Madman Walking Aspirin

 

He’s a madman walking aspirin

as if he wasn’t the god of pain.

His drooling dementia spills

from his fingertips in the wee hours

of American insomnia onto a keyboard

that smells like ignorance. 

He touts he knows more than everyone

while important anyones hide war plans

to prevent targets from knowing the

when, where and how. 

The deflection celebrity is the star of abuse,

the bottom of the barrel, the toad who

will never be prince, but to some he’s

Orange Jesus who can turn their world white. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ The Catcher In The Rye

Two Elephants From One List

Elephants and Madness

I won’t apologize for

addressing the elephant

in the room.

In all the begats I chewed through in the book

of misogyny I never found a woman who was

assigned any title above a breeding cow or criminal

with curves that forced men to think with their genitals.

In the time of erasers, I threaten masculinity 

by my rashness to denounce the red apron

of submission and speak in full sentences

that indicate I have read books banned as feminist. 

My madness is mine…It grows and prospers…

I come from a river of poets who swim

in dreams, ink rafts from visions, and aren’t

afraid they’ll drown if rejection pulls them into rapids.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

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Elephants With Forks

Elephants climb into a rowboat

as if they won’t drown from

the weight of their ambiguity.

Oh, they don’t fool me.

I’ve read a history book,

ate from a liar’s wooden spoon,

and dressed in wool spun from a pulpit.

It is hard to admit I fell for the begats,

trekked through Leviticus, and waded

through revivals carrying coins to lay

at the feet of manipulators.

I’m surprised I survived my chain

of not worthy with any faith, but

once I got off the roller coaster

of the bible brand of the south, I was

bold enough to journey to healing. 

There’s so many why’s in me and yet

there are a few answers why I drank

from a cup that took me where

I should never have gone.

Two little girls, an empty cupboard,

and a promise there would be food

if my husband and I followed

the fork without questioning 

where it led. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Disclaimer: These poems are written from my experience

as a Southern Baptist for over twenty years. Everyone has the right

to their religion and faith or the right to have neither. I am a survivor

of indoctrination and the depression that came with it. 

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Anne Sexton

 

From the Book of Louise

Have you ever landed in a flock

of eggshell people, the thin skinned

beretta tongued who love to see you bleed,

but don’t want you to leave a scratch

on their egos with truth?

They’re all into their star spangles, white

tabernacles, and Grinch charming.

Peacocks levitated on red, white, and blue

thinking they’re so holy you must walk

a gangplank if you call them out for their hypocrisy.

Well, I’m way past the egg minuet, and

have started clogging when cornered 

by a schoolmarm smirk spill of people

who like to make the water boil, but

don’t want to swim in the heat. 

I’m all into avoiding, keeping my peace with distance,

but when devils come to my doorstep, I’ll stomp a few shells. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Louise: Part 3

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Still Life With Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl

 

Don't Corner a Poet

It’s just me, out of my mind

sipping on helium, pondering

why a tuna fish sandwich

is on a vegan menu, and how

to install a security system on

a dollhouse without a door

or glass on the windows.

I’m not pretty when I’m backed

in a corner, but hey, there are

those who don’t listen when

I say my vocabulary has teeth. 

There aren’t any caution signs

on a poet … They can hop from

a flower poem to beneath an umbraculum

so dark with honesty a reader will

seek a priest even if they’re not catholic. 

So if you don’t have a tornado shelter,

don’t create the storm … I’m not pretty

when backed in a corner, and not timid

about writing with my teeth. 

  

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Four - legged - girl

 

Not Much Gets Past Louise

 

He makes me as comfortable

as a crow sipping gin in a guillotine.

I’ve never been moonstruck enough

to get blushed cheeks when a snake

calls me Sugar.

That wolf in Wranglers is more

like a piece of gum in the bottom

of my purse than the Romeo

in a mirror he sees with that comb over.

Now I’m not one to judge a man

who’s been saying goodbye to his hair,

but when he comes with a Bible

and thinks every woman is born

to submit, I’ll put on a black robe

and sentence him to leave. 

This isn’t the first time he tried

to Genesis me at my cash register.

Hell, most every Tuesday night

he slaps down a six pack of Bud Light

on the counter along with an apple.

Wal-Mart expects me to be polite

so I keep that smile on my teeth,

take his money, but not his crap.

I politely inquire, “Brother Don,

does your congregation know

you like to take a bottle to visitation?

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Calling a Wolf a Wolf

Results of a Ribectomy

 

Hey, it’s me

that ribectomy

because you 

were lonely.

Is it working 

out for you,

that not being

lonely part?

I thought, being

made of a rib,

you’d want me

to walk beside you,

but you want me

watching the back

of your head.

That worked for a bit,

but not so much now.

You just keep walking

us toward war.

I’m moving in front

so we can stop

walking the dead

end of your treadmill. 

Remember

 that time

you were lonely?

I’m not sure it was

made clear to you

the rib was given

 her own voice. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Black Coffee and a Tin Halo

Coffee black, cactus tongue sharp,

and a tin halo makes Louise

Mother Mary of the only

Wal-Mart that can brag

bear spray is their biggest seller.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to guess

Kodiak Alaska wasn’t named after

a cattle ranch in Texas or a chicken farm in Arkansas.

Up in the chill where remote

doesn’t describe an armchair controller,

Louise is the best glitter on ice for miles.

She brags the doll ambulance (make-up section)

is where a lady can paint her cheeks tulip pink

to tease a man into believing she’ll stay longer

than a bikini strut on Homer Spit Beach in January.

No one really knows how Louise ended up in Kodiak.

She doesn’t talk about her past or wink and flirt about the future.

It seems to the locals she’s a unicorn in the rough,

a salty angel with a southern drawl who dropped

her wings in the Wal-Mart parking to hold court 

in a kingdom where you can buy a gun and plastic ivy. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

I really don't know how my poetry arrived in a Wal-Mart in Kodiak, Alaska, but my muse took me there.  So I did some research, (yes, poets do research), and I found my Louise. :)

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Sharon Olds