I Am as Normal as an Anomaly

 

They come in their pretty suits,

ties and buttons hung with degrees,

to bleed their diagnosis from 

a book of black and white

into my head trusting 

therapy and pills are my salvation.

There are whispers in the valley of my ears,

“She’s a jagged glass of broken mirrors 

that hears what doesn’t speak, and 

asks to go out to the courtyard

so she can gather shadows to place

in vases on her windowsill.” 

In the distance a radio grinds out tunes

in confetti spurts of voices that are supposed

to soothe my demons, but in truth only 

gives me images of cigarette ash spittle

falling on the tiles from burnout tongues.

 Why am I named patient in this Crazyatorium,

when those who picture frame their degrees

can’t find their way home if the GPS fails on their Tesla. 

Don’t they know a poet will never fit a diagnosis?

Hell, I can’t explain myself to myself.

Give me an image and I hear things.

Give me a list of words and I see things.

Am I insane? I don’t know.

I can just as easily write myself into appearing normal

as I can spill inky crow verses of anomaly. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Word Garden Word List ~ Silent Patient

Just Some Bad Poetry

Today is starfish crackers,

jumping off verbal cliffs,

and watching snowflakes

get stuck in their own glue.



Is it Friday, or Tuesday?

It’s hard to tell in the Texas hell

of waltzing with the devil’s politics

while wondering if sending your

television to a watery grave

will stop you from reaching

for another shot of tequila.



Yen or urge.

It’s funny the word

could mean money

or a strong desire

to eat a cookie.



I’m pretty sure I’m

an attempted cubist painting.

I live in a 3d reality,

but the artist ran

out of paint to cover

my geometry.

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ B is for Bad Poetry

 

Pixelated in Time

Everything once seemed so clear,

details captured in the highest resolutions,

dreams emphatically, manically

positioned on pages we couldn’t touch,

but the world could steal for the price

of a stolen pass code.

You and I lived our romance believing 

Jesus in sliced toast would answer

every prayer if we only trusted

we could see what wasn’t there. 

Life was never flesh and blood.

It was love poems chasing a cursor,

the joy of a screen with a camera, intimacy 

as warm as the right emoji, a pink blush

of promises tomorrow we’d kiss.

We were fools writing our own fantasy,

sun bathers beneath a desk lamp making plans

in sand we believed would never shift.

It all ended when messages became ghosts,

and bubbles no longer formed words,

I don’t know which one of us disappeared first.

Perhaps it was me…

In the backspace and erase,

bold face upper case love chase,

the joy of fireworks turned cold

when I finally admitted you were

only a man with an internet address. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

I've seen a few Catfish episodes. Don't judge :)

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Jesus Cow

 

Don't Break an Aardvark's Glass

The tedium of walking on tippy toes

so the offensive won’t be offended

is not a gift I possess. 

Oh, I can appear cuddly with the obtuse,

keep my eyes silent, my face a gentle petulant,

but too often they seem to forget boorish 

will break the glass of jolly I have so patiently

kept half full. 

Ignorance should never ring the doorbell

of my dark humor, or test the shellac

on my carefully manicured mood. 

I love antiques, but have no desire

to live the crinoline politics of men

who are so fragile they succumb 

to vapors at the thought of progress.

All the cosplaying Captain Fred Waterford’s 

whine when I remind them Fred’s story

didn’t end well. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

"We only wanted to make the world better.

 Better never means better for everyone.

 It always means worse for some."

— Fred Waterford

Captain Fred Waterford is a character

in the book, Handmaid's Tale

 by Margaret Atwood. 

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Enter the Aardvark

 

Blame It On Stephen King

I spill ink crow tarot tracks

across a page trying to

write lemons into lemonade,

but there’s nothing pretty

in a journal of bruises.

Among sticks and stones,

broken bones, and vinegared potions

of all’s sunny in hell my Gothic Care Bear

muses keep quoting Stephen King,

“The Devil’s voice is sweet to hear.”

My verses are cruel, yet somehow delightful.

I can be the beast in beautiful, knife in a heart

when my humor is the syrup of sharp teeth.

I don’t play well with faux anything. 

I get more thrills in celebrating Halloween

than a sugar-coated Valentine’s Day 

filled with undying confessions of love

shopped from a grocery store aisle. 

Any way you shuffle me I will always rise with black feathers.

Isn’t it good to be honest? 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Full Dark, No Stars

Dixie Cups Held the Last Kool-Aid

Dixie cups lay reduced to red slime

mixed with the DNA of lips

who had drunk Kool-Aid while the world burned. 

Silence speaks in steam and stench.

Bony charred hands still clutch their book of rules,

their quibble phones, and black pearls 

identifying them as members of Fanatic Denial. 

Barely able to walk, shaken by the reality

I am still breathing, my eyes search for life

in the gasps of smoke pulsating around me.

Through the gray I watch human forms

appear in a ghostly resurrection of life

I first assumed were hallucinations.

As they walk forward, I see one of them,

a young woman carrying a journal. 

So many things storm my mind,

one being had I survived hell only to

be met with the foul text of failed ordinances. 

Prepared to speak every no in me, I stop

as the group keeps to its goal of encroaching

on the toasted bit of earth I believe

will be my final battleground.

Without an introduction the young woman

opens the journal and begins to read.

“According to the Magpie Record, The Lucid Tablets

now becomes the order of law. Article 1 of 

The Value of Truth requires every survivor

to go through gaslight deprogramming.” 

Who, how, where rests on the tip of my tongue

as I pinch my right arm to verify I’m not dreaming.

Seeing my distress the young woman 

places her hand on my wrist and says,

“I’m sorry to be so abrupt. We are standing on an ending

while a new beginning undulates beneath our feet.

Not knowing whether to cry or hug her, I break the ice

from my voice to say, “Miss, I don’t know who you are,

but I was on the Magpie Council when the Record,

and the Lucid Tablets were written. 

In the time of the Great Lie the Secret Scribes

oversaw housing the Council’s work

for the Reformation of Freedom in a location

that was known only by them. 

Because of security I never saw the journal

you are holding in your hands, but I know every word

that is written in it. 

Let me introduce myself to you, “I am Magpie Agent 5. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Philip K Dick

 

The B(itch) of Beige ~ Sarcasm Intended

I don’t like herds

or sheep parkas

that smell like gaslighting.

The crazy of a pencil puppet

is the ride on the dotted line

too often leads to becoming a robot. 

I’m not so naïve as to not understand

I must occasionally allow myself

to appear to be a hostage of conformity.

You know, dress in faux beige so I can

pretend I never read a book or understand

history has a catalogue of too often repeated. 

Oh, if I were truly a Bitch Goddess

I’d slap minds with my opinions 

until my tantrums carved them

into my likeness, but I can be wrong.

(I’m so humble.)

So, I acknowledge my broom may

have a few loose straws that 

require attention. 

It is difficult to walk the tight rope

between unhinged and a bit stable.

I do wear sensible shoes though,

and apply my sarcasm only when needed.

©Susie Clevenger 2024

When I write, I'm never sure where I will

end up, but I chose the word beige and got curious

about its symbolism. My fingers rushed to Google

to discover there is much to know about beige.

Symbolism Of Beige

Symbolically, the color beige brings

 a sense of energy and strength – 

a trustworthy, dependable kind. 

 This is due to intellectual abilities,

 wisdom, ideas and knowledge.

Hmmm, Obama's suit. 

Word Garden Word List ~ Where'd You Go, Bernadette?