Hell in My Sweet Tea

I’ve put another flower on my handbasket

and another no in where... If love brought

you to my door, why pamphlet me with judgement?

Mix a little hell in my sweet tea.

The Bible belt likes sin cinched tight

across the ribs so misery words

are easier to spill, but I prefer a little

sugar coat on venom before I strike.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ How Does the Story End?

Match to Water

I hear the water cry,

“I am your safety”,

but drowning sings

its dirge across my chest.

Hope urges faith

can walk across the sea…

My wounds burn in brine’s no

as I bleed another tear into the tempest.

Memory’s mutiny has unleashed suppressed,

and I feel the anchor of ghosts freed

from Davy Jones’ locker.

I am a fish forced to once again

swim a dead sea I thought I’d conquered.

I pray the demon’s spear will pierce the last revelation

so I will no longer fear a shadow will come to snuff my candle.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Artistic Interpretation

Agony of the Moon

Howling moonlight walks the horizon

searching for souls of brave poets

to feed the monochrome night

love is both torture and

ecstatic freedom,

a heart walk through

the how and

why of

war.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Fussy Little Forms ~ Nonet

messenger

rain threatens the sky

and i wonder how

long the moon can swim

before it drowns in the

love sonnets pooling

on my lips

alone sits on a windowsill

begging a warm hand

to break the chill…

i fold a verse conjured

from dead poets into

his palm and whisper,

“love stays when you

give it away”

i melt into the shadow of echoes…

there’s no rest in a city of open wounds

©susie clevenger

Real Toads ~ On the Edge of a Starry Night

August Requiem

Outside my window

the sun boils summer

into rotted tea.

I ice cube a prayer

across my brow and

wonder how many

pretty words will survive

the sorrow of dying petals.

Autumn will be a bitter queen

when she learns there are

no brilliant colors to weave into

her crown.

  

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Micopoetry

Pray Answers Won't Smell Like Alcohol

Photo: Alexander Krivitskiy

I’m over there in the corner

of a dive bar, quiet tongued

and soul eyed.

I pinch my arm to bruise present

on my skin, but thirty years a go

blinks beneath neon.

Reluctant, terrified, sober as a crucifix,

I walk questions to an empty chair

and pray answers won’t smell like alcohol.

Silence beads little droplets on my skin

until I’m feverish enough to gurgle who

from my throat in a semblance of language.

Frowning she places a finger on my lips

and speaks, Don’t ask…I just came

to learn how I can change my future.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Written from some tough news I recently received. No, it isn't me or my family.

 Real Toads ~ Bits of Inspiration ~ Doppleganger

Too Close to the Edge

The midnight lake puts its lips

to my eyes and drinks every

starlight wish swimming in hazel.

Not satisfied with the brew of visions

it sends watery death into my lungs

to flood my last breath of July.

Thrashing in waves of lost I am tossed

the life preserver of 1:00 am and a cat

purring rescue across my chest.

Shaken I reach for pen and paper

beside my bed and pray my muse

has escaped the drowning pool of empty.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform