Young Poets
Published here are some of the excellent poems we receive from our gifted young writers.
You can submit poems either by post (please enclose a stamped address envelope for reply), via our on-line portal, or by email to acumeneditor@gmail.com. Please mark the contents ‘Young Poet Submission’, put this in the subject line if you are submitting by email, and put your name, age and address on each page of the submitted document below your poems. We would prefer a word file for the submission please.
Please submit no more than four poems. You should be aged between 16 and 25 years, the work should be unpublished.
Millie Woodrow
Burial
We buried his guns in the garden
a year after he’d been burnt
in his best jumper. Rifles
and a double-eyed shotgun,
sawn barrel, heavy cartridge, no licence.
A stock that lay cold against the heat
of his cheek, felt the misting of his breath.
A trigger that knew the quick kiss of his finger,
the death-flinch. Foxes, pigeons,
rabbits, rooks, scattered
in the ringing of my grandfather’s gun.
x
He shifts his weight forward, sinks a crow,
retakes his aim. Reopens his right eye
when a kite drifts through the slaughter,
like a ghost. Shivers in the wind.
He watches till it’s flown.
x
He shot at what he shouldn’t, pushed warm bodies
deep into warrens – seagulls, racing pigeons.
He licked his lips and tasted
tobacco and liquorice. I’ve seen
his blue eyes harrowing memories,
known the affectionate touch
of his neck-wringing hands.
But he knew there was a weight in death
heavier than the fall of red feathers.
x
We pick a spot by the ditch
by the dog bones, cat bones,
grass cuttings sodden and rotting,
a ditchful of water running cold and clear,
a passing witness. I sink
his spade in the soil, funereal.
We fill in where we’ve been, leave his violence
to the ground. My mother rolls a cigarette,
watches the circling kites
while I sow grass to hide our crime.
I dread to think, she says, then stops.
x
Venus in the Forest
Below the high hill
that splits the valley wind,
night opens in the elm grove,
the wild garlic breathing.
x
Old England once, so Hardy says
scorched to the chalk,
iron fires, funerals,
smoke rising in roots–
like ghost trees waving their pale limbs.
x
We’re building a den in the forest
rotten elm boughs, slim firs
come down with a crack.
When the fires in the village
Ignite, one by one,
there I’ll cup the last of the light
in my face for him to taste.
x
I’ll give my orphan body
to the suckling ground, like water.
A vast giving love
that swells new
every season.
x
After Equinox
When the ditches burst black water,
go splashing.
Fling the old songs skyward,
chase rabbits, break their necks,
flush rooks from their nests in the flue,
black smoke writhing on the wind
bending and beating.
x
Hang the rabbits out of reach
ready for gutting, sharpen your
kindest knife.
x
The dark beats the light underground.
Driven into the landscape, a mass burial,
sunk patient and cold beneath Silbury Hill.
x
Skin the bunny rabbits,
bake a pie.
x
The first acorn, kicked by a boot,
gone rolling down the road.
Chase it and keep it. A talisman
for the path ahead.
Make stone circles for the dead,
I let the living pass like rain.
x
Watch the slow green die to the bark –
strip the second blackberry harvest –
follow the kites as they surrender
to the turning wind like ribbons,
give up love, start fires, start walking,
up with the dawn,
waste no light.
Adonis Anderson
Feast
One day, this dog ripped into my flesh and got so deep we both saw bone and that excited him and surprised me as I was also excited. While he gnawed away, I wondered, what kept him going? he’d already gotten what he wanted… what else could he be after? And as if God whispered, let him be… I laid, almost relaxed. The dog released then started barking, as if others were welcome to join. As he howled, I stayed down, now thinking a number of thoughts, what’s wrong with me?… why am I letting this happen?… God…why?… And when his buddies finally arrived, I still listened to God. I let them feast. All of them excited, all of them howling, coughing, all of them getting sick on my chocolate flesh. I now, fully relaxed, as if God had answered in a whisper again, You are not the only one that wants a little taste of death.
x
Inspiration
I’ve heard writers sit on their chairs, sit at their tables, and select an audience or genre. I’ve heard writers sit on their chairs, sit at their tables, unknowing when or where their inspiration will come but if it does come, the words pour out like a good piss after a beer run. I don’t relate because I don’t drink, however I do relate to the policeman throwing gang signs, to the blind child wearing shades, to the Baptists’ final prayer before going to his office with a knife and his bible. I do relate to the old woman flailing her arms, to the teenager reading Watt’s ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’, and to the white guy on the subway twirling an empty chocolate bar in his hands. And I want to tell him, just throw it away old man, the best of its over. And I want to tell you, I do take a great piss after sex, and I do think inspiration is such a lousy way to write.
