Young Writers Society

My first attempt to write 30 poems in 30 days. Let's hope I can find the time and ability to do this.

*prepares for action*

April 1st, Poem 1 of 30.

A View of the Future as I'd Rather It Not Be

The parade is now in full swing today,
as the citizens of New New New New Washington D.C. -
the world capital of planet X-0R72 -
celebrate the election of the 35,027th President
of the Alienated States of America,
Bob R. Zzyzzx.
Elected by the overwhelming electoral vote
of 6,031-4 (with the remanining four
going to Pat Buchanan's spirit on the former Earth;
may his dust particles drifting through space
rest in peace),
he promises to improve upon his popular vote of 10.2%
and warm the hearts of the half of the population
who utterly despise him
by first granting rolled-up fishes in newspapers
to all of the impoverished citizens.
A fishy plan, note the journalists in attendance,
but the food is actually quite decent,
assuming you like tofu.

Regardless, he has arrived at the Gray House
(which used to white before the rocket landed
on our last president), and looks stunning
in his clean outfit, made of pure xorfg fur,
available at your local supermarket
for the adequate price of $10,000 a pound.
His inaugural address is set in an half-hour,
and everyone is eagerly anticipating
to see if he will live through it.
And what about the weather, Dan?

April 2nd, Poem 2 of 30

Contemplating in Cars, Part 4 or So:

Harmony is a street stricken with traffic today.
Cars from end to end blare their horns
to the tune to an invisible beat
that long also lost all sense of rhyme,
meter, and clarity, but never forgot its rhythm.
Swearing adds a touch of dissonance,
keeping the pace from becoming stale,
and the striking of careless drivers distracted
by the little black boxes in their hands
against suicidal barriers tired of the rat race
and being casual observers to madness
is the tapping of drumsticks against drums.

Or so I contemplate while listening
to smooth R&B and looking around the window,
seeing cars lined row after row
for a reason involving nobody but themselves,
and likely not even themselves either.

April 3rd, Day 3 of 30

Contemplating on Hills, Part 1-ish

My brother takes a look at the sky,
dotted with rows of eerily similar clouds.
He explains to me, nonchalantly,
"I think God photoshopped the clouds."

These explanations are unique, the product
of a brain being rattled around,
as it is unwillingly led over hills and jumps
on a bicycle worn with age,
but not worn in spirit.

"Ah," I reply;
"So He activated His creation program,
clicked on "create cloud,"
and then "copy," "paste," "copy," "paste," yes?"

He only started from 5 gates on the BMX track;
I started from all 8.

April 4th, Day 4 of 30 (Written Around 7:20 PM on April 3rd)

[Using the Color Prompt as suggested by @Audy]


Narrative in Red

the universal ember, apples,
tounges, blood, muscles, guts,
warm bodies, love in the air,
blushing, slap in the face,
broken skin, the feeling of rage,
fire, fire tornadoes, fire fighters,
fire hydrants, firetrucks,
stop signs, stop lights, crashed cars,
low batteries, failure.

Moist eyes.

I'm sorry, but the caller is unavaliable. Would you like to try again?

April 5th, Day 5 of 30 (Written Around 7:50 AM on April 4th)

Death by Petals

I see flowers in petals.
Memories and emotions of different colors
stitched together to form a picture
of a face. Raging, crying, smiling,
images of first impressions on the surface
to satisfy black-and-white moralities.
But, if one looks beyond the petal's front,
they will see children playing in fields,
teenagers sitting on the roofs of cars
and listening to tunes they forgot the words to,
though they never lost the beat.
Adults sitting in offices, scanning over papers,
fighting in a stifling environment composed
of people who all speak different languages,
and screaming is not the universal one.
(Neither is smiling).

Or, sometimes, exasperated children
cramming information into their minds
in preparation of yet another challenging test;
teenagers smoking cigarettes and
speaking the language of love in hope
of finding a partner to relieve and treasure
life with; adults, free, pursuing their passion
as they scour the earth in search of new fossils,
new discoveries by which to make their names,
and cement their legacies into history.

