Young Writers Society

The wind,
being indifferent,
carries old kites.

Grandfather, your kite sways from your neck
like a censer, exhausting a smoke from within,
within the furnace where age is untempered for all.

And with those live coals you take in the faces,
ears deaf to the songs they burn to,
the songs that kindle cardiac-arrested love.

And the words spoken are really thrown,
stones skipping, with gaps that growl
Why isn't there a warranty?

for this gentle twitching,
like the legs of a dreaming dog.
If dogs dream.

I dream but forget when I wake up.
You scream when you wake up,
breasting the sea that is your sheets—

new memories crashing like Pacific waves
on old rocks;
medication sparking amaretto.

Years no longer hold people in their place.
Time, a candle once firm—
and we push against the wax.

And we push against the shadows,
ever leaning thinner.
Mother whisks them back:

tea ceremony for the kamikaze pilot.
Her eyes' white becoming the sky
and each foaming swoop suggests the slapping roll

of waves below, of a drum's leathery edge—
its player pressing my heart—my heart
beating to the cadence of that plummeting thurible.

Though, nose-diving is always harder in mid-air,
harder when the aircraft carrier's lid is open,
the war paint on your stubborn face.

So I tossed my tongue to the cat
prowling in the pews and growing its whiskers
on the uncanny faces in kneeling rows.

I can no longer read anything. Say anything.
The priest's latin chant swells my throat
with the smoking-engine incense

and pulls up the same,
only to fold with the flag.
Oh, grandfather,

you'll always be to me
the black and white dancer
laughing noiselessly.

We step out of hymns
into that lasting silence,
waiting for the ground to thaw.

Sorry, but I don't really have much of a review, I just want to say this is really awesome.

Inkwell,

I wish I can write poems like you. Your style pulls everything together. If you don't mind, I want to go through this stanza by stanza. I thought overall, it was beautiful. I felt you really explored with this, and so I explored it with you. It opens up a lot of thoughts and ideas about old-age, and the beauty in this is how perceptible this is. It's very real. I like too how you focus in and zero-in on the emotions, I think we can all easily relate.

The first stanza is an excellent beginning that reads a lot like an introduction. This poem has this "V" like structure (as far as the content goes) to where it opens up this general picture and begins to narrow/zero-in.

Be-au-ti-ful imagery with the kite as a censer. This poem makes an excellent example of how you can jump back and forth between images and ideas effectively without losing the readers and maintain strong transitions.

I am not a fan of "untempered" - I feel as though that word is too vague, so I get this feeling of: I think I know what you mean. But I don't want to think I know, I want to know. Word-choice is crucial, and also difficult to get the "right" word.

The next stanza has a most lovely transition, I like how you continued the metaphor, but I feel you begin to lose it again with some of the word-choices. "Live" coals? And who is the "they"?

The last line in that stanza is daunting and beautiful at the same time. That "cardiac-arrested love", I love, love, love that line. Way to tie everything together!

I dream but forget when I wake up.
You scream when you wake up,
breasting the sea that is your sheets—

Once again, the transition is lovely. The image is too real for me. It's heat breaking. I love your use of "breasting."

As for the next stanza, the "medication sparking amaretto" while it's a nice reference, it seems to come from nowhere. The part where you start to talk about the candles though, that would probably be my absolute favorite set of stanzas.

tea ceremony for the kamikaze pilot.
Her eyes' white becoming the sky
and each foaming swoop suggests the slapping roll

You completely lost me with that first line, though brilliant. I mean, you have very careful and smooth transitions, so when there isn't one, it's jarring. And I feel transitions in a long piece like this that wonders around is very important. So far, I can follow this without even an ounce of effort, which really tells me something about you as a writer, because that is something that is hard to do. You begin to lose me right here though with that bold line. Our brains are designed to jump back and forth between ideas, so trying to capture those "inbetween" threads of ideas in words is difficult to say the least.

I have faith you can do it though that's why i mention it.

of waves below, of a drum's leathery edge—
its player pressing my heart—my heart
beating to the cadence of that plummeting thurible.

Bringing it back to the beginning are we? I feel as though from this point on the next two stanzas following this, while it's beautiful, doesn't really suggest anything new to me. It begins to ramble.

The last three stanzas follow this sort of concluding trajectory - so I like that about it too. A lot of times poems end sort of "suddenly", which is not the case here. The pacing is well thought out. Kudos to you. I really enjoyed this. so I can only marvel at it.

~ as always, Audy

Dearest inkwell,

Here goes nothing.

I personally believe you got a teensy bit off-topic, or so it seemed. This was okay. I personally love your work, but this seemed almost like a let down. Don't get upset, it was still magnificent. Keep writing and keep reviewing! Shine you fantabulousness(yes, it's a word) down on the rest of us.

Farewell,
-A.

P.s.- I feel like I just gave you a death sentence of sorts. Ha.