Young Writers Society

Day 1

Intro:
Gale (Variation 0)

When you gave me the fortune cookie, inside a shroud rolled out
and I called it a cop out
___________________“you will have a wonderful day and
_________________________change your life”
who gets paid to write about these nebulous things
which coat our teeth and crack our jaws, and clog weak hearts;
"it tastes like honey running down a cheek", but we're
paralyzed, and can't read.




The Nail that Hammers

[出る杭は打たれる。
(deru kugi wa utareru)
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down-
Japanese Proverb]

Out of the Midwest ̶
a thousand ambitious wandering souls
whispered in solitude to a TV screen,
their morning coffee
their afternoon snack
their late night lover
and all of them
with every desire to scream for freedom,
drowned themselves in ice box logic,
all of them tender young teens
with a life ahead of them, all of it open range
to be lived out on broken, cracking
Midwestern streets.

I.

Gulliver Pitt is the Midwestern kid
that feels out of place, scrunches his face to his face
reflected in puddles in pot holes that spot the road,
thinking he's been lost in a dream with KFC
waitresses bred well on corn and stripped at the stalk
to be husked out at birth; to Gulliver Pitt he's no
Midwestern kid, he's tasted the Ambrosia of the
American West, seen nostalgic hippie trends he can
only buy posters of to put on his wall, he's trekked in the
American South, seen people different from textbooks and
people just like textbooks to attest there are racists
lurking in the attic, he's journeyed back to the Colonies of the
American East, seen WASP's in the government and
pursue the pursuit of happiness, and he's been to the ghettos
been to the streets to the country and found voices
wandering lost stuck planted, rooted to a home until their progeny
follow them step by step and help them knock on the grave,
and all of them, Gulliver sees, are looking for a hangover remedy
that's two decades too late
and Gulliver sees but can't listen, because
he's too caught up being a Midwestern kid, worried that
until his death he'll never leave the Midwest.

And Gulliver Pitt took a trip, wondering one day in his head
and found his dream of the road from perdition
ravaged beyond all recognition.

Day 2

Intro:
Gale (Version 1)

when you handed me the fortune cookie,
____and inside rolled out a tiny shroud,
I felt it read as a cop-out -You will have a wonderful day,
_________________and change your life-
what writer gets paid to write the meaning of being
when writing itself is a selfish lie? a needed insatiable
lust to live in words, to be heard by yourself.
Yes, our cookies taste good, but sometimes I wish we could spit
_____________________________out on the ground.


note: Will continue The Nail that Hammers later



Conscience

I am man
and -
born to faces of all places,
protected in hands with care
by my very own Adam and Eve
and one day they pluck me
from their garden

"Good God!"
we are on our own
cupping hands over head
to block out a sun in heaven, the first
roast of beef in the oven
seems like death, but we
don't get off that easy

we find love as we wander

Love
whispered in our ears by the first
we met, we were young and naive
and we spoke beyond our years
until there was nothing left to say,
the first tragedy: apathy,
and tears fell to earth as comets

as civilizations were lost, and we reminisce about the garden

and
I love God
but I hate man,
and I am man, and
fuck, I miss the garden,
lying on my death bed, why
can't I feel that bliss once again,
just a foggy memory of man that I
actually loved and I said goodbye to God
when I left the garden.

I just love, even if it kills me.

Oh.

Well.

I guess I'll have to be reading this from now on.

*lurks*

Day 3

Intro:
Gale (Version 2)

when you handed me the fortune cookie,
____in the shape of a needle pressed gently on the arm,
I felt like a cop-out -You will have a wonderful day,
_________________and change your life-
And I thought amphetamines tasted great with grape
juice intermixed in my veins like mercury passing
through a brain high on fortune.



Them

I like them, dumb

stoned and booked for
a day at the races, casting die

for a ticket to ride rolled paper planes
across an atlantic sky back home

where our ancestors roamed to find
a happy hearth to smoke and grow

weeds worshipped from mother earth's
plentiful vagina; I like them, dumb

unlearned and naive that heave
spirit together with wasted youth

along the road where grandparents roamed
and not a cloud is in the sky, the ozone is fried

in their minds from late morning early night
television breaks off internet habits

like the residue of a damn good puff-
-and drag. I like them, dumb

blind bitches buying business
lining pockets, consumers bless them

but fuck them, benefits are too much,
gotta go back over the seas

and find them more weed from ancestral homes'
to live with skeletons in graves

where paper plane trails end and
sense of self is a failed romance
richoting in your face.

