Young Writers Society

#15

Dear dishwasher
I know it's just gone a year
since we moved in
and fixed you the first time
but you didn't have to
remind us
by breaking again.

Haha, the dishwasher didn't want you to forget the date!!

#16

Peel away my skin and
take the pith too
(and when you do I'll be positively garrulous,
spilling words here and there from my lips until
you realise this exploration means sifting through the chaff -
the truth is in there, unshielded but obscured by sheer volume of data),
open up my segments,
pull them away
one by one
(there's a seed in this one,
a crunchy, tooth-hurting knot of all my
hopes and fears and potential)
until you have eaten
every bit
and only pith and protection remain.

#17

These gold and crimson droplets hoping
to change the tint of the ocean,
before the iridescent spill of a forgotten age,
pumped up from the past below,
spreads its sticky slick tendrils all o'er the waves.

I didn't want to know how far you need push blue
before the shirt turns black.

#18

I am head-tired
a heavy blanket pulled over my thoughts
filling up the space behind my forehead
and heating my eyes

I am stomach-tired
so the pizza churns in my belly
before I have done more than look
and each bite takes an age to chew

#19

Coming back to this city confuses my heart.
Out yonder, there are trees on every street,
the smell of real earth, damp with dew in the morning,
and space remote from the endless march of feet.
Oh, to wake to birdsong and the mower next door,
rather than sirens and the children upstairs,
to live in a house with two storeys, both of them
gloriously ours, far from hearing all the neighbours' affairs.
But for all my complaints of orange night skies,
and the nicotine haze that smothers your face,
five-mile-an-hour traffic and sardine-tin trains,
there is something to be said for wearing a place,
shrugging it over your shoulders and settling it there
as easily as a favourite blanket, confident in the art
of sliding through crowds and swaying with buses.
Coming back to this city confuses my heart.

#20 or, "Adulthood"

I have cooked food from scratch in my own kitchen
washed clothes every week and hung them to dry
dusted the shelves, perhaps twice a year
and grown handfuls of herbs by the window.

I have changed light bulbs in every room
persuaded the dishwasher to drain
discovered the P-trap, which can leak gas
and reprogrammed the heating for winter.

I have blocked out calendar space for quiet nights
talked past, present and future with my one
made time for good friends, and for new ones
and given myself permission to scream.

#21

If the Right Honourable gremlin seated in my eyebrow
would like to scoop my eye from my head,
I would ask that he please get on with it!
This dilly-dallying and indecisiveness
is only worsening the situation
and the longer we must put up with the heat
and the weepiness
and the insistent pressure
the more tragically terrible the end result will be!

#22

I left my notebook back at home
which makes it hard to write a pome

#23

Viola and Sebastian were sailing on the sea
A storm came up and sank their ship; a dreadful tragedy
Wrung by grief, Viola takes to dressing as a man,
But guess who else survived the wreck? Her dear Sebastian!

Orsino's heart is filled with love for sweet Olivia
The problem is she likes him not, and will not have him near
So Viola, as 'Cesario', sings serenades by proxy
Oops! It seems the lady finds Cesario quite foxy!

Meanwhile, old Malvolio, Liv's steward and admirer
Has upset the maid Maria, so against him she'll conspire
Convinced by forgéd letter of the lady's adoration
He whips out yellow stockings, a cross-laced abomination

Of course, Viola's lovestruck, too - with handsome Lord Orsino
And Sebastian has found a friend in pirate lad Antonio
Both the twins are grieving over their supposed loss
But it won't be long until their paths in life again shall cross

Reeling from Malvolio's display of yellow feet
Olivia, unknowingly, Sebastian doth meet
Thinking him Cesario, she rushes to be wed
Just before discovering she's got the twin instead!

In this grand revelation, Viola now comes clean
On her gender, name and how she loves the man whose friend she's been
And so a happy ending shows, Orsino holds her tight
I hope that you've enjoyed this tale, of Will Shakespeare's Twelfth Night!

I love the humorous turns that some of these take. The ending of #20/"Adulthood" is great "and given myself permission to scream" I can very much relate to that!

Also as a fellow 12th Night fan, I'm liking your latest poem addition. You actually cover the play quite well in just a few stanzas, and the rhyming makes it upbeat despite the chaos of the plot of 12th Night. The line about Viola finding Cesario "foxy" made me laugh. It was a fun read!

#24

Yeast flour salt water
Recipes to teach your daughter
Water yeast flour salt
Make sure that it's not too cold
Salt water yeast flour
Let it rest for several hours
Flour salt water yeast
When it's done we'll have a feast

#25

I've never been one to
live in the moment
rather
I'd spend every moment
worrying
about every other moment:
what might go wrong in the future ones
and how I should have handled the past ones
better.

#26

Bread is a thing for patience and calm
and soothing the mind with simple creation.

Flour: half a kilogram, or thereabouts
Yeast: seven grams (one sachet from the supermarket)
Salt: ten grams, kept apart from the yeast
Water: three-fifty mil', or more
(remember, wetter is better)
Form a dough, just a rough one,
and then leave it in the cupboard
(the one with the boiler and the hot water tank)
to warm and breathe and bubble.

Turn it once, and leave it longer;
dough needs no help to stretch and grow.

Pour it onto flour, and relish
the beery scent of ferment that rolls out with it.
Squish it in your fingers
until it is taut and round
and leave it again, to learn its new shape.

When you place it, at last, into the oven
(which is blazing with heat, as hot as the dial will turn)
don't forget to slash it, lest it burst.
Breathe in the tangy, vinegary smell
that pervades your kitchen.

And, when it is done, slice through the crackling crust,
spread butter that melts, instantly,
onto the soft inside
and smile, with the satisfaction
of knowing that you made this.

#27

We have sat in our laboratories
with fire and charts and calorimeters
and reduced the stuff of nourishment
to a table of numbers,
and in opening the box to measure the cat,
we have killed it.
Food is more
than a series of digits
a bite of guilt added to your shoulders
another hour to "work off" later.

The primary purpose of food is to stave off starvation
but the second is to nourish the soul.
Kitchens can be places of therapy
and diffusion of stress
of infusing food with emotion
with the flavours of your childhood.
"The sandwich means I love you"
and I will make you another
for as long as you are willing to eat.