Young Writers Society

17/04/2018
Poem 14

Title: She Smiles.

Smile that private smile at me.
You’re like a crescent moon.
However, there is something grim to you.
A private smile like the smile of a private.
Are you scared of death, or do you accept it?

Smile, so wonderful, and stretch your usually still cheeks.
I’ve always worried about dolls.
You aren’t one, are you?
You won’t fall off the end of my bed and hang limp, uncaring?
Please tell me I’m not imagining your life.

Smile more with your eyes than anything else.
Within your eyes is where your real smile is.
Everywhere else is stretching, teeth baring, lip tightening.
Yet I would say in your eye, in your eyes it bursts.
I’ll call the ambulance if your cornea starts bleeding.

17/04/2018
Poem 15

Title: This morning...

Listening to the kettle seconds before it boils,
while the water churns like applause,
before letting out a screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech

Sitting at the table as the sun settles above,
everything just getting accustomed to its presence,
before the first bird wakes up and staaaarts siiingiiiing

Running your hand down your waist, hips, jeans,
exploring landscapes to find the trove with your keys
before at the door they call and say “Cooooooooooome ooooooooooooooooooooooooon

Crushing beneath your feet the small pebbles and stones
and diving your way finally into the churning high street
before the clock on the tower calls rang raaang raaaaaaaang raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

18/04/2018
Poem 16

It was back in Camelot
in a house beneath the legendary castle,
when a young man,
asked of an older man,
for his daughter’s hand.

“Yes!” cried the eldest.
She had flowers in her hair,
and flour caking the sides of her nails.

“Him?” asked the youngest.
Her dress was a deep grey,
like the storm is a deep chasm.

“For?” asked the father.
His nose curved outwards,
like an eagle’s, and he had owl eyes.

And this young man proudly exclaimed,
“For mile you see stretched beyond Arthur’s,
for every horse you see birthed from royalty,
for as many pieces of gold it takes to outshine the sun-
for as deep a lake I will drain to put them.”

The eldest had always loved him.
He brought her flowers from his conquests,
and promised:
“One day, I shall show you every flowering meadow I have ridden across.”

The young man’s eyes fell from his summer.

The youngest did not care for his attention.
That did not dissuade him.

And the eldest swore she wilted.

Our father looked around this small house, and inclined his head.
“Let me consider.” He pulled the door shut.

The family sat at the table.
“Loves,
This heartless bugger could make us very rich,
if we presume the space between his ears isn’t
empty.”

“Father,
You presume too much,” said the youngest.

“Father,
Do not speak to me of riches,” said the eldest.

“I have lost what I thought
made my blood rich red.”

The man stood up and donned his hat.
“Loves, there is work to be done.
Decide by night fall-
I raised you wise.
See if you can preserve that.”

The eldest stood, then ducked away,
and did not leave her room
until the sun kissed the empty fields.
Then she picked up the dough she had left,
and kneaded it,
knocking it from then till
now and looking like she wants to
kick it,
and whatever, most certainly,
not kiss it.

Unless, that is,
to get her teeth closer.

“So, what will we decide?” asked the youngest.

“Do not speak to me of decisions!
Something hot, red is leaking through my tissues.
And I cannot think of what is right and wrong!”

The youngest was a seamstress.
She held pins and needles and sat,
threading together then
yanking
and pulling everything taut.

“And now, has your blood settled?” asked the youngest.
“May we think of this?”

“Do not, I cry, speak to me of thought-
I am so far from thought and fear I am a beast.
And all I can hear is a clamorous beat.”

The house they lived in served comfort,
and privately held things not explicitly secret,
like father’s box of savings,
and daughter’s sheets of
star-stuck
fabric.

“Are you once again a woman?
Can you hear above your heart?” asked the youngest.
“Can we finally act upon this matter?”

“I beg of you, do not!
Do not speak to me of mattering and acting,
for everything I could grab onto and orient myself is gone and
I am flailing! I will lash out if I do not fall!”

The youngest rose into the sky.
“Perhaps,
that is what we shall do.”

Together they ran out,
hand in hand and
glowing. The youngest had her needles,
and the eldest had her dough still fresh,
still rising with the flowers it is filled with.

It’s in the back of Camelot,
closer to the beckoning forest beyond the walls,
the youngest leads the knight,
cool under the growing night,
sharing a warm loaf.

She vanishes, where he doesn’t see.
He sees a lot,
but he doesn’t see her.

The cresent moon above grins
and he sees fast movement,
in the corner of his eye.

Two hares kicking.
Screaming and laughter.
Silence- no running water.

Vivid hallucinations dragging along from one eye to another setting fire to the world around him,
licking so close to his face which lies on the floor.

The empty church.
Thighs of crossroads.
And all the spirits!

Art is performed by ladies,
and murder by beasts,
and witchcraft is simply an open-armed embrace for the devil,
and the good Father has turned his eye.