I like them, dumb

who waste paper to kill trees
and dream of a forest in Sahara
to devastate Brazil,

who circle the map of Japan and
claim Russia "Tesla" fucked them up
the ass with a plate shifting wrath of God,

who think Kennedy spoke
of secret orders in garbled Youtube
video's to suit paranoid agendas,

who watch mainstream media
and eat idea-to idea-to idea as if
networks have nothing to hide,

who get up at five to go to sleep at eight
then complain of life in a single duty vote
never excercising the musle the brain,

who eat corn saturated food and complain
the children are ruined by lazy teachers then
take their children for another whopper

who complain who complain who complain
and watch politician after politician after politican
act out again and again and again the same game
and expect change.

I like them, dumb

taking sides

choosing names

placing blame

seeing skin

banning words

making wars.

I like them, dumb

playing my game____searching for WMD's
paying my taxes____until they're 60
jerkin' johns____puncturing pussy-cats
writing stories____no one reads
buying degrees____for the sum 1 million,
gathered freezin____lost, reading philosophy
aborting generations____so minds mope

I like them, dumb.
I love none.

I like the Gales. (No pun of nomenclature intended, I presume.)

who gets paid to write about these nebulous things
which coat our teeth and crack our jaws, and clog weak hearts;
"it tastes like honey running down a cheek", but we're
paralyzed, and can't read.

First part was a nice, swift start. This above part -- the second -- was where it got better, although slightly less tangibility than I expect from you. I see Kamas in here. The terrible child; she warps all our styles with her own sweet voice.

I don't like the second Gale as much. The beginning is far too similar to the first; I expect it to have the same words, but a totally different meaning thanks to a totally different rearrangement, or remarkably clever play on them. I'm not seeing that here. And I want more dynamics in the second part, also. The 'what writer gets paid' line is already wearing thin.

But this, the third:

Intro:
Gale (Version 2)

when you handed me the fortune cookie,
____in the shape of a needle pressed gently on the arm,
I felt like a cop-out -You will have a wonderful day,
[color=white]_________________[/white]and change your life-
And I thought amphetamines tasted great with grape
juice intermixed in my veins like mercury passing
through a brain high on fortune.

Yes. You need variety, and I am seeing that here -- the weirdness of 'amphetamines,' the dangerous softness of 'needle pressed gently,' the daringness of 'I thought' and suggestion of grapes or fortune as drug. Makes me think of a snapshot of a film being taken over and over with little details changed each time in the basic framework -- an irresistible mystery of why this was changed here, of what that means, of how that relates to this. Keep doing this, and fix that middle one.

(And Kamas, stop influencing the poor boy this much.)

P.S. What is up with the formatting of that last one.

MMM wrote:and
I love God
but I hate man,
and I am man, and
fuck, I miss the garden,
lying on my death bed, why
can't I feel that bliss once again,
just a foggy memory of man that I
actually loved and I said goodbye to God
when I left the garden.

This was a good part to read, imo. It looked nice and read off really well. I dunno, but it was a good balance. o.O
(Oh well, this comes from a poetry noob who will not not write poetry because its fun and it helps her take a break.)

Day 4

Intro:
Gale (Version 3)

when you handed me the fortune cookie,
____bid me eat quickly and savor youth
escaping virginity, we whispered-You will have a wonderful day,
_________________and change your life-
and I still feel sick, like
flies on a hard slab of cadaver dinner,
picking pieces I don't need
when I lost myself in desire



And sh-sh-should my soul st-st-stutter

Beauty is caked in my brain
st-stains on a sh-shirt from childhood
of all
of all
the things
I can't leave behind, gorging myself
on sp-special
memories mixed mixed memories
in a blend-d-der
just like I
cry word-ds garbled
in sp-sp-speech when we
reme-member what we hate;
beauty is caked in my hate,
I ca-can't say what aches.

Navita wrote:I like the Gales. (No pun of nomenclature intended, I presume.)

who gets paid to write about these nebulous things
which coat our teeth and crack our jaws, and clog weak hearts;
"it tastes like honey running down a cheek", but we're
paralyzed, and can't read.

First part was a nice, swift start. This above part -- the second -- was where it got better, although slightly less tangibility than I expect from you. I see Kamas in here. The terrible child; she warps all our styles with her own sweet voice.

Kermit? Meeebeh.

Intro:
Gale (Version 2)

when you handed me the fortune cookie,
____in the shape of a needle pressed gently on the arm,
I felt like a cop-out -You will have a wonderful day,
[color=white]_________________[/white]and change your life-
And I thought amphetamines tasted great with grape
juice intermixed in my veins like mercury passing
through a brain high on fortune.

Yes. You need variety, and I am seeing that here -- the weirdness of 'amphetamines,' the dangerous softness of 'needle pressed gently,' the daringness of 'I thought' and suggestion of grapes or fortune as drug. Makes me think of a snapshot of a film being taken over and over with little details changed each time in the basic framework -- an irresistible mystery of why this was changed here, of what that means, of how that relates to this. Keep doing this, and fix that middle one.

