Young Writers Society

A poem I should write
before the deadline ends?
Can I meet the requirements
despite my mind blank?
Every idea seems to
fly away from me.
Gentlemen and ladies,
help this poor man please!
I can't go through this with
jazz, but I will
kneel to get some aid.
Let me find a way through the
maze, watched by (hopefully) millions of
netizens. Fourteen letters done,
only twelve (no, wait, eleven) more to go!
Perish, poet's block, for I will not
quiver in fear! I'll burn this contest,
roast it even (oh my, now I sound like a
Satan)! I just have to keep
thinking myself as
undefeatable, creative, wonderful,
victorious, and other ego-stroking adjectives.
Wow, I think I can succeed. I don't need a
xerox to copy others' ideas. Thank you.
Why? Because I've done it with your help.
Zoom in every first letter of each lin and you'll see.

A poem is complicated
but very unique.
Creating vivid images like being
down by the beach
eating grandma’s fresh baked cookies.
Flying over wispy white clouds,
going fishing for sharks, or
hunting for fairies
in the jungles of your dreams.
Just like dreams they feel so real,
knocking you with so many emotions from
love to fear to
melancholy to joy;
never just one.
Only the tip of the iceberg with those two;
pacing, flow, and imagery are
quite nice;
rounding out the poem so it
slides nicely off the tongue.
The end of the poem
usually satisfies your curiosity of what comes next.
Vague poems don’t stir up your senses this way and that’s why
word choice is important from big words like
xanthic to small ones like
yellow; they’re small but powerful and add
zest to your poem, turning it into readable art.

A burning pyre
Blazing bright fire
Caught without starlight
Dead of the night
"Ew" we would say
Flies were here to stay
Ground is lumpy
Hill is bumpy
Indigo lake
Just finished our plates
Kiss on the log pile
Last one for a long while
Mind still stuck on results
Not your fault
Open Flame
Pain
Queens shouldn't cry
Right by my side
Stinging everyday
Till I die in May
Unlike the peaceful river
Very hurt liver
Will wait in bed
X-rays had said
You huddle beside me. I know you feel bad.
Z's as we sleep, the last I may have.

Ana, my sweet,
be the girl you want to be. You
cannot depend on the advice of those with broken
dreams. They will tell you it’s impossible to be
elated, but you know better. It’s your life, your
feeling. I want you to
go where no one has gone before, all the way to the
heavens and beyond.
I will not always be there guide you, so
just hear the voice inside your heart,
kill the one that tells you you’re not worth it,
listen when it calls you beautiful and brave. As I am your
mother, you may not believe me, but one day you’ll see.
Never the quitters, our family. You are the
only one who stands in your way.

A very, very long time ago,
before I considered looking to you, dreams
carried me around. They took care of my
devotions. Supposedly ensuring that I would never,
ever have to lie. That in itself was a
Fib. A lie. A million things I don’t like.
Go away, I want to say. Leave me
Hounds from Hell, return to your
icey master. He is no friend of mine.
Just an old memory that I should like to
kick into a supernova. They are strong words,
like the strong hands that hurt me so.
Marred and scarred my skin with blades,
needing no permission to hurt me.
Only a look was given before the
puncture happened, an ice pick with no
question of the direction it needed to go.
Right smack dab in the heart, the center, the
star of this celestial body. This body that
tried so hard but still found itself failing,
under the pressure of the goddess
Venus. Expected to follow that model of womanhood.
Where was I supposed to go from, when
Xhaustion was now the only thing I could know?
You thought that this was an expression of love. Child of
Zeus, you should know better than that by now.

A new day,
Beautifully blue is the sky.
Clouds, puffy and white
Dot the sky with their softness.
Energetic, they are not
For they float slow.
Generally formed into
Heavenly, puffy sculptures of
Interesting, unknown things.
Just boxes, or perhaps
Kangaroos; their forms are random. A
Lounge chair, I spot, with a
Man laying
Nearby,
Only his feet atop the chair.
Pleasantly, he floats by,
Quietly
Rationalizing my thoughts,
Smiling,
Though I know, it isn’t for me.
Under him, a
Variety of carefree children,
Walking around, as if in a
Xebec, their sails out in full as they look up,
Yearning to ride the
Zebras storming across the sky.

Around this ancient city
Byzantine pillars line the streets,
cellos softly praising their charms.

Do what they may, I will not come,
even if I'd suffer, I'd rather
fall right into a bull pen,
get gored by an errant horn,
have my bones be crushed to dust.