Starts burst above him like small nipping points of painful light.
And oh father please, the moon is grinning
like it was satan’s snake,
and I beg of you I did not wish to bite the forbidden fruit,
or scorn your garden of earthly delights.
I beg of you forgive me!
Be my salvation!
And save me.

But, thinks the eldest,
I will forever be hungry for
what I lack.

19/04/2018
Poem 17

Title: Chaise

I want to be a rich woman,
reclined back on a chaise besides a summer sky,
in the shadow of the lip on the roof.
A cat will lie across my belly,
and I’ll hold a book open with one hand,
reading lazily,
my eyes flitting to the world around.

19/04/2018
Poem 18

Title: A Bloody Dear Thing

These ancient, wide old trees only let in the softest breaths of sun,
everything slowly unfurling and sprouting in this cool light.

Eda sprints towards me,
and I duck,
as her short sword slices down,
but she parries my strike at her
ribs.

We step apart,
panting,
sweat rolling off my brow but
not into my eyes.
not into my eyes.

I lunge forward aiming for her
thigh to slice open the artery
there and bleed her dry-
leave her twitching on this soft moss.

But I don’t.
I jerk-
we’re both surprised-
I jerk to her left before my brain told my legs to do so.
My arms catch up first,

but she spins before my blade meets her kidney
and her block is hasty and fuck
that hurt, ringing through into
my spine like a hammer on a knife on an anvil,
but badly,
ruining the knife
against the anvil.

I trip over a rock behind me.
Just a step, and I adjust, quickly,
but I was off balance and when she pushes
off
against the ground and
kicks
I have to fall

like Troy

and her sword stands like she had buried it in clay.

We’re both panting.
She looks at me,
in the eye.

Her eyes are hot.
Not the warm honey eyes of a lover.
Not the bright devil eyes of a rival.
But hot, like a fire within myself.
We’d both been here for so long.
I can’t remember why I was fighting.
And the heat of her eyes is not remorseful.
I can see neither guilt, nor hatred.
I think, privately, we are past emotions,
and have just been left with this heat.

She will not draw this out, for there is no pleasure in that,
not in this gentle embrace in this sage old forest.

She drags down, quickly,
pulling her blade out,
then leaning on it,
between my ribs.

My intestines spasm- I can see them.
A shocking green blends with the outpouring of blood,
as my liver bursts open.
It’s all brown, like the dirt.
And god, I feel so warm,
leaking like this.

It spills all around me,
my lungs like a brown paper bag wheezing.
My skin almost seems to fall to the side.
I cannot tell when my body releases everything it held.
I am so warm, I cannot distinguish between them.

It is pleasant, to die here.
I would rather have lived but,
a bug crawls over me after she’s left,
more, more, many bugs,
and decay what is now empty
everything now brown apart from my deepest centre,
which is closer to purple.
My eyes no longer see,
but stare through and deep into this moss,
and slowly sink in to it.

20/04/2018
Poem 19

Title: Tower

and today let us march up the tower


and find our treasure.
Climb the steep stairs fall backwards upwards climb the steep stairs
climb the steep stairs like Escher and reach the stars as we
climb
and dance
and pirouette
down to the sky
as we climb this tower made of black obsidian bricks.

they shine in the sun strangely and weirdly and our faces split off to hundreds of bopping cheeks lips moving tongues slipping
we aren’t saying anything?
why are our reflections talking?

The stars are beneath our feet and the sun above,
it's burning slightly.
The walls are that shadowed glass and we can’t see outside,
but we feel it as we climb through these stairs

the clouds the sun the tight packed clay dirt
climbing
falling

as we march we sing and we don’t understand the words of these worlds, why are our reflections shaking?

foot before foot before our toes as we climb this tower like hundreds legs of millipedes foot foot foot head
head?
head (RUN)
fleeing up the tower to home
fuck it smash through the walls land outside,

stomach pressed against the obsidian and we clamber across on our knees,
climb down climb down lets reach the stars and the dirt before we are bitten in two.

21/04/2018
Poem 20

Title: 21st of April

Forget every sweet word I ever said for autumn.
It is this mid-spring where my passions lie.
This heady sweating spring heatwave life,
that scent of sunscreen and lotion.
An April’s summer day.
It feels like a chalk day,
a day when I was younger,
in the little neighbourhood we lived,
on the cement blocks in our garden.
We would draw chalk on them.
Today feels pungent on my tongue,
something fermenting and turning sweet in my lungs.
Too hot to run and yell or shout;
too hot to fear or worry or doubt;
just right to lay back and do nothing else,
but fan yourself slowly with the book you can’t read;
in this sun the pages are a messed bright white.
In this sun our thoughts are burning ash in this light.