(And Kamas, stop influencing the poor boy this much.)

P.S. What is up with the formatting of that last one.

I messed up formatting. My bad, it's changed now.

Day 5

No intro this time, the poem itself deserves a space alone.

Too Hypocrite

Father ̶ father you never write anymore
I receive letters not written in testimonial
just persona in personality
interpreting for you in corrupted conscience,
Father, I am artificial and ambitious,
living with a puppet’s wooden iron heart and a soul
vindictive against soil and life, Father do you see
I pretend at portraying and filling the contents of a page
with limestone colored lines modeled like life in a cage
a fucking disgrace, inspired off of a celibate
child’s desire for grandeur and I
take pride in my attempts
to fling myself at life and fail, but I am a puppet boy
desiring to be real and I am fake
with no Eye for art and life, and
in your Eye I KNOW I will be never be good enough,
and I conspired Father, like that jackass Coyote in stories
stealing the fire-stick from the god’s stash for hemp,
I stole away the Eye
from the socket in your image
stuck it to my soul, my sun, Father
given birth in your Eye's image

and I have found my sun with your Eye, and I see life, I am flesh

The Eye-drops
to paint Iris
on the way to Heaven
are staring at my sun, and
I see a planet of sheep, not humans,
and you'd think my sun saw the herders and sheep,
praying kneeling for Third Coming of my sun
and I gave them the Eye, my Eye, and shared my sun
in the Third Coming
down my waist as ecstasy released
“I am free, I am freedom, submit to my sun!”
and the words filled mate and espresso cups
fueling fatalistic obsessions of death worship, an addiction
across time, I sought to leave my shit as an imprint
filling the food of a million billion children with shit,
and coloring the folds in sheets between thrusting hips
a beige and brown vomit, woe not none are lost my sun accepts all
and bends with my Eye, so I declared and shrieked until
vocal cords and eyes creatively inclined were drunk and split
buried under an eternity's forever and ever, love of my sun
painted in deception of the castration of Father, as Kronos did Ouranos
like a cheap male prostitute in an everyday fling, a tip left for a thrill,
I castrated the eternal Father with my Eye across the world

and in my sun I see to, my sun did nothing, cared not, spoke nothing
remained dormant for a thousand years more to write poetry and feast on sacrifice,
and the sun of my Eye set, and I saw a world of
sheep sacrificed, saving
cities and cities,
as Iris's message
colored Heaven red
on crimson river sticks reaching to sky from earth
a waterfall of blood repelled from the dirt, swirling to a whirlpool
spinning like a circle of hipsters and hippies around apathetic Olympics
and my sun did not hear my Eye, I had failed and lost my sun in ambition, a hypocrite
leading a world of sheep to consume themselves and I could do nothing but marvel
in my failure, failure I could not hear my sun
I was a boy in wolf's skin, a false god
immolating in self pity

O' Melpomene ̶
where have you gone for an eon,
gone from my days of innocence, I was fake then and happy,
I had loved innocently taking pride in pennies
shoved in my ass when I thought love meant
I gave nothing, took everything
and now my Eye lies, too set on lying
to sleep in dreams,
and I dreamt I had learned nothing,
took everything and would lose myself

Godot I
I am lost, my home in a castle
for want of a nail, for want of an Eye to live again,
and my home burned for insurance
a feeble exercise in free will, freedom when I have none, can have none
and no one would pay a deductible for my excuse of a soul, and I
collected nothing, my sun cast disapproval, but remained silent
as my Father's winged repo-men assessed that
a sycophant's wasting ambitious
Eye had done their job quite well,
and my cost for theft in drinking from the Holy Grail,
I was judged and tried, held in limbo
and my sun in punishment sealed shut my Eye
and my sun in justice demanded I wander, blinding me,
and my sun said nothing but rend soul from soul
stripping a slate clean like a mad habit's twitch
scraping clean the lines of lines and sniff snuffing out to a
deadness in sensation, horror in sublime showing my dead Eye
I was taught and am breathing like nightingale's cooing, a
beautifying syrup to be eaten by literati gentry
over fireside as conversational rhetoric and country club logic,
a statistic to assess my sun, I am lost Godot I

am made dumb and numb from my sun's silence
who showed me resurrection in the lies of a gospel,
but I am not the gospel: carcinogenic arsenic tapioca fed mouthful after mouthful,
I am addicted I am addicted forgive me my sins it means nothing to me
lies atop lies, I must have them in my Eye, my sun relinquish my Eye between
Rome and America and China, and I moaned
“I am afraid to create without you Father, their eyes will crucify me!”
and cried “Why have you forsaken me my sun, my love
it was I who gave you everything!”
and my sun flared, burnt flesh on bone
like the popcorn I crave when my craving is famished
pricking fumbling scratching nails on bone through skin
and my sun threatened an early grave and instead
stripped my name and removed my skin for me