x
Maybe try again tomorrow
The yolk of an egg is not quite the yellow of sunlight. And as I get out of my Asian-owned mattress embedded onto this white-owned brown wooded floor, the sun’s light is covered by Yellowstone brick through my black boarded clear window. With steady steps towards this window I see the view of this broken city block, I feel my head going empty, and then I feel a lightness as I skip an egg filled breakfast prepared by a woman who knows this is the hardest part of my day and as the smoke of unborn babies dissolve into the air and the smell of their remains fill my nostrils, this woman still cooks for me and I go back to staring out this window until my eyes fill with watered emotion.
More Young Poets
Audrey Hunter
This Is What I’m Thinking Rain on the window & the ground Everything is impermeable So we leave behind streetside streams & we leave in them I want to go home But I rue the journey Hate the water that drowns the roads Hate the water that ends up where I’m...
Saul Grenfell
Rain and cheer Innocence darted through streets alone,hair dancing in the rush of itamid dense smells and bids and cumin and saffronlittle lungs a-panting. Now, with top button stiffly done,greying hair flattened and...
Sidney Lawson
The First Affair I rinse my hands of the way your skin felt, Brush my teeth thinking of how you tasted. The soap’s scent is reminiscent of your Intense fragrance, something I won’t forget In a hurry. I remember the sight Of you in that red dress, the slight gasps you...
Emily Riley
till dawn do us part late night kisses behind closed doors no one has to know you’re mine for the night unwavering devotion you write novels on my skin then tear them to pieces leaving me severed and shattered your beautiful work destroyed no one has to know...
Charlotte Lebedeker
Josephine It’s been ten years of Josephine, and the world will give us decades more. But if that’s cut short by the gods above, I would upturn all our climbing trees, I would dry out all our oceans, I would leave no corner of the world unchecked searching for her. As...
Daphne Harris
dinner party ‘conversation’ It has a haunting quality, does it not? How shadows leave the table when lights flicker on, but their presence is constant and reminded when birthday candles are blown out. The way a sour aftertaste an be remembered for days on end, but the...
Florence Grieve
The Bristol hum I’m looking for the secret portal where the air quivers above the grass because I want to get away from here from the place where emotions are berocca dissolved in the white wine served with dinner, swallowed with our plates of macaroni cheese and...
Isaac Cude
Sandpaper There is not much difference between words. Maybe there is, maybe it is different. There is horror in thoughts, in desiring Something unknown; it seems known to others. It is kept hidden, secret, and it is unfair. When words bubble up, they are strange....
Tricia Tan
finding nemo in the ward the aquarium of her ward was rich as ever in the Great Barrier Reef Hospital. Old fish diving in the shallows of the ED. The pillows a lush anemone, her clownfish gown swallowed in. My smile daft as Dory’s. Brief as bubbles, or the...
Emily VanPelt
Adoption I didn’t spend 9 months in your womb, growing into a creation of my own I wasn’t the result of your great love story, but of one unknown You didn’t feel the emotion when the second line appeared There were no tears of joy and no little kicks that you endeared...
Liberty Price
Swapsies Your favourite jumper is draped, Languishing on the back of my chair The tattered sleeves unmoving, Its snot stains ever-present And the colour clashing As always With your imagined outfit. The window looks on, Sheets of sunlight In heavy layers over the...
Grace Marshall
Esplanade I saw a man on the edge of the sea one black morning. No sand, just stones, and me on the Esplanade. He paused at the lap of the waves and surveyed. Where I stood on the grey I could tell his upset Too far from his wife who rose and fell further out....
Alex Walker
Strange Winter river pouring daily puff of coal chatter of friends press of water against the lock gates overflow balsamic moon I am swallowed up I am swept away in the overflow of turkey tails lobular expanses drops of rain strung like beads of liquid starlight...
Anna Ray
Exile Displaced I break myself up in a million pieces Can’t forget the taste of the sky more bitter than my aching tears or the airport-coffeed flavour in my mouth Eyes closed uncomfortable flicker Out of the window the trees are running away Disjointed thoughts to...
Imogen Davies
Starlings Flit from Lobster Pots Starlings flit from lobster pots The harbour – a nest Of buoys and nets – A breath – To the beat of boats And wings – Sun and sea sing – Salt clear notes – blue Chasing dawn’s dissolving hue – Hulls bead and dimple dew Over paint that...