Broom Eyed Tin Angel

He smells like the rotted breath

from a dead lung and swaggers

as if he isn’t the last call at a dive bar.

My (no)soles heel the side walk

right past him loud enough to make

the dead dance, but wasted Romeo

is too beer eared to hear never.

He lunges…I sidestep…The ice house

choir dollars a bet on how long it will

take drunk lover to rise from his fall.

Some call me tin angel, others swamp call

me broom eyed…I don’t care if it’s wings

or cauldron…I’ll follow whatever anointing

it takes when a woman calls my number

and tells me, “I don’t feel safe in this place.”

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Come Clockwork the Orange

Wolf Moon and Flesh

Before the wolf moon

can puncture the heart

of dreams I meditate in

its howl, lift a prayer

for every scar on its

journey to forgiven,

and light a candle to guide

spirits through the valley

of extinction.

Pulled through the eye of empathy

I feel the wolf lead me deeper

into black coffee night.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

#55words

In Shay's prompt she led us to  to a beautiful extinct creature the Thylacine, but as poetry does it lead me to lament the passing of such wonder through a wolf moon. 

Linked to:

Real Toads ~ Fireblossom Friday

&

Real Toads ~ Moonstruck

I Won't Choose Empty

I can’t swim in another’s baptism

or walk the path of a constrictive

definition of un(conditional) love.

Love can’t be commanded to leave,

or be erased when it consumes the soul.

...I won’t choose empty...

There is no light in a sacrifice that

denies the heart’s own revelation.

I no longer wish to live in a prison

built to keep me from my truth,

or whither to appease another’s blindness.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Revelation

Nothing Better Than a Woman's Eye

Jessie Tarbox Beals

America's first female photojournalist

c. 1904

There’s nothing better

than a woman’s eye.

She’s been looking through

barriers since Eden’s apple

produced its first snake oil.

Every drop
of submission

placed in her ear
brings a little more
light to her vision.

There’s nothing better

than a woman’s eye

to see what will be

through the repressive

words of you can’t.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Camera Flash 55!

Burning of the Bottle

Real Toads ~ Tuesday Platform

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

Impugning An Orchid

You thought I was too fragile,

an orchid requiring more

than you were willing to give.

You sat beneath a rain

of jealous opinions and

let them damn me before

you even knew my strength.

Loss only makes you the fool.

I am much wiser now with my heart.

I can breathe in my freedom, while

you whither where I  bloom.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Sanaa gave a selection of word lists at Real Toads to inspire our writing.
I chose the following words: breathe, rain, loss orhcid

Real Toads ~ Get Listed ~ July Edition

Spoiled Tongues Scar Faces

Judgmentals malign sister crow

with whispered gossip

jealous perked in spoiled tea.

She ignores their babble

polluting the wind, and gathers

silhouettes to wallpaper memory.

Spoiled tongues scar faces.

The eye of I is an open window

where what is spoken is always seen.

Beware when attacking a sister,

words carried on feathers

may return in a murder of wings.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform

Crow image by pngtree.com

No Place to Hide

Her eyes can kill, or so they say.

There’s nowhere to hide when her

green eyes collide with secrets

before they can pool on the tongue.

It doesn’t matter how deep in your bones

you bury what shouldn’t be known, Trysis

can see what shouldn’t be sung.

A needle for pain, a knife for lost.

Ponder what you will…Prepare for the cost.

An eye for an eye…She’ll always win.

There’s no shield for where, no protection from when.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Trysis is a fictional name I conjured from the prompt. :)

Physics With Bjorn ~ Radiation

The Valley of the Sky

Leave by the same door

you tore from hinges,

spill rumor, feed snakes.

My life is not yours to barter,

nor is it yours to take.

It doesn’t matter how close

you dance me to the cliff,

blood will never clip my wings.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Micro Poetry ~ It Doesn't Matter

Moon Straw

Let me drink hope from your lips,

taste life while it still drinks

romance through a moon straw.

Optimism hangs on a crucifix

of barbed tongues while devils sing

the what about -isms of another’s evil.

If night must rage, let its rage escape

along my skin…Let me breathe resurrection

before I succumb to ashes.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55 ~ 06/22/2018

Shallow End of Caffeine

“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.” Anthony Bourdain

This chipped coffee cup

was your favorite.

You liked its imperfections,

its history, broken pieces

glued by conversations..

life.. humanity.. miles.

You’d grin…Lift your cup

and joke it was impossible to break

something that couldn’t be fixed.

Hindsight is a blunt companion.

I swam the shallow end

of caffeine unaware

I was watching you drown.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55 ~ 6/8/18

The I of the Storm

I storm through May

with prayers howling

across my tongue.

There are few answers

to my questions, little solace

in climbing agony.

Weak, but rooted in dandelions,

I gather every seed of resurrection

to lift me out of darkness.

I mortar another brick

on the wall of hope

wondering why rocks crumble

in silent wails.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2018

The dandelion represents healing and the ability to rise above life's challenges. 

My daughter, Dawn, definitely possesses the dandelion spirit to thrive in adversity.

Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform

Cinnamon Truth

I always stayed quiet

when winter came

to the kitchen.

I never knew what sin

would open the library

to mama’s grudges,

but the kettle bang

on the stove signaled

frost would be served

with the mashed potatoes.

I learned early it was best

to not stray from the cinnamon

truth in silence is golden.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55 ~ 5/11/2018

Ohio

It won’t happen again until it will.

How much second will kill first?

Chaos keeps fuel in gaslighting’s wick.

Stapled into standing up

when the liar gets new verbs

memory sings like the 60’s and frets

about history that’s never learned.

Cataract flower children tell stories

to ears that won’t listen… four died in Ohio.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Plan B

I’ve still got my teeth.

Well, they (?) always

told me to leave em’ smiling.

I wanted to be a windchime

when I lost all my funeral weight,

but I’m too deep in dirt to catch a breeze.

What doesn’t reconstruct you makes you haunt.

My husband could never sleep with the closet light on.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Welcome to My Birdcage

I write backwards

in search of beginnings

because now can’t decide when.

For every bird chirp

there’s an empty nest,

and stars hate to dress

for dinner when  wishes

stain their best glitter.

There is too much boring

in narrow minds that

walk black lines because

dreaming requires new crayons.

Welcome to my random,

my unpredictable, my disconnect

to connect to a butterfly

while water boils.

Madness sits on the tip of my pencil.

She hates lists, using ink for temporary,

and my obscure aversion to seeing

someone lick the palm of their hand.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ An Antic Disposition

The Valley of Eye Shadow

I have an occasional chat

with the women I used to be

so they’ll sleep while

I ponder gray hair.

Whine and glue are twisted sisters

who try to paste me in past tense

where young didn’t have wrinkles.

When the me’s get too catty

I remind them of choices,

blue eyelids and bad hair.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55 ~ 4/20/2018

Every Sorrow Earns a Blue Note

 You’d have to know the roots to understand the wonder in her wings

I’m music poured

down an open throat

when the Irish ghost walk

their bottles across my blood.

There’s a whole lot of dying early,

dust, bodies in a cell, and carving

wood into fiddles so feet won’t

forget to dance.

The nail crawl of bullet tongues

carve hell into tiny pieces so mouths

can learn to nibble before they chew

their tongues into misery.

Every sorrow earns a blue note

to string enough pearls wisdom won’t

die in ears morgue trained to let

negative roost in the heart’s nest.

My bone thin hands steal

flesh from echoes so my limb

of the family tree can leaf words

where names will no longer bud.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Transformations

Mind's Gone Blind

I’m searchin’ hell

for a drink of cold water,

mind’s gone blind,

can’t see to think.

Who’s gonna talk

when there isn’t answers?

Who’s gonna walk

when legs can’t run?

I’ve been freezin’

in the desert.

I’ve been burnin’ in snow.

Who’s gonna pray

when lies get louder?

Who’s gonna sing

when my dyin’ is done?

©Susie Clevenger 2018

I wrote this poem after listening to Larkin Poe's song, Look Away. When inspiration nudges I flow with it.

Friday55 ~ March 23, 2018

BYOB

We’ll drink wine

from your glass of dread,

host hellions, and sing spells

of full moon absolution.

