z

Young Writers Society


twisted steel and broken spines



User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:29 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#18
you measure the years in moments, not time:

#18b
sun on tree limbs set against a black sky
only hints at the storm that passed us by -
sheet lightning flickers against the sunset,
knocked off-course by thunder in a dangerous duet.


#19a
the temple is an oasis i don’t belong to
because my reality does not mesh with religion
but the shared history and holidays celebrated
not observed.

#19b
the temple is an oasis i don’t belong to
because the shared history and holidays celebrated
not observed
only ties you to a people, not a place.


#20a
april nights that feel like winter
with sudden downpours that lead to rainbows

#20b
april nights that feel
like winter lead to false hope
summer always comes
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:07 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#21a
we found a photo in grandpa's album
(that no one knew existed)
snapshots in greyscale
of lives lived
before the things they fled
exploded across the old country.

#21b
we found a photo in grandpa's album
sitting loose between baby pictures
and shots of his grandfather's store
of a grim-faced man in dress we haven't identified
printed on cardboard that shines in the sun.
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:19 pm
View Likes
alliyah says...



Mesh, I'm really enjoying reading your NaPo and I like how the poems really feel like a collection with the themes your using of religion, culture, family, and memory. It's interesting reading the "a" and "b" versions for the last few, and getting to read the different parts of the story/insight into your writing process.

Your poetry feels rich with nostalgia and memories.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:08 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Thanks, @alliyah!

I... am not happy with either of these. One just isn't working, and one kinda just turned into semi-coherent mess. Oh well, it's napo, right?

Spoiler! :

#22
Yom HaShoah means we were the lucky ones,
with family that fled to the land of plenty
years before the old country bathed in rivers of blood
and watched as family disappeared
only to be marked as a pile of worn shoes.


Spoiler! :

#23
tucked behind a row of books and inside three envelopes
we found the tree that was planted in israel
in honor of the grandmother my mother never knew

and i can’t help but wonder at the things she saw in her lifetime - immigrating to america and two world wars and a place to call home that wasn’t just home, but a refuge from everything her family fled and a reclaiming of a homeland she never knew and the tree planted in her name not even ten years after.

we learn now about clara lemlich and her union uprisings, but not the countless others that stood up and said no, not here - and it has passed down from stories into legend about the cousins that took on the world when the world tried to chew them up and spit them out and faded into memory ninety years later only spoken of in suppositions that don’t dare aspire to fact as to which cousin had questionable ties to which mob and where the diamond’s on my future sister’s ring actually came from because the only one left who knew for sure decided that knowledge was dangerous and separation from the treacherous would lead to assimilation, though we would never pass as anything but Other.
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:18 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#24
sometimes the soul needs
cloudy nights and a breeze that cuts
through to bone


#25
nothing scars quite like being eight
and the only kid in class who wonders
when all the santa shit will go away
so we could play with dreidels.
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Sun Apr 22, 2018 5:40 am
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#26
i wonder if you’re closer to god
if you sleep under the stars
and pray to things you see and feel
or light candles every friday
and go through community motions
while wondering when they’ll look you in the eye
and label you unwanted.

26b
are you closer to god
if you hike in the woods just to feel the midday sun
and you sleep under the stars to fall asleep to the crickets
or if you light candles every friday to go through community motions
while wondering when they’ll look you in the eye
and label you unwanted.
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
107 Reviews



Gender: None specified
Points: 9326
Reviews: 107
Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:28 pm
View Likes
Cadi says...



Like alliyah, I really like getting to see the a/b versions of some of these - it's interesting to see you taking the same idea in two directions, and how you end up in different places.

I particularly like #21b and #26b of these recent few; they both say a lot in an indirect way, with description that really paints a picture in my head.
"The fact is, I don't know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn't collapse when you beat your head against it." --Douglas Adams
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

Here, have thoughts as they got typed. i think the last bit is mostly what i was going for.

#27
every temple i’ve been in lacks

there’s a sense of history i’ve never found in the buildings that house a temple
until it’s filled to the brim with voices

temples in america are like the rest of the country:
steeped in a history that reaches farther
than it’s grasp -
it’s a building, not a people
(that’s housed in a book)
***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:55 am
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#28
we’re a people displaced
in time and space
separated from what binds us
yet tied together as tight as hate
can squeeze us -
and we dread the time
when it bursts us into the ether.

***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:28 am
Meshugenah says...



Spoiler! :

#29
sometimes i wonder if walking through temple doors
is tempting fate -
and then i wonder how much more
i can mix dogmas until i cannot see for the murk.

***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
488 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 3866
Reviews: 488
Sun Apr 29, 2018 1:16 am
View Likes
Meshugenah says...



Here, have the rest of what i've written in my haze of sick (30-33, so i'm officially completed!)

Spoiler! :

#30
springtime always smells like fall
in the land of perpetual summer

where daffodils bloom in February and the rain
abandons us by april

to a fireseason that doesn’t really hit its stride
until halloween is beating down our door
and snow is threatening a thousand miles north


#31
there’s nothing quite as affirmingly devastating as finding out
you’re not the only one who plays morbid games
like “which gentile friend will hide me
when the pogroms come again?”

#31b
there’s nothing quite as devastating as knowing
you’re not the only one who plays
“which gentile friend will hide me,
when the pogroms come again?”


#32
i exist in a space between
wanting and knowing while
having slips between my fingertips
catching on a nail,
rips
falls

#33
on everyday antisemitism:

the goys now tell us
if we’re jewish enough
for their needs

***Under the Responsibility of S.P.E.W.***
(Sadistic Perplexion of Everyone's Wits)

Medieval Lit! Come here to find out who Chaucer plagiarized and translated - and why and how it worked in the late 1300s.

I <3 Rydia
  





User avatar
1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Sun Apr 29, 2018 4:03 am
View Likes
alliyah says...



Congratulations on completing NaPo Mesh! And some of these last ones are quite biting! I especially like how concise and direct you are in 33. I enjoyed the contemplative questions in 26 as well.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  








"He looks like a turtle who's been through the Vietnam war."
— SirenCymbaline the Kiwi