I see only the future, its face
januty in a January youth,
kissing the old pillars and breaking
legs that had propped a sky
miles away from the earth now,
no longer in need of service.

Onward rages the rushing waters,
peeling back edicts - babbling,
quixotic in nature, demanding tribute,
resplendent in their self-made truth -
so that the past may cower
thoughtlessly, crawling into shadows
underneath their porous limestone obelisks.

Vast expanses before the smiling man wither,
weeping while my eyes sight his
xylophone tapping rhythmically,
yelling for the builders to come marching in
zealously, make a new Rome in a day.

After the storm clouds roll in, and the thunder,
booming across the sky, making themselves known,
celebrating all that is powerful about nature,
death and life come together in a perfect storm.

Earthworms wriggle and drown in tiny rivers
formed by falling raindrops.
Giant oak trees drink up from their roots.
Hidden among those same roots, nuts buried
in the ground by squirrels, perpetually
jovial, joking and chattering to one another from the treetops.
Kind-eyed and knowing, the gentle doe
leads her white dappled fawn through the storm.
Mothers, doe and others, provide for their offsprings'
needs.

Overhead, the storm clouds
part for the sun to peek through.
Quiet but for the sounds of dripping
rain from oak's broad leaves,
swans, seven of them, break the silence,
trumpeting mournfully from their nests
under the cover of tall reeds by the lake.
Vast, in all its depth and glory,
water on water tinkles an accompaniment, not unlike the
xylophone or glockenspiel; short and sweet notes that
yawn on and on until swept away by
Zephyr's tranquil breath.

About us--did you ever imagine, in the
beginning, that we
could build all that we have?
Darling, you were lovely then, but now your
eyes shine so much brighter. We have come so
far, you and I--we have
gone through
Hell and back.
I could have never predicted
just how the years would threaten to
kill the vows we
made for forever. It is the
nature of young love to fizzle, but
oh my, what grows in its
place is unshakeable, irreplaceable, and
quite rare. I
remember when I first saw you
smile. Now you laugh at my jokes like you haven't heard
them a thousand times, and it is
unbelievable how my heart beats like it did that
very first day. One day, I want them to
write our story down, because
"Xavier and Anna" sounds so much better than "Romeo and Juliet".
You still find a thousand ways to bring some
zest into this old man's heart.

Above the mountains,
But not too high up there, a
Condor circles, searching for the
Dead and dearly departed.
Every bone, bleached white
From the sun, and even the
Grisly pieces still somehow
Held together with dried blood,
In the condor’s eyes, these sparkle like
Jewels fit for a
King.
Like a
Mirage.

A dim white light
Black, black night

Clouded moons
Deep silver tunes

Emerging stars
Flaming Mars

Gloom-filled trees
Hollow, whistling breeze

Ice-cold streams
Jet-dark dreams

Kingfisher's sleepy song
Lilting... and wrong

Moonlight- gone
Nowhere close to dawn

Oh dear. Oh dear.
Plumes of dark smoke flare

Quick-spreading fire
Rippling, rising higher

Silence.

Alchemical symbols etched into the walls
began to bake in the summer's heat. On those days,
classrooms belonged to stacked chairs and mosquitoes
desperate to elude the daylight. All the sighs
exhaled in the middle of classes are gone now.

Flames represented by skyward triangles create a
galaxy of markings, an emblem of
how the world fell apart before becoming one again.

In the cupboards, elixirs and brews ripened for next year.
Journal pages bound to leather recorded all sorts of
knowledge: research, recipe drafts and missing pages serving as
letters to associates or theories discarded in the trash bin.

Most students started out with endless ambition,
never letting go of their dreams of turning lead into gold
or creating a Philosopher's Stone that'd grant
perpetual life.

Quaking discoveries and
revolutionary texts in alchemy
seldom made the news, a stagnant field.

The truth is, the world needed to fall apart,
unearth and reshape before becoming one again.

All-consuming, the flames
Burn, blinding me,
Carving into the
Darkness.
Ephemeral,
Fleeting, just like we are. Through the window
Glass, I see your blaze of scarlet
Hair, looking just like fire
Incarnate.
January cold is a
Killer, but so is the
Lie you tell yourself.
Mourning clothes don't suit your
Narcissism, though the red
On black is striking,
Perhaps like the striking of a match.
Quartz-hard eyes are never
Reached by the flames; I can't quite
Say the same of myself.
Trusting you was an
Unfortunate mistake, trying to fill a
Vacancy in my soul.
Would that I could douse the fire --
X-rays only show the
Yellow and gold and red of flames reaching their
Zenith, swallowing what's left of your heart.