Young Writers Society

The poems I post here are half-thought-through ramblings that I've written in recent weeks, to which I attach minimal value, but still consider to be mine under copyright etc etc nobody cares.

Okay!

Listen: by the time I notice how high
I am, I'm already falling. The world flashes
in the reflection of a sparkling drink swimming
in the lines of a poem scribbled on a napkin; and in mass graves
swollen with a pregnant woman's grace, a soldier’s pride
in bleached hospital hallways gleaming with polished silence, broken only
in public library shelves riddled with gap-toothed smiles, and
in dancefloors swaying beneath the full moon’s knowing eye.
In the mystery of countless letters lost in the mail, and
the honour of drunk men stumbling home in the morning;
in the tottering steps of toddlers in parks littered with landmines,
in the wisdom of hunters allowing the young to grow into their death
in hotel rooms plundered by strangers, books left untouched, TVs on– hell,
in the trail of smoke from campfires left untended, leaping through bushes;
in the hurried waddle of plump ducks turned regal glide in still waters,
in the debris sailing through space, our trash mixing with starlight, and
in the hubris of poets trying to pull jewels out of broken bodies, adrift
in the swell of oceans rising, rising, rising, out of breath, mid-asthma attack
in planes piercing the skies to pen love letters in ash clouds
in warehouses full to the brim with unopened goods, with faulty toys
in the old woman who mends clothes for free, happy just to use her hands
in the casting of tall shadows over fields of playing children, finding joy
in the way lights cascade through coloured glass, creating rainbows
in the long-suffering quiet of women no longer quiet but roaring out
in the night that swallows the moon each month, one bite at a time
in the cafeteria of homeless shelters in which hunger shuffles forward
in the contemplation of monks ablaze with their own certainty
in deep sea exploration charting the chasms in the Earth’s crust, and
in shipwrecks on unknown beaches, wallowing dead whales on sand,
in messages left in bottles, encoded in song, hurtled in rockets outta sight
in out-of-work surgeons with Parkinson’s, brushing their teeth carefully,
in young lovers blissfully unaware of the curve in the road ahead, and
the smell of fresh coffee in the morning of September 1st, 1939.
In the bartender whose lips twist when he sees you walk through the door—

blink, and you’ll miss it.

in the wisdom of hunters allowing the young to grow into their death

Best. And you really got into the layers here, so this was my favorite section, because they were all tightly and grammatically connected:

in the old woman who mends clothes for free, happy just to use her hands
in the casting of tall shadows over fields of playing children, finding joy
in the way lights cascade through coloured glass, creating rainbows
in the long-suffering quiet of women no longer quiet but roaring out
in the night that swallows the moon each month, one bite at a time
in the cafeteria of homeless shelters in which hunger shuffles forward
in the contemplation of monks ablaze with their own certainty

Each in furthered the description of the last, contrasting earlier series where the in's were just listing.

You know, I had that furthering-of-each-line thing sort of happening in the beginning, and again toward the end, but lost it in the middle. Still, I'm posting the raw stuff here, so hopefully by the time I'm done with this one, it'll be good to go all the way through.

Not sure about the formatting here. It's different in Microsoft Word.

Mad Like A 12-Year-Old Boy

Letters spell words. Words have meaning,
I'm told. So, the day mum woke up

& stumbled into the word fuck written in ghost
ink on the shower glass panels, in fading sweat --

she was not happy. That's not right, not-happy, I mean
she was mad, mad like the TV full blare, mad like sound

distorted beyond reason, mad, mad
mad like volcanic mud smothering Pompeii.

The kind of mad you remember. The kind
of mad that made us three siblings kneel

on the living room floor, in front of that angry TV god
now blank and silent. We knelt like disgraced knights

before a queen, her gold-tipped Chanel belt
the sword that would make us, break us --

and she asked: Did you do it? My brother, the eldest, was first in line
and said no. The leather snake lashed out and bit deep into his thigh

and his scream was girlish in pitch. Or so I thought, till my sister gave
voice to her own no, no, no, a bubbling scream like a burbling river

washing over my skin. I was shivering
like mad, mad, mad and I must have been

because my lips barely twitched no
before I was bit by the snake-sword

and I swear I was screaming before it hit, so loud
I barely felt the impact despite the purple stain

and the repetition. Did you do it? Did you do it? Did you do it?
Did. You. Do. It -- and it stopped, for a moment.

My step-dad stood there white in the face --
he's always white but it was different now

and he said, just make 'em kneel on rice. That'll get it done,
you don't need -- but mum wasn't having a bar of it, bar

like the place he buys drinks from, bar like the ones on our windows
to protect us from thieves.

She turned to him, graceful in bronze, and full of steel beneath
her eyes and skin. He scuttled out

before she could make him join the ranks
of her broken army. My sister did not wait

for the next shrieking descent
and spilled instead: it was me, it was me, it was me.

It should have ended there
but she was dragged off into her room where the screams played out

again, and again, mum's baritone voice cresting over them, spurring each note
higher and higher in a frightful crescendo.

Later, my brother and I crept over
to her room, opened the door and saw

her huddled on her bed in the corner
in as small a ball as she could make

and on all the walls around her, black
stretchmarks whirled in dizzying array

making artwork of the bare whiteness
where mum's orchestra had played

with such vigour. As the echoes faded
all I could hear were the words in my head:

it was me, it was me, it was me.