Young Writers Society

#13
every touch and sound
rubs the brain like roughened sedges
too hard to write a poem
when you're fraying at the edges

A belatedly-posted #14!
A race:
aching feet beneath a drizzle-drenched jacket
vs
a ponderous, steamy-windowed red double-decker

#15
Spring is teasing us.
The blackbird awakes at three,
fluting and piping from a bare, green-tipped branch
and at five, the sun peeps out, warming up to a gentle, golden morning glow.
Long-looked for blue emerges amid clouds
and disappears again into the grey.
The sun withdraws into darkness
and the wind
and the rain
return.

#16
Red velvet threadbare at your elbows
lost popcorn in bits at your feet;
tuck your knees to your chin as your neighbour comes in,
sidling along to their seat.
The house lights go down, and with them the sound
as anticipation sets in,
beats our hearts quicker, the projector flickers:
it's time for the film to begin!

#17
My attention is a dragonfly
resplendent,
iridescent,
zipping here and there with each blink of the eye.

#18 or, Refactoring
I dig my fingers into the code
getting it wetly on my skin and under my nails
and I pull out a chunk, soft and damp and monospace
to work away on its own.
I smooth that piece at the edges,
sculpting hollows and ridges,
the eyes and nose and mouth of an interface
that will join back into the rest
and then I set it aside. While it dries,
I repeat the process
running my hands over the opens and closes of another
and another
and another
until where there was a mound of clay
now there are tidy rows of objects, waiting
only to be slotted back together
in a cohesive, functioning whole.

#19
Chilly blossoms:
scattered by cold winds
in golden sunlight.

A belatedly posted #20
When the tension gets too much
you just have to dance it out.

#21
Inspiration lurks in this pipe
just out of sight
just around the bend
just where my fingers can brush its rough edges
but too slick with slime to pull out.

#22
Rain in the movies
always falls at the darkest time;
I wonder how's your life
because there's too much rain in mine.

#23
Vauxhall Astra
sitting on a gridlocked street:
inch by inch
the wheels roll round,
inch by inch
the car gains ground -
Vauxhall Astra
sitting on a gridlocked street.

#24
The tree by my window does spring like a Dr Seuss illustration:
skinny twig branches reaching for the sky
sprout spiky heads of hair, pale green and unruly,
bouncing around in the breezes of change.

#25
Shoot me on Kodak Gold in the afternoon sunlight;
soften my edges and saturate me;
pin me on the wall to perpetuate me
and all the smiles of 1995.