Wherever Mascara Takes Me

 

I’m drunk on neon and chasing yellow lines to my next thrill,

too many empty Tuesdays, too many nights to fill.

 

Still pretty when the light is right,

still pretty when the glass is spilled,

a thousand miles past heaven’s exit,

one parking lot closer to hell.

 

I’m tripping on easy, counting dimes I don’t own.

just another blond in Vegas where wild glitter is sown.

 

Still pretty when the light is right,

still pretty when the glass is spilled,

a thousand miles past heaven’s exit,

one parking lot closer to hell.

 

The house owns all the gold, the bar bottles of red wine,

I’m betting on mascara the next win will be mine.

 

Still pretty when the light is right,

still pretty when the glass is spilled,

a thousand miles past heaven’s exit,

one parking lot closer to hell.

©Susie Clevenger 2021

After seeing today's image I searched Google for things about Las Vegas and it led me to INXS's song Pretty Vegas...So my poem sort of has the song's rhythm and no, it is not about me. :)  

The Sunday Muse #176

Breaking a Concrete God

 

We drink the last drops

of sun from the lips

of the horizon as a sea of ravens

crash their wings against our ribs.

 

Our roots grown deep in the broken hip

of a concrete god we stretch our limbs

into descending sapphire to greet stars.

 

Ancestors of the White Oak and Mother Earth’s promise

we sing the canticum of leaves into the night wind

to stir the blood of wild sprouts to revolt against

the damning fingerprint of humans.

 

Quietly the moon runs her hand along our spines

to send light into our scars and strikes the match of tomorrows

to give us visions of what we must do to defeat man’s

knife blade of sorrows.

 

 ©Susie Clevenger 2021

 The Sunday Muse #175

Umbrella Lemons

A toast for the empty glass…

the swill of optimism flooding

the back of my throat

to water down sarcasm.

 

Reduced to a moment’s purr

I plant my chin on the bright sunny

and catnap on warm fuzzies.

 

Before I slip too far into escape

umbrella lemons test the tightrope

my mind walks to see how much rope

they can walk before they trigger

the last straw.

 

In the background Pandora’s clock

taunts hell’s picnic is still messy

and I’m the assigned joker with a mop.

 

Like an automaton I stir in my rewinding,

stare at my empty glass, and wonder

how much work it will take

to portray Eris’s chaos as comedy. 

©Susie Clevenger 2021

Eris (Ερις) is the goddess of discord and strife. 

The Sunday Muse #174

Sky Beyond Wire

 

“Let me love you. I will hold your brittle bones together.”

             ~    Rigoberto González

 

A child of cages and dark dreams

I listen to the haunting ring of rain upon wire.

 

Every wingless yesterday stalks my dreams

to pry the wind from hope, yet the butterfly

inside me speaks the language of sky.

 

Weighted with drowning I drink light

from liquid blue shimmers pooling

on the stars beyond my reach, and

hold on to what I can’t see to lead me

through the obsidian eye of frantic. 

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #172

The Garden Feminine

 

"Roots" 1943 by Frida Kahlo

Where the sea died, and the mind shriveled,

I rooted myself in the dire tread of human footprints,

and defied misogyny to regenerate the heart of Eve’s Garden. 

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #171

Treading Plastic

 

"Hello (Hello)

I'll tell you all the people I know (I know)

Sell you somethin' that you already own (You own)

I can be whoever you want me to be"
Plastic Hearts ~ Miley Cyrus

I feel at arm’s length,

close enough to see,

but far enough away

to not be smothered in plastic.

 

On the dance floor where

everyone calls me baby

I laugh and turn, step and misstep

to shrill notes of she’s the

life of the party.

 

In the glitter of bedazzled blind spots

I can appear to be what I’m not so the shallow

can swim without a lifeguard.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #170

Concrete Flesh of Morning

 

Photography by Artist, Jasper James

I am the face of the city,

eyes pressed into morning

holding my breath.

 

Alarm clocks pound migraine drums

through my head to announce the rise and whine

of humans crawling into a new day.

 

With a bold broom

sunlight sweeps my doorsteps

into moldy gray glitter so

caffeinated souls can see

what they can’t feel.

 

Vehicles begin their rumble crawl

in asthmatic gasps of engine and oil

through streets hatching across my ribs.

 

In the widening iris of hours

I exhale yesterday’s weight

and breathe in the hope

today’s politics won’t cripple me.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #168