Young Writers Society

I cannot guarantee what realm my writing will linger in, so I'll go ahead and preemptively put 12+ here.

Another Day in the Station

how many drops clung to her chin?
a stranger sitting in the rain
and her paper umbrella
is too thin.

the abandoned station
is blanketed by clouds
and the tired sky
forms puddles at her feet.

this world-weary bench of
rusting metal and warped wood
barely supports her weight,
and her precious memories
slip through the grates.
they disappear into the gutters
like any dream deferred.

she’s waiting for a train to nowhere
and her ticket is no more than
a scrap of last week’s junk mail
tightly wadded in her hands.

of course she’d always smile to anyone.
her plastic smile is as beautiful as dawn
(but also as cold).

she’s gazing at the puddles
watching her watching her.
wondering if she were the reflection bound to
disappear when someone else walks away.

finally

her train arrives, chugging slowly down the track
a wisp of smoke trailing behind and disappearing
leaving no trace that it was ever there.
finally
her train leaves, chugging slowly down the track
a wisp of smoke trailing behind and disappearing
leaving no trace that she was ever there.

I like the idea of being able to disappear into the world, but I think you might have made this more effective if you used more impermanent imagery. Rain is pretty concrete. Mist isn't as concrete, right? ^_^

Also,

and her precious (and not so precious)

This seems unnecessary. Only because I've done this before and realized it was unnecessary. Just say memories, or modify them in a different way? ^_^

Anyways, this was a nice start. I look forward to seeing you experiment with more as the month goes on!

-Hannah-

Hey sarg!

I agree with Hannah about the precious line. And the first two stanza are very strong -- I really like them. I'm not a fan of this one however:

this world-weary bench of
rusting metal and warped wood
barely supports her
weight,
and her precious (and not so precious)
memories
slip through the grates.
they disappear into the gutters
like any dream deferred.

Weight -- I feel it should be on the same line as "barely supports her", it doesn't seem necessary to be on its own, the emphasis isn't necessary. I think fixing some of the lines, this stanza could be as great as the first two.

I think this a very good poem, and it just needs some tweaking. I don't like the cliche line of a "train to nowhere" -- you can make the train work, I think you need to more subtle about its imagery though. Nix lines like "train to nowhere".

I still really like the poem, though. I can't wait to see more.

<3 Clo

Hey, seems you're right! We both wrote a poem about the station! Haha, but mine was first, so aha! I win.

Luls, no, you took it much further than I did and like the girls, I thought the odd line here and there was a touch off but the poem on a whole was quite good. I actually preferred the third and fourth stanzas to the rest of the poem; it probably doesn't need to be so long as well.

slip through the grates.
they disappear into the gutters
like any dream deferred.

That was the stand out. Nice stuff

Jiggity, you are indeed the winner. Yours was more concise, too, which is makes it more swell.

Overall, I do agree with all of you. Thanks for the comments! Some of those items I added in at the last minute, and now regret! ^^ Others, I'll keep an eye out for. Thanks again!

#2:

“What do you do with happiness?”
The question rattled its cage and demanded to be fed
From the dismal dark within my head.

I don't have the will to make a proper meal
So I feed it promises of broken bones and broken hearts
To stave off its sordid thirst.

It would see me at my worst.
Proclaim to the teeming masses,
"Here he is, our Samson! Come see!
Broken and beat in spirit and in mind.
Just like you and just like me!
But it is now he who is confined!
A Trojan horse sent to our lives
to ruin us with his misplaced pride!

For below his lovely curls
Are only poison and snakes!
And behind his handsome smile
Are naive girls drowned in lakes!
And inside his beating chest

There's only shame.

So speak his name only with disdain
Or do not speak at all."

_______
But that is not my name!
Don't speak it, I entreat!

Because a hollow man
Whose only joy is in deceit
Should have no fame,
Should have no love,
And no happiness at all.

#3:

There is the question if I exist.
A hush o'er the crowd; a window-scratching branch
Are more powerful than my trembling fist.
I am no Hamlet; I hold no greater plan
No greater purpose and no greater method.
This madness is standalone.
But there are ghosts that haunt my throne,
And the indecisive fog does torment--like
The descending pendulum.

And I will leave no trace of how I went.
Now turn around and descend the stair,
There is no woman waiting for me there.
She has already left with other men
Sits in the darkened theater, laughing at my life;
A dash of popcorn spills, and I will clean it in the end.
My bent head and my walking-stick broom
Are right at home, having missed the joyous room.

Then I'm shouting at the movie screen,
No sound, wrong reel, that is not how the story ends
Give me back my money, don't show this awful scene.
But the triumphant generation marches on
With billboard slogans and postered walls
This is the future, this is the future!
Sit down or get off; all will be in place.
Pick up the pace, pick up the pace!
We'll let you fall; it's not our fault.

Hike up your skirt, ladies,
Take off your shirt, gentles.
There is no room for the unsubscribed.
The triumphant joker marches on.

Sarg --

Then I'm shouting at the movie screen,
No sound, wrong reel, that is not how the story ends
Give me back my money, don't show this awful scene.
But the triumphant generation marches on
With billboard slogans and postered walls
This is the future, this is the future!
Sit down or get off; all will be in place.
Pick up the pace, pick up the pace!
We'll let you fall; it's not our fault.

This stanza is great.

I felt like your poem changed a lot at this stanza though. The first half and second half seem so different -- your language, imagery, and plot. Maybe a transition is necessary? The individuals lines are wonderful though, and I love the images themselves.

Put more up!



<3 Clo

Thanks! Yeah, it really is different, and I would love to go back and make the two a believable whole someday (a slow transition to frantic phrases). But I had to rush to the finish...I'm usually writing while at work. I hope I can find time today...but there's actually work to be done! Huzzah!

Yes! I LOVED this latest poem of yours! I liked the subtle rhyme - so Shakespearean - and the mindpower involved in actually figuring out there was one. The diction is slightly old-fashioned; but I'm not one to bother too much about that - as long as the connection with the audience, your clarity of voice, and the emotion and intellect is all there as well (which is why I love Shakespeare), it makes no difference.

I love the way it begins:

There is the question if I exist.
A hush o'er the crowd; a window-scratching branch
Are more powerful than my trembling fist.
I am no Hamlet; I hold no greater plan

Such a dramatic scene, this - it sets the stage, so to speak - and I love that you start us off with an intellectual question, and then delve straight into creating a bit of emotional atmosphere to go along with it.

About this:

This madness is standalone.
But there are ghosts that haunt my throne,
And the indecisive fog does torment--like
The descending pendulum.

I am a big fan of that first line about madness, here - you do not dwell on it, you do not glorify it, you do absolutely nothing other than state the plain and simple truth, and somehow it works MAGNIFICENTLY well. I did not like 'ghosts that haunt my throne' as much because I felt it was a little...cliche...for want of a better word. I definitely liked 'indecisive fog' but the 'torment' should have been more subtle - it kind of waters down that 'madness' from before. 'The descending pendulum' was not particularly strong as an image goes - I'm confident, though, that you can replace it with something suitable with a minimum of fuss

The second stanza: I felt the first two lines were wholly predictable, and so lost their touch of magic that is so clearly evident elsewhere in the poem. I didn't find them useful; more just spcae-fillers.

But this:

There is no woman waiting for me there.
She has already left with other men
Sits in the darkened theater, laughing at my life;
A dash of popcorn spills, and I will clean it in the end.
My bent head and my walking-stick broom

This I really enjoyed - especially the: 'There is no woman waiting for me there.' Something about the stark reality of it mixed in with the strange abstraction just clicks here, so well done. The rest of it is beautiful too - a clear, mocking image.

Are right at home, having missed the joyous room.

I did not like the above line as much, possibly because it had too many syllables squeezed in it.

Unlike Clo, I didn't enjoy the third stanza as much - possibly because of that transition she had mentioned being needed from the different styles of writing. The first two stanzas were cool, calm, collected, simmering underneath with a ghostly plethora of worry, with you being controlled. They were subtle, yet we still saw your mocking anger in the second stanza. The third one was too much of a hyperactive jump, yeah, as she gets up and starts 'shouting at the movie screen,' which, in the slightly-formal-collected setting of the first two stanzas, sounded a little fake. I liked the raw emotion you were trying to depict here, but I think the fact that it was a 'movie screen' annoyed me - also, considering that you've mentoned something about movies before (popcorn, I think).

The last stanza in italics was competely lost on me. I had no idea where we were at, and why it was there.

But I cannot wait to see more! You write with a refined sense of control, a good eye for head-heart balance in terms of intellectualising the moment, and making it emotional as well, and keeping that clear connection with the audience. I have to say, I really loved that first one of yours as well (I can't believe I didn't write a comment about that - I was so sure I had, since it was so good when I read it!), so thank you for the poems, and keep writing!

Has anyone ever told you, Navita, that you are a fantastic critic as well as too nice? Cos it's the truth.

Now pardon me while I churn something out for the day. It's one minute til midnight now! Ah!

#4:
My grandfather's hands were wrapping paper.
Memorized creases made up his veins
his wedding band was the golden bow
and I could almost hear his fingers crinkle
when he played the piano.

Our native languages would never collide--
just unsure smiles that smoothed his wrinkles,
interpretations made through my dad,
and, once, a silly exchange in Spanish.
I didn't know, then, whether to be happy or sad,
sticking a finger through the knothole
and feeling the breeze on the other side.

Today, despite the allegretto grazioso,
his eyes seemed thoughtful,
there was a heaviness about his brow,
and each time he depressed the pedals,
it seemed to scatter dust anew.

Almost lunch. I'm just gonna have fun today.

#5:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
Said Frost, admittedly, optimistically
But from what I have understood
This metaphor is far too good
And is not spoken realistically.

It's not a wood but instead a desert
To which one might closer relate
And the oases are placed in perfect concert
To contrive a life one can't revert
And instead, trudge on and bear the weight.

So choose the poison carefully
Some aimless paths are worse than others,
And unless one trusts the lie wholly
The grandest royalty is only lowly
A cult of limbo with faceless brothers.

I shall be telling this with disdain,
Somewhere, from a mid-life crisis.
There's naught to exalt in this indifferent pain,
One day, one year, one life that's just the same
Putting up and putting on these spent disguises.

Sarge!

First of all, thanks a lot for your comments on my thread!

I really like the cunning rhyming you often have going on. It's so subtle, like Navita said, and while it's not in-your-face, it's still somehow strong and keeps the poem together. Very enjoyable, I hope you keep doing it. By the way, my favourite rhyme so far is crisis-disguises.

I like 1 and 5 the most at this point, I think. At times, you get a little rambly (though I do too), but there's something fun about your style.

See you around!


Demeter
x

Ha.

As you can tell, I LOVED that fifth poem - it was so funny, made more so because I spent ages] (like you couldn't imagine) dissecting that very poem - 'The Road Less Traveled By.' I love this twist you put on EVERYTHING you write - so refreshing! No, you say, it's not a wood, it's a DESERT - so take that, Robert Frost!

I am a big fan of cranial exercise in this, and it took me a reread to figure out the rhyme scheme - well done - but I could tell there was one. And I think you've inspired me to fiddle around with rhyme schemes, too, actually, since I'm a free-verse girl, always. So...the first, third and fourth lines rhyme with one other, and the second and fifth lines rhyme with each other, right? And...is this an actual poetry form, or was it a spur-of-the-moment invention by Your Highness, the Mighty Sargsauce?

Okay, I will admit I had no favourite lines - I enjoyed the poem more as a whole, than as a sum of its parts - and I daresay that you were going for humour over fancy-imagery here, anyway. So, yeah, there were less 'pretty lines' but more 'intelligent lines' - good for a laugh.

The rhyme was clever, but the rhythm annoyed me, because in some sentences, there were far too many syllables crammed in, so it sounded weird, even in my head:

Said Frost, admittedly, optimistically

Yowch, that's a mouthful of adverbs - maybe just remove the 'admittedly' and change to 'so'? Or even something to replace that 'optimistically' which is ouch, ouch, ouch.

The grandest royalty is only lowly

It's the word 'royalty' when pronounced correctly, and incorrectly (with the accents in the wrong places) that throws me off. It's sort of squashed in there. I'd probably change the line to 'This royalty is only lowly.' This fits in nicely in terms of the rhythm of the rest of it.

Just a note - the rhythm changes are to help us read the poem more easily, and have less awkward pauses in random places. Even if you perfect the rhythm, the rhyme will NOT become glaringly obvious to us - so don't worry about it when making changes; it's still nice and subtle, in my opinion.

Good work; I can't wait to see the rest.

Demeter!
No problemo on the commenting. I can assure you that it's my pleasure to read yer stuff!

Navita!
I called it: you are way too kind. Yeppers, the rhyme scheme is ABAAB. Unfortunately, though, the rhyme scheme is lifted as an exact mirror of Frost's, not my own.

Yeah, the "admittedly, optimistically" is a brazen affront against my rule about adverbs. Hrrm...what was I even going for? I'm not quite sure. I know I did mean the "admittedly" to be kind of muttered so that it is removed from the straight message ("Said Frost (admittedly) optimistically"). I guess since it was an opening line, I was hoping I could get away with it ^^;

Ooo! I like your edit of the royalty line! I think it's unfair to edit the post to make it read that way now, but any further reproductions of the poem will definitely use your line.

Under what circumstances did you dissect it? Did you ever have to memorize and write it (punctuation and all!) for school? I had to in 8th grade. It was pretty terrible. That was probably the root of my irony.


I have Frost on the mind, now.
Es Muss Sein. I couldn't find anywhere to put that phrase, but it was the phrase that drove me all the way through.

#6:
His tie was halfway on, a loosened noose, when she realized she couldn't stay.
Three days had passed since it went away--(no, too passive, she had destroyed it)--
and she could feel the hollow despite forcing down thirteen meals since then.
She did not eat or drink before the procedure to be rid
of what she tried to believe was less than a creature,
so that was why she could only dry heave in the parking lot.
A lost child--less than a creature and nothing more.

"Why can't we just talk about it?" he shouted down at her
as she reached the first floor of their house of Usher.
"I just can't," she stammered. "You can't be talked to.
You'll brush it aside, you'll try to calm me, but you see,
there is nothing to be calm about! In my mind, there's such a clamor!"
Her fingers gripped the banister like they gripped the doctor's hand
in that sterile room, so clean and white and sinister.

"Don't worry, Doctor. It's my choice," she had said, squeezing.
"I just need a second to gather myself. But this is my choice."
Then to herself in a hushed voice, "It must be."

And so after three days of that dull, endless freezing
she could no longer stand the sight of the things she held.
"It wasn't your fault," he said. "This is just how it must be."
She snapped up at that phrase and the doubt flitted in.
No, it was her choice, that's what she committed in paper with her signature--
her very soul. But his words stole the last of what she thought was hers.
"I have to go," she said. "Go to work. Forget about me for now."
"How do you expect me to work?" he implored. "How do you expect me to live?"
"You'll just have to forgive me. I can't worry about you.
I need to find a way for myself to move forward."

She turned away for the last time and opened the door,
but the outside looked just the same as the inside.
"Don't you leave!" he cried. "What will you do? You'll make a scene!
Come back here, this is your--!"
The door closed, but she felt no freer than before.


------------------------
Uh oh, time to leave work, no time to edit!! Sorry!

Just allow me to note that I am making no statement of what's wrong or right, but I realize that even after we do things that we may believe are right, there may be inner tragedies foreign to our rational thought.