Each petal in a flower has a flower in a petal,
where colors blend together to form an impression
that masks the flower and highlights the petal.
And the petal, when viewed, covers the flower within,
which vainly struggles to gain freedom.
It knows that the death is the beginning of its end,
and the end of the impression's beginning.

April 6th, Day 6 of 30 (Written Around 9:11 AM on April 5th)

Crossed

I waltz to the tune of broken memories
shattered on the floor at my feet.
Discordant notes echo from pianos
as I pluck the torn strings of a guitar
and hope for the music to align,
a perfect melody in discordance,
to pull me away from the ground
I used to call home.

(But I'm growing tired of calloused feet
skewered and reddened by shards
that call out into the depths of my mind
in a language I don't understand.
Messages of morse code interspersed
in waves of pain, calling "Orpheus,
Orpheus, will you play us lyres,
call Eurynome from Hades,
and embrace her again.
Life is not meant living
if all that greets you in the morning
is the eternal silence of instruments
you destroyed with your hands
in agony.")

April 7th, Day 7 of 30 (Written Around 7:33 PM on April 5th)

a pull away from the universe

The morning from out my window comes in search of my eyes
to smother them, bury them in a misty avalanche
of freedom from thought and mind and soul. emotions
are its playthings, its jokes, toys to chase, capture,
and eat like a bare-bones cat waiting for another meal
that will never come. it seeks sight to crush
under its feet, build a blissful ignorance that seeps
from the pores throughout its body and over its victims,
filling their heads with evening daydreams that they
can sleep again, come to bed and forget the world.

That the lights will turn on when the time comes,
and an assault can enter the mind composed of realizations,
forgotten deadlines, missed moments, charms and wonders,
souls to be twisted into knots and tied together
into beads displayed on the windows of shop doors.
And there they can change pattern every day, weaving
colorful rugs and mats, too fragile to be sold;
standing upon them leaves broken threads and memories you can hold
in your hand for the few seconds before they fade into dust
and fly away.

Until then, it notes with an eternal calmness,
you can drift above the pillow in blankets
wrapped softly around your frail embrace
and dream of the way that stardust tastes when it lands on your mouth,
complete with nostalgia of a time you don't even remember
but drifts at the edge of your mind, inviting you to chase it
through the streets and over the ocean. A misstep
will sweep you off of your feet, and you like Icarus will drown
in the sea while the memory carries itself beyond to groves
where silent and tranquil forest animals dance to ethereal music
and chide softly your sinking body, and the dead wood of trees
shakes your name over hills that long forgot how to breathe,
much less think.

Yet my mind is stuck in the afternoon today,
and cat's eyes glow green out of the dim brightness,
deciding that the time isn't later but it is now.
Inevitably, the lights must turn on, and
a surprise unwanted with a dream unchased is worse
than the world's armies bearing down upon my head,
here to remind me that the world is full of groves
I can visit, oceans I can cross, people I can become.
I am but a speck on a speck revolving around a speck
in a speck made of specks surrounded by specks,
more than I can possibly imagine.
And I prefer it that way.

April 9th, Day 9 of 30 (Written Around 8:40 PM on April 7th)

[typically used to express the topic of a poem in an either blunt or witty fashion]

The [usage of vocal chords to produce coherent notes][avian creatures] are here [a period of time usually designated as "the present night"],
And I don't [ponder the significance of something] why,
because [understandable; based on sound logic] sense is hard to come by
when [combination of self-reference and appeal to audience] are [intoxicated]
by [processed images and words produced by the brain] of daisies
planted upon the [component of a room above your head],
and why they [bend in a particular fashion] upwards
to a [glowing, warm object poised in the sky during "daytime"] that doesn't [appear in physical form within the world.

And do I?]

April 10th, Day 10 of 30 (Written Around 8:13 PM on April 8th)

Many Old and Foolish People

When the sun begins to rise in the sky,
and the rooster beeps frenetically to a new dawn,
time is spent best contemplating the fact
that your ancestors made their livings
killing one another.

In complicated political games where the rules
are conquer or be conquered, death
is a greater lord than all of the others.
Ruling over his dominion with an iron fist,
a lord ponders his next strategy, swords pointing
down upon him from a rebellious teenage son
and his army.

Swiftly ending what had lasted for so long,
Vikings arrived upon shores to settle, build villages,
farms, livelihoods; plundering is for those looking
for an adventure above and beyond exploring the world
and realizing that you can become a facet within it.
Such purposes in life seem to be especially reserved
by daughters whose fathers bind them to kings,
in the hopes of creating a dynasty
to vanquish all others.

And they've managed to claim one victim today,
in the form of a confused child pondering his history
and realizing the follies
of many old and foolish people who sought glory,
and found themselves claimed by a reaper instead.

April 11th, Day 11 of 30 (Written Around 9:55 PM on April 9th)



(enspoilered because I dread this poem. I could've written the poem earlier - and much better, might I add - without feeling the urge to rush, but I delayed and delayed. And then I found myself writing at 10 night, when my brothers were falling asleep and I knew I had to as well. I know that the goal of NaPo is to write 30 poems in a month, but I want to try to least write one a day. Which is what led to that late-night frantic session involving an addled mind and a lack of time. I apologize for this.)

April 12th, Day 12 of 30 (Written Around 7:26 PM on April 10th)

Blind Mammals and Monopoly Boards


If I were to tell you these tears
are out of bitterness, you wouldn't believe me;
a mind that has bleached itself white
and placed a tarp over its head
is as blind as a bat staring against
the scar-marked walls of reason
and pondering what is stopping it
from flying through.

These panic attacks were made
by your name, on your hill,
over the statue that you carved
with your own hands.
Who else could be so proud of the dents,
marks, scrapes, and bruises that a child
carved with instruments he didn't know how to use
in handwriting that is a desperate forgery
of his parents work, neglectful of the fact
that the statue had to be maintained, developed,
grow into a work of art unique.
A piece unlike any others of its kind, one
that could finally become live, break free
from its restraints and carry you into the sky,
and crown your reputation alongside those
of many other men who worked
to change the world
for the better.

Let life is still a game to you, except
there is no jail space, you've always owned Boardwalk
and Park Place, and I step through your hotels
swept by the fear of becoming bankrupt.

It's too bad that I already am.

April 13th, Day 13 of 30 (Written Around 8:40 PM on April 11th)

in sickness and in worse


No health class is complete
without the picture of a disease lung
(just as no Biology class is complete
without the equally picturescant scene
of a dissected frog on a table
next to a worksheet identifying
all of those squishy bits
you refused to poke at with your scalpel).

And the only kid who dares to laugh
is the one in the background
where you can smell the smoke
coming out of his ears.
Frankly, out of every pore
in his entire body, especially ones
nobody here would rather mention
(we believe it's a fetish).

Given a picture of a normal lung,
my only conclusion was that the other
had been smoked horribly on a grill.
A cruel prank hosted by cannibalists
spewing out the values of education
to bore us into submission.

But when life gives you pollen,
make expired allergy medication
out of them.
It keeps your eyes from burning
and your throat from crying,
though it won't stop your sneezing,
I'm afraid.

April 14th, Day 14 of 30 (Written Around 9:30 PM on April 12th)

Excessive Use of Crying

It was this morning
that I found I hated the word
and so threw it out a car window.
It went alongside formerly bloated sacs of dreams
abandoned in favor of more practical tasks
like reading the newspaper
and nervous breakdowns
from the latest drama on a TV opera.

Mourning is an unfortunate last name,
the product of a misplaced letter
to remind you of funerals or
spilled milk over a PB&J,
or so I believe.
What man could say they cry?

I once told a man ignoring
the pigeons cooing at his feet
for a bite of his meatball sub
was racist. And he stopped
and stared at me to see
just who would break first.

He did.

Posters of school plays
are negligent of a dozen students
stumbling over lines and shouting
confused lyrics and nonsense verse
at teachers who give them points
for being realistic.

Debates about clones best come
alongside articles on stupid ways to die
and no self-censor nor sense of decency
to stop from questioning one's self
and making them fall upon
their rusted spork in disgust.

Or so it was this morning,
before I found that
I hated the word.