Young Writers Society

The latest one with all those emotions perfectly set in their background imageries is just!!!

viii. ratatoskr

i think it could be one thing to imagine you
always wielding a sword for the moment when adversity strikes.
and yeah, his name could be despair, or memory,
or isolation, relapse, entropy; but for so long
you've struck him down through all his facades
and through camisado and air strike i admire
and watch in awe.

if there could be a word for you, who isn't afraid to run
between heaven and hell, to whisper to dragons, to
keep secrets through the coldest nights and watch
as your baubles of worlds rotate in love with you, silent.
you may never know your exact importance,
but to the dragon lily, that might just be okay.

Cheese and crackers, man, that first stanza in "sinking luminaries" leaves me breathless every time. Such stark, wistful imagery *one tear falls*

18+

ix. echo (prompt of lines 1-2 given by @Nikayla)

sometimes, i fall more in love
with an echo than the real thing.
but I wonder if you could blame me:
between the heartache, the headache,
the breath-taking and utter hate in your tone,
maybe just the feedback on the walls is enough.

it's not surprising, i think, in fact, i like the concept.
still. It's not as if i didn't care or love you, or that i don't think
of that day, yesterday, the rain, the waves,
the deadpan way you always tried to say
'i love you' - i know it's a stretch, i know it was hit, miss,
hit, miss, until one of us broke in two--either you, me, or
a metaphorical bat which symbolizes abuse.

but i love the echoes, the resonance, the backlash and rounds,
and it reminds me of my home of empty hallways that talks to me back
when i say 'i love you, i mean it. i like you a lot.'
though the home's a fucking liar.

at least we all have that in common.

First 1/2 line came from a @Nikayla prompto via Richard Siken.

x. artistic death

tell me the dream where we dove into the iridescent coral?
the day when the ocean was calm and, with you,
the dangers--all--stood still in time.

i like to think
that includes
my skeptical heart.

did you enjoy the wildness of it all?
the breathless and beautiful art we promised, promised, promised
to iron into our memories?

you, waking, said
the dream felt like a deathly thing
but that it was a softer, artistic death
only given present company.

xi. buzz

this morning
i was offered a wish by the glow
of a twisted goldenrod
if only i not pluck him

i said
i wish to be twenty degrees fahrenheit
so my fears will come near me
and will say to themselves
'this must be death
this must be the hated one'
and leave

i believe
only then will the sound of sonic-beating wings
stop tightening my chest
churning my stomach
but rather give indication to all like them
to stay away

though i must confess
your memory will sting

xii. day twelve haiku

paper nests: strong homes
for fire itself herein dwells.
winged phobia.

xiii. river stones

in the rich hollow of the mountain's belly,
there flows a river warm and steady--
though there are turbulent waters and jagged rocks
here, there, places i feel could speak things of life.
you and i stand on a stormy gray mound, we hold one another
as the mother bird clutches pine needles to bed her nest.

and our feet slip in the river spray, bring us tumbling into the silken flow.
we reach for boulders, for shores, branches and needles--
but gladly enough, i think, the thing that stays is you.

xiii-b. patchouli

there are days i live for patchouli oil--
or the memory of it soaking your hands.
the sound of autumn wind brushing the curtains,
the assumed aura of candles--golden--flickering on wick's end.
patchouli, you are the warmest of beauties--
and the feel of your hands on my shoulders
calms me, grounds me, in memory at night.

xiii-c. truth in hindsight

i. heaven
there is no truth in hindsight
but through broken heart and eyes
i would tear the clouds asunder
give myself as sacrifice to thunderbolts
and black out
heaven blazing into the head
and god would show me the groping hands
or your wandering tongue
or the lucid dream you had become

ii. dawn
i have learned my place in this world
and though it is not to love
nor to lust nor to hold the hand
of a beloved in my own
there must be will remaining
deep deep in my marrow
to throw wide the shades
to be ignorant and wanton as the dawn
and answer delicate phrases between two hearts at rest
'i love you too'

iii. thunder
though the trust yet lived
and though my heart believed you
the sheets were so cold
like lightning you went from me
and i could find no goodbye

_______________________________

Prompts scattered through the three segments thanks to @Morrigan in the nightly Jam, taken from the wonderful Yeats.

xv. macallan

if we're honest
there's no shame
needing the water to be red
when the air is full of devils.

xvi. what a wonderful love i've found

there's something about the georgia spring--
when zyrtec eyes bloom like daisies in hanging windows
and your hand is in mine beneath the church piano as we sing
what a wonderful love i've found,
what a glorious sound, that name;
be we delivered into the light,
and be fully in love that day.

and come on, i can see it in your smile:
you think it, too--

xvii. tomatoes

dawn-ripe tomatoes sway as you brush the stems
of a bumble bee speckled garden; above
there rains down water from my summer cannister onto our goldenrods,
and the perfume is so serene. the world so picturesque
where you have turned your head to the east and forfeited your shirt--
'for even tanning' you say--
and inside i attend to brunch for sparse bellies
with ripened want for summer freshness.

in the wintertime, you cover us with softness unbelievable;
you lay your head on my chest to feel the pur as i read Yeats,
Neruda: the men who shaped me before God woke me up
and whispered your name to me in the spring night.
but between you and i, his whisper was nothing, and far between,
as enthralling as yours.

ooh, xiv caught me on its narrative -- and while i was headed to bed, that was not an easy act. it was the "sieved, body from soul" that made me go up to the top and read it all the way through.