Type finger words talk across our skin

in little barbs tongue twisted

into faux humor until sneers

 grind our smiles into weapons.

If hell has a candle, we’ll bring a match.

Oh and it’s BYOB (bring your own brimstone.)

©Susie Clevenger

2018

Friday 55 ~ March 16, 2018

Greener on the Other Side of the Curtain

Floor length sheer drapes attract the curious.

Eyes like the tease, fantasize silhouettes,

mind pen dialogue to fill in emptiness.

There’s a bit of romance in

“the lives are always greener

on the other side of the curtain.”

Voyeurs can excuse their window peeping

with exclamations table lamp invitations are issued

every night when darkness flirts with light.

With the slamming of a door routine interjects

itself into the tableau… Watchers return to dinner,

dog walks, and channel surfing toward sleep.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform

Doll Play

“We are all just little dolls ourselves.
Who occasionally pull back the
curtains to reveal the real us."

- Bruce Erik Kaplan

Doll play saves questions.

I can dress my sideshow in acceptable,

mannequin walk to pop tune shallow,

and keep the mirror close to my hip.

It gets a bit plastic on the dull side,

but if I lift the curtain too often

on my weird, the offended are

shortchanged the full smug 

of their outrage.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Curtain Falls
                   &
Friday 55 ~ March 9, 2018

A Beggar's Glimpse

I look through flashes

dreaming of vision in the

time walk of blindness.

Losing the glory of lilacs

to a pinhole, I pluck color

from images to paste

in my memory.

A beggar’s glimpse of moonlight

is the prayer I speak to stay

midnight’s encroachment…

A faint light pirouettes across

the milky pond of my iris.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

I had an eye scare this week. All is well, but I must say it was a bit traumatic. I wrote this from my perspective of anxiousness and watching a family member’s struggle with blindness.

Friday 55

Real Toads ~ Tuesday Platform

Sleepless In America

The moon stares at me through my window

in blinks of wind branch and silhouetted leaves.

Sleep hides beneath the covers and far from my pillow.

Why do questions stalk peace as thieves

well trained to invade as soon as my head

screams for the mind numb only slumber relieves?

I walk the hours of sun fighting off the dread

of a world drunk on building tribes to squander freedom

on divisive rants of rewind, repeat, the lies must be fed.

In the wrinkling of my nest I curse an apple eaten,

Genesis ink knowledge is evil, inquiry needs suppression.

Morning sings rebellion, but night moans beaten.

Mother Moon, please speak, give me direction

on how I can sleep when compassion is pilloried on tongues of aggression.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Fussy Little Forms ~ Terza Rima

Through My Claws

I silk wrapped my curves

to lure you closer to the burn,

remorse only wept when

the scars didn’t bleed.

Star tattooed night was the heaven

where hell sipped champagne

from the hole in your dreams.

I sang through my claws,

but you didn’t learn the words.

“Too late” whimpers the fool.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Gather Silent Hands

Gather those who do not clap,

I’ve touted my worth in sacred words

of ego sing, and stars and stripes.

Traitors sit with hands in laps.

They are enemies who won’t agree

nothing is or can be better than me.

Every knee shall bow, every tongue,

oh wait, I hear devils speak of Watergate,

but story be, the gaslight’s still lit.

Damn those bended knees that

weren’t sanctioned by me…

It doesn’t matter why, just apple pie toward offend.

I’ll side step, give a wink to the bear,

blame those whose hands don’t meet with a shout,

and reduce democracy to the swill of divide.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Aspect

The Model at Rest ~ José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior 

Ivory is a prop for hands

posed to speak where music lounges.

He tobacco puffs a few paint strokes

across the canvas bragging about art

and the value of a signature.

She’d lived enough delusion to know if dreams

smell of cheap cologne, you take the dollar
and smile while he jaw spends his dime.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Black Dirt Doesn’t Ask Questions

Bury me east of the moon.

Let my bones rest beneath

the cottonwood where

dreams dance with the devil.

In the death rattle of stained glass

black robes already gather

in the choir to sing of my damnation.

I suffer their notes,

but freedom doesn’t