Young Writers Society

Uh, there'll be stuff here hopefully.

Previous years:

2015 once more unto the breach
2014 Poe-Tree
2013 *gasp* Mesh Masticates Madness!
2012 Look! Mesh actually *does* write!
2011 Stardust - Bek's NaPo thread 2011
2010 ?
2009 I love like a phantom: Bek's NaPo thread 2009
2008 Bek's NaPoWriMo thread


So I kinda am semi-doing a theme this year: earthquake weather. All the numbers ones are on that; anything else I'll mark differently.

(here, have unedited terrible things)


#1
Earthquake Weather
definition:

1 the space between (liminal)
anticipation and the anticlimax

2 the shaking of self
in relation to the soul

3 don’t turn around
it’s coming


#2
between early fog and afternoon sweat
the radio turns itself on
squirrels dropping nuts and crows chasing shadows
background noise
of a spring that too quickly turns to summer

#3
they call it earthquake weather
the midwinter sun and late spring storms
that leave senses falling on pinpoints
that hang off the crevasse
of breathing fresh life into the forlorn
and crossing into the unnatural

#4
fault lines run underneath this city
tracing from your aunt’s house on a hill
through the parking lot of her favorite restaurant downtown
unheeded by that which stands on top
because three times a lifetime
isn’t reminder enough
that mother nature’s mean streak
doesn’t care about your karma.

#5
the cracks live below the surface
split, hissing and angry,
long before they rise as fissures
(hairline fractures)
whispering of destruction
and the potential energy of
not quite yet.

#6
it’s cold and gusty
and inherently calm in the storm
of kinetic energy unleashed

#7
it’s lies my mother told me
to keep me up at night
that hot fall nights
(like the one in ‘89)
are made for nightmares and ruin

#8
it’s too still air that settles in your bones
warmth you feel before the sun comes up
from overhot desert air
and nights too short to cool it

#9
the air tastes like electricity and burning
hair standing on end under cloudless sky
(you burned your nose breathing dry air
that tastes like dried dead grass
that smells like fall came too soon).

I
aside uno

you can feel it in your joints,
in the wrist that feels hallow
and tender to touch,
the knee that bends just too far
the wrong direction
and the ankle you slipped on ten years ago
that twinges with every pressure change


2
aside dos
you can’t tell if it’s doors slamming or cars backfiring or fireworks being set off to no effect
and it echos against the hills
leaving bouncing traces of gunpowder and cigarette smoke
dancing sound waves to muddle the start

#10
in ‘89 freeways collapsed
and cars plunged into the bay
(cement wasn’t meant to bend and sway)
you slept through it in a bassinet.

twenty years later falling asleep isn’t as easy
as balancing between chair and bed and jerking awake
because home alone and shower walls clanking
leaves only two options:
the earth moved or a ghost moved in -

it’s not the shaking you rely on
but what falls

3.
aside tres

you felt it before anything;
cool wind through open window,
smell of rain on wet cement
floating between goosebumps

you can almost hear the swells in the storm
between baseball on the radio
(home, summer, freshcutgrass
and overhot skin turning tanlines red
through sunscreen)
and the cat demanding attentionfoodplaywithme
(tuna breath and wet cat)
but the black sky fades
into the water puddling outside the door
slowly creeping closer

it's late spring and even the bugs are confused
flying into rain to dance back to lamplight
wavering with wet wings
to the siren call of blue light
(imminent death)
that bathes both them and the growing night.

aside quatro

fences weren’t meant to be broken
things, braces falling down as prelude
of what’s to come -

dents from hockey pucks on the west,
baseball scuffs on the east
and ne’er the twain should meet

until it crumbles
rotting wood and rusted nails
remnants of division.

#11
the fences were the first to fall,
fragile things held up more by sheer force of will
than any lingering feat of engineering,
buckling and twisted from the shaking,
rather than blown down by the windstorm everyone expected
(because the neighbor kid and his hockey pucks
had already knocked aside the remaining foundation
leaving way for one big gust)

#12
it hit just before dawn,
when even mosquitoes were asleep

the small orange curls of bloom hadn’t quite started to open
fall askew on newly created fissures
waterfalling slowly downward

the limb that should have been cut down last season
fell and cracked twenty year old cement
that had already been pushed up into separate segments

#13
the rim is on fire
erupting chaos from its wake
trailing destruction in circular motion,
dancing flames and crumbling dreams
along streets laid bare in ash and dust.

I think this is 18 overall... @Rydia tries to blame me, but it's really almost entirely all her fault.

I woke up with two stuffed cats -
one chocolate, one marmalade,
The paperboy (illegal) from down the road
And a cold. Cooking by one.
I must have got it from the filled tavern last night.

The last cat I stuffed woke - one
cold from the road, two.
Filled up with marmalade, down
and paper from one illegal chocolate (I must have)
a boy got it by the taverns one cooking night.

last night I woke up (one down)
to the paperboy - cooked marmalade
from stuffing, cats from the tavern,
a cold chocolate.
And one road filled with one illegal bygot.
I must have the wit.