21/04/2018
Poem 21

Title: Cloudless Sky

Isn’t it damn bizarre, these cloudless skies.
They’re alien to me. I’m used to grey-
a few wisps of cotton, at least.

Today? There’s nothing.
There isn’t a single floating cloud I can see in the entire sky.
There’s nothing between me, and everything-
nothing more than a thin collection of gasses
(clouds aren’t much else but)
just a few million litres of gasses and their intermolecular forces,
just Van Der Waals, or
there’s no covalent networks up there, if you know what I mean.

Just… infinity. Forever and of everything.
This blue sky is actually a giant expanse of empty
space
The nearest star is thousands and thousands of miles away.
If gravity wasn’t here- if I fell forward and upward
I would fall forever.

22/04/2018
Poem 22

Title: Thorn

There was one day you were over,
and we were in the garden playing childish fun,
shoes and socks off, feet on the grass.

We returned inside. A glee was bubbling within me-
I skipped down the corridor
taking large courageous and almost arrogant steps until
I stepped on a thorn.

I had to sit down on the stairs.
I felt embarrassed, and I grimaced,
and waited for the pain to pass however,
there was a thorn in my foot which wouldn’t just vanish with patience.

You had a look at it because the longer I left it the more it was hurting,
and you said,
“Okay, do we have any tweezers-
let’s just pull it out.”
Your voice was calm- I was cowardly.

“Ah,” I said.
“I don’t suppose, if you wouldn’t mind,
doing it?”

Anyway.
It’s not as though I have a scar,
though I think I should be honest with you-
I think you were my first crush.
It’s nothing now, but still,
I think I should be honest.

23/04/2018
Title: Discussions of Above

Do you reckon the powers that be are trying to kill us,
or save us?

Why?

Because I’m trying to decide whether I should go to confession,
or not.

[Snort] With all that we’ve done,
I doubt we will ever be able to repent.

So,
what are you saying?

I’m saying we should be thankful we have to ask this.
Cause clearly whatever powers that be aren’t
powerful enough to achieve what they want.

So, no confession then?

It’s no as if they’ll smite us, otherwise.

[Pause] What a wonderful outlook.

24/04/2018
Poem 24

Title: Ghost

At one point,
there was this girl,
who ended up dying.

Just briefly-
a day or so,
but long enough for her soul to sink fully into the light.

And yet, her body refused,
and when it fell empty, it stood up,
and pulled her back.

25/04/2018
Poem 25

Title: Asshole

I am very aware that I am slightly an asshole,
which is very frustrating, as I am sure you understand.

I am a logical person.
I am finickity and melodramatic,
and I enjoy teasing other people.

I’ve been told I’m patronising,
and unemotional. I push jokes too far,
and react ridiculously to things I should’ve ignored.

Sometimes I meet people I might think would be similar to me-
my friends think they’re a bit of a prick.
I suppose that’s true.
So, I try set myself up against them,
back to back-heel to heel
so I can match up out similarities and differences,
and decide if I’m better-
ensure I’m not a prick.

I’m not sure-
perhaps I’m wrong? Perhaps I’m fine?

Ohh, I like #24 - it gives me kind of chills. It's like one part ghost story, one part illustration of a very hollow, empty kind of feeling, and that's a beautiful combination.

27/04/2018
Poem 26

Title: It's lovely outside.

Oh! it’s lovely outside up
above my ceiling and
i can see a hint of it through
my window.

Here, let me tell you:
While the sky is grey with clouds of some sort behind
it must be clear because i can see the duck tail of blue but
the houses in front of me are golden in this afternoon sun like
honey is dripping in the rain and yes my house casts a shadow on
the one ahead but see, that’s contrast, we learned about it in art,
and this face of feather blue against their white walls only
highlights the toasted sugar stream in summer soil orange from iron deposits
sunlight, this afternoon, which has lain her blanket upon us.

I have collected all my old magazines and laid them on my bed:
National Geographic, The Economist, and Oh Comely which
are all at least a year old, but today I feel is the day to learn-
or remember- that which i’d forgotten and also,
I am imagining making a collage.

27/04/2018
Poem 27

Title: Rumbling Lullaby

Last night I fell asleep to a rumbling,
like someone was mowing their lawn, 11 at night.

(In reality, the military base near where I live,
is running drills,
and so there have been jets and helicopters in the air,
like the bugs which have burst forth)

I could feel my soul cast out to that sound-
and the image of someone with their lawn mower.

I realised, lying there,
that this is why I cannot fall asleep listening to music;
because I need to cast my soul out, like that.

For the inside of my body is too noisy,
and has taut fraying ropes linking it to reality,
and if I try sleep in it,
I cannot-
for something will always whisper me awake.
And this music in my room is too close to me,
you see, and so counts as within my body,
as it is under my jurisdiction.

But this rumbling outside.
I had to cast my soul out to visit it-
and so I slept.