Young Writers Society

April 30th, Day 30 of 30 (Written Around 9:48 PM on April 28th)

Olfactory Sensations

I. Deadlines are like bloody noses;
you can predict their coming,
but can't do anything
to stop them.
And the feeling of a kleenex
stuffed up in there,
collecting the strange children
of hemoglobin and mucus
is almost revolting, especially
when you consider the particles
flying upwards and rubbing
nostril hairs the wrong way.

But it likely is better
than the odor of mustard gas
singing your eyelids and eyebrows
and rendering you blind.
The thought of a sense
listening to another slowly dying,
sensory nerves brutally massacred,
must be excruciating, though
it is still expected
to pick up the scattered pieces
of its butchered comrade
and move on.

After all, what can it do
to help something it cannot reach?

II. I have told myself
that the purpose of writing
is to have fun; to feel
stressed, anxious, a date
breathing down my neck
and drowning me in adrenaline
is not worth my time.
It is taking a leisurely hobby
too far, and yet I sit
constantly rehashing old ideas
and encasing them in my surroundings
in the hopes of seeming fresh
while preventing pre-midnight scrambles
and cursing at the approaching
of a brand new month.

Lessons on procrastination
learned too late aren't lessons at all;
they are exercises in futility.

yes, I did just write a self-referential poem about this NaPo thread and how I'm basically taking the same ideas in Antidepressant Storm and remixing them. And how I also basically described the same concept in I and II, just through different points of view.

Congratulations! You've successfully completed NaPo!

Bonus Poem, Part 1 of 2: May 1st, Day 31 of 30 (Written Around 9:51 PM on April 29th)

The Life and Times of a Darwin Award Nominee

Today we are here to report
the unfortunate demise of a robber
who forgot the first rule
of his craft -
never rob a gun store.

An oblivious bugger, he
cartwheeled past pizza stores
stuffing expired, now green, mozzarella cheese
into plastic packages,
hoping to get a refund
on their already eaten
(but then expelled) purchase,
leaving a money-stuffed safe
beckoning to be explored
and thoroughly emptied.

However, his senses, rendered
imperfect by a night of experimenting
with gasoline-dipped cigarettes,
rejected its advances,
and so he casually strolled
past fountains of drowning people
encased in stone
spewing jetts of water into
fish gagging over concrete
and unfortunate little children.

An owner closing shop,
weary of explaining to fearful people
the difference between murder,
self-defense, and Dick Cheney,
was surprised to find a man
coated in woolen sweaters
and an underpants mask
hoisting a gun at him
and demanding all of his wares
in the name of the black market.

Though not as much as the crook,
who realized too late
where he was standing,
just before being run over
by an over-stimulated driver
who'd spent far too much time
listening to nervous phone calls
on the loss of national liberty
and drinking coffee like alcohol,
in desperation and sadness.

[Naturally, he would later accuse
the man of being an agent
of the American Illuminati
and shoot his grave furiously,
25 years after joining the ranks
of the restricted.]

But how are we to bury
a criminal who turned out
to be the son of a distant mayor?
Though, in consolation,
at least his cry for attention
had worked.

yes, I know this is super late, I wrote it late last month but was either too lazy or too busy to post it. The second part should be coming in the following morning, as I've run out of time for the day

And thanks, @WritingWolf! I'm pretty proud of having completed it - and on my first year, too!

Bonus Poem: Part 2 of 2: May 2nd, Day 32 of 30 (Written Around 9:55 PM on April 30th)

The Death and Times of a Darwin Award Nominee

A bagpipe played its notes
across a rain-soaked field
(the funeral had been postponed
until the weather
shined a cloudy spotlight
over their heads).
Everyone who had clapped
to the tune of electric waltzes
pulsing through the skin
after yesterday's accident
found it tranquil; everyone else
thought it obnoxious.

Even though only a neighbor
crying and offering Sunday morning papers,
and a bitter mother squabbling
with an ultra-possessive aunt
over his deflated childhood basketball
were available to see his grave
erected below the tree
where all the birds sat.

His father was in a business meeting
on the sales of elastic
and lack of flexibility
found in a sanitation department
who believed in substitute marble
unblemished by mortal cleanser.

A quiet, umbrella-filled ceremony,
complete by a priest
praising how'd he gone to church
every once in a while,
and praying that God
was laughing enough to save his soul,
as well as bouquet of flowers
long ago killed when the cat
knocked over the water-filled vase,
set alight by the eternal flame,
marked the end of this victim
and his life.

And how about that weather, Dan?