Young Writers Society

Poem Number 18:

Redwood


I lie my head against the redwood trunk,
pressing my palms to its skin
and matching my heartbeat to gnarled heartbeat.
I morph myself into the redwood,
and wonder how many layers I must travel past
to wrap my arms around its core.

Poem Number 19:

Private Treasures

I run my fingers over the dust
that cloaks the treasures from a carefree youth,
with tiny trinkets infectiously smiling,
and sharpened stones digging deeper into hurts.

They lie in a polished chest barred to all
who dwells past a little locked door in my heart,
where the path winding around the years of my life
is overrun with dusty forgetfulness.

Poem Number 20:

Dislikes

It’s not like something I want to drop a bomb on;
rather, weaving it into the back of the storage room

is what I would do, so it would feel the shiniest
among its dusty companions that I’ve also thrown in there.

Dislike is what it’s called, never hatred;
for loathing can shatter the ceilings of the sky with its menacing power

with the wrath and revenge it can rouse in me
which will leave me awake at nights with a burning sensation I can’t let go.

I just leave dislike in the back of my closet to let dust accumulate,
and push life and love and all the little joys that make me up

to the front, along with busy hands and feet and mother nature;
and when the dislike’s dusty enough for me to wipe off, I smile down at it again;

but, now, I’ll have to learn to bind hatred and lay it away,
and let it bend like a rippling reed and ease itself out of its bonds.

Poem Number 21:

don't forget me

don’t forget me,
even when life drifts us apart
and we end up on opposite ends
of an invisible equator.

but the ocean joins us together,
for its waters form meandering paths
for our bottled messages
that mindlessly drift without
ever reaching its recipient;

they can never foretell
when the reaper's shadow falls
and scoops me up in its arms at harvest time,
and you won't know either, even if
the fall leaves plummet at that moment.

you’ll wonder what happened,
yet never see me again;
and gradually time will settle
her veil that bathes
your memories in oblivion.

my life will be molded
into the past,
as you forget me.

Poem Number 22:

Halley's Comet

let the spray of light,
spiral down like a fairy
to match the rhythm
of gravity.

it always spins
around in a circle,
never so near, nor far
from its home,

like a little foal
pressing a dainty head
to its mother’s side,
and then take
seventy-six
adventurous steps
in a circle,
always returning.

Poem Number 23:

burned at the stake

carbon dioxide dances ring around a rosy
around me, as if I’m a maypole
in May Day; its streamers,
pale and smoking, veil the flames
that engulf me to burn the so-called witch
and vaporize my spirit away
till I’m just an empty mass of molecules.

Poem Number 24:

March of the Parade

Greet the parades of little shadows
That marches through the night.
Banners out and waving flags,
They hail the golden moonlight.

Past the windows, tramping on,
They sing the song of sleep;
With every note they gently stroke,
More people fall asleep.

Poem Number 25:

Wishbone

The roads slowly branch out,
as if the earth carved out a wishing bone
where I walk. It’s as if my fortune is treading
on a splintering branch of a sapling,
and a single misstep would tumble it to
the snapping ground below. They’d swallow my fate
through its skulking roots and feed the bracken
matting the ground and swigging the nutrients
like parasitical pirates, the face of calamity.

Poem Number 26:

rope bridge

a narrow rope bridge sways dangerously
in the wind and the planks are chipped,
rotten. how can i walk on decay
as if the world is taken by plague;
yet the sky below me is already tainted
with debris from the cliffs and perhaps
decay has made its home on the bridge
to chill me with my acrophobia.

Poem Number 27:

hot air balloons

the spool unrolls pale white ropes,
that tie themselves to the bleached canvas;
as if arms from the earth tried to clutch tightly
to the hot air balloon and its basket,
woven with sweat and diligence and love.
it’s sturdy enough to hold a classroom of children
and carry them up, up, up to the dreamy clouds
where the sky’s not the limit—it’s only the beginning.

Poem Number 28:

fairy visit

faeries climb down the tree into the chimney
instead of santa claus, carrying
overflowing pitchers of silky tea.

they leave a sparkling trail of dew
on the carpet, like planting wheat,
and from the water diamonds grew.

they tiptoe out back up the chimney
to sprinkle the last tea onto the lawn,
and creep back into the nooks of the tree.

Poem Number 29:

My Little Rose

My little rose is still a bud,
still childlike and fragile.
Its smoothness reminds me
of an unripe fruit, and of
seeds still in the farmer’s pouch.

Heat shrivels the leaves, turning them
as crinkled as the brown lunch bags,
and I wonder if the leaves
were really paper, and the bud—
just a faux bundle of shiny origami.

But when rain falls,
the paper dissolves into a realness
more vivid than my own skin,
and the bud spread its wings—
not pale pink like its siblings,
nor white like its cousin,

but truly red—like the drips of blood
thieves will spill as the thorns prick,
like the beauty of sunrise and sunset,
where the sun wakes and sleeps;
and someday—someday—the rose
will scatter its own petals and
drift off to an never-ending rest.

@PrincessInk, you're poetry is really good at taking one image and then just expanding it into a beautifully layered and elegant poem. For instance, a person might not take a second glance at a hot air balloon, but the way that you describe it makes it into a sort of snap-shot of a story. The Rope Bridge & Rose poem also do this really well. There is great attention to detail here. You even make the basket of the hot air balloon sound interesting and poetic: "woven with sweat and diligence and love." So lovely!

@alliyah, why, thank you

Last Poem!:

I press myself against
the bars of my cell,
where I am both
the jailor and prisoner.

No droplets of water
will ever loosen my tongue
so I can call for help;
nor any crumbs of buns
will wander past my throat
to gather my undulating strength.

Only dust and sounds can
squeeze past the bars
and crawl to wrap spider webs
around my fingers, and when
they step inside, the bars close
behind them, waiting for more.