My sun
I must pay, forgive me
my insolence as I
drop upon my Eye, my Father
see me as the hypocrite as I am, strip me down
and in my sinews and muscle and nerves
exposed to the air like a science fair exhibit,
I am again artificial, a mortal undead
in my Father’s Eye reclaimed and
my sun ever silent, sentenced me to hypocrite,
colors my death and burns away my mortality in memory
and I was reborn, exiled from home
to wander after love that my sun cannot provide and
I am my sun dying, consuming a world of sheep
I cannot hope to describe

Eyes opening, eyes closing
order order order order order
It's not order, my sun,
I am chaos, abandon my name
I have lost my Father
I have killed my father
I am a puppet boy hypocrite, I am
Boy Pinocchio emulating life
and I am not a poet

[edit: this is an old version of a poem that was taken down from the forum, it will remain until NaPo is over]

Protip.

Indention on the darker shades: [color=#d4d4d4]____[/color]

Day 6

I have no idea!

Reverberation of a cool sound

like dead bodies at a funeral
ice rocks fall they will
look like baby momma not back
get some rocks from a stash,
ice cubes, they dispense in a cup,
damn this drink tastes better cold
feel ice cubes fall against a tongue,
love some purple drink fo'sho
sometimes think the ice make
me numb.....fuck what's that sound
oh the phone it ringing, says Tyrell
“sup...fuck man get that static...
what?! You're in Colorado...g you-”
the cup falls off a counter on the floor
ice cubes rattle on the ground, shit
the drink is lost, have to wonder
across the Bering Strait t' get more
the stash the stash so pure so pure
think I'm addicted to funerals

I tried an epic in the same format once. It was like 8000 words but a big waste of space and very unreadable.


This looks great, though.

I feel like a secret agent, trying to shoot you up the list.

Your poetry is fantastic, and I can't understand how you can possibly have so much to say. I'm impressed, to say the least.

The Eye-drops
to paint Iris
on the way to Heaven
are staring at my sun, and

Favorite part because I'm a loser. But really, that whole poem is one of my favorites of yours. Keep. It. Up.

Day 7

Again, garbage

MidLife Arcade Death

it's called asteroids, you're
the triangle shooting, white
stuff flies at you, black
space is the setting, spray
without discrimination, kill
everything to advance, the
game? It never ends, like
space it never stops, expands
out with new hands, when old
trigger fingers are too heavy, run
raw from arcade games on streets
with bodies as points, played for real

Day 8

(hope this makes everyone go "daaaw...", written to whoever, whomever)

Living

It speaks on my shoulder
like God whispers in the wind,
whispers things to an ego
and loves me like Lucifer,
to fill a lifetime of cupboards
custom made and custom altered
to hide cocaine and cookies from prying little pigs,
and empty the temples churches shrines
to flood the cities and streets,
burn the villages and towns
to wage war forever, and
usher in eternal peace.
It asks me to dance
back in gardens, and swim in the seas
to inspire enlightenment from death to birth,
and you too shall come away in life, for you live, and you die

and each day I am frightened and lost
hailing a cab with weak voice,
look the driver is Iraqi, will he
ask me "Allah Akbar!"
"Hey, where to?" Good question,
I was nibbling on a carrot, because
my breakfast was rushed and I am nervous
I am only ten in my mind
but twenty five by my application
for my first real job in a city
I don't know the name of
called New York, Thebes, or Moscow
but I am calmed by It, on my game with a mind
set straight flush to take risks;
I am you, you are me, we're losers
pumping coins into vending and slot machines,
sluts making change on the street for a pimp each week,
pirates off the coast of Africa practicing new modern charity,
proactive and pragmatic they call it, a state of mind, and
clerics sitting, thinking on pews wondering about space and aliens, waiting because
we are wanderers and adventurers, want of security, want of companionship
lonely lovers dooming each new relationship
driving to "look out point" lane to the roost of our own parents
to contemplate the same thought and conclusions and not jump off, because
the womb was left in the garden.

It, is the name I will never know
a face I will never greet, everything I will never do,
weigh a mind heavy in a bucket of things that can't be done,
and It makes me happy to take each day as it is, let it be the last, to taste death on vibrant lips, like chicken,
and to dance in streets as the years make me wrinkled, slow, bald; It, is you, and despite life
we will be happy, grow old, suffer hardships to the end of our days, and it will always remind me
you were once alive