we just need historical phonology
Or maybe just
Phonolinguistics.
How can Phonology fit the whole thing when it's
Obviously not very long and thus, like hat;
Not all encompasing. Where is the -ist like
On Transcendentalist, realist, or the -ic
Lovingly capping the word? We have
Ology, like some outcast of Mathematics or Sociolinguistics, just to
Geneology, and all that's before it is phono,
Yay. how amazing. Let's put Anthro on there too and make it a real party.

Let the lightning burn bright
aweing all the spectators like fireworks, eternal
momentary chaos of the perfection

I cannot splendor your soul with light
or ask you strain to hold water's fraternal
burn. Let the bright lightning

ask for me. I am your victim for rejection
given lamb tied up in brambles for sacrificial
chaos of the momentary perfection

If you stand by me, and this parceled collection
A hammer, a couple teeth, pots, and a urinal
Let the lightning burn bright

We are your mastery of sight.
In our unique way, you are our skin's maternal
perfection of the momentary chaos

we know our bodies, our minds, our blight
together we stand as the royal I, external.
Let the lightning burn bright;
The momentary chaos of perfection.

I want to smell the roses!
The sun can bake my skin
warming my clothes like a body
pressed up against mine,
spooned against my open face.

I want to feel the shadows!
The chill of wind caressing me
with just a tiny huff, a single
breath to contrast the heat
of radiation building on my face.

I want to tell you the contours
of my form within the millimeter
by the implied line of heat and chill.

This is summer.
This is seeing your bloody eyes
with the kaleidoscope of veins
and retinas searching for information
searching for signs
searching.

I am alive, a breathing, beating, bracing human being.
I exist, and maybe you don't want to think that
Maybe you don't want to acknowledge that I'm here
But I am
I am uncomfortable, I am bloated
I am extremely critical of myself
and of others. I am white, I am un-raced
I am unsexed, I am female, I am dog
and cat, and wolf, and horse, and fox,
I am Kane and I am Kenji, I am
the epitome of witty and the absolute evil
with a little bottle of good
which contains all the winds in the world
I am the Odysseus bag!

I am an English major who can't spell
the math tutor who can't do mental addition
and there is no way I will subtract 23
and 17 without taking a minute to guess
and check
and wonder

I am bad with computers and good with the Internet
I am typing slower with one hand than the other.

I am self conscious of my actions
and how I look, but also I don't care.

I will sit with the power pose of a basket ball player
though I hate the sport
and I own a basket ball to go play with my dog
and my mother.

Please, I am a fan
and a stethoscope,
a scapulae, and syringe
but I use these things for art
putting color down and blending in.

Please, I am.

My fish has a thong.
He's little about two inches, maybe three
I was always bad with sizes,
about as long as my index finger
but I have hands the size of a 40 lbs
Texas Heeler's ear, so probably about three.
The main color in her body, his body? I can't tell
is yellowy brown, like a mix between burnt umber,
and maybe raw sienna or something greenish, lemon yellow.
It depends on how they're facing you.

I think fish should be non gendered.
They are at least gender-fluid, like we can be.
There's nothing more beautiful than a gender fluid fish.
Imagine that, a leader in sex not because of which they are
but because they are on top. Because they are top dog
they can change their gender for the group's numbers.
They don't tell someone else to go lay eggs
because the numbers are wrong, but choose
to lay eggs themselves. And if the eggs are there,
they don't choose to ignore a chance to take
but take one themselves.

But my fish has a thong. So the colors of this fish
are kind of like a rainbow trout, but backwards.
They have reddish colors on top, with a blackish
white, shiny, rainbow multicolored middle
that usually just shines off, but occasionally
you catch them just right, and it flickers at you
blues and greens and reds and yellows, and
naturally, purples, just for a second.
The bottom is mostly yellow. White yellow, unsaturated.

So this stripe of color that goes along their sensory line
trails into the tail
and I swear to you, that thing is black.
Like, if they are lengthwise to you
like a T, so you look on their side
usually they are because they want to see you
it is black.

When fish start getting sick, they get something called tail rot
it's when the tail b egins to get pecked out by other fish, or
just starts to deteriorate and degrade. It's a sign
of poor tank water, and a need to change it.
The fish don't really notice, but if you do enough,
you can actually watch the tails regrow in like 3 days.
They basically crack like skin in winter
and all the blood seeping through is flayed flesh of fish.

Well this isn't a problem really. It can look weird because
the fin can go like three different ways, but when you look
you can see the pure black through the other side
and then you know.

Usually you have to sort of strain to see it too because
when fish are unhappy, they clench up like a jockey.
Everything comes in, the fins, the tail, the dorsal
everything. It all collapses as far as it can and they sort of float.

Well, my fish has a thong on it's back fin.
It's a thong of black, so on the black background
every once in a while, I look at the tank and
my heart
stops.

It contracts like someone has a gun at my head
and I am staring down the blackness of the barrel
praying they won't shoot.
Not shooting is getting enough light
on the freaking tail, which is always
I mean, seriously this fish loves to tease me
always, straight perpendicular
to the ground.

And then I have my brain racing
until finally, for a moment
they flair their tail, and wave it
like Ha Ha, Fooled you
when I can see skin for skin
the black briefly gone, resistance
and my heart can start anew
if my eyes didn't lie.

This is Genocide Bay

The shallow tide sweeps in above the rocks, protective gullies of lakes, like new-found land, swaddling the quiet fry. In the day, they flash like glitter invisible for ninety percent of the time, aside from that one moment, when you wonder if it is shattered glass.

They warm in the salty water on the old cricked rocks, tucked in a cubby where nothing can reach them, and nothing tries. They are safe from their mortality, until the tide starts to wean, creeping away,

the slow don't notice the door becoming the ceiling, with cracks like pressed fingers cupping them, draining. The fry bake in their mortal sun, drowning in air, and food for lazy crabs like gum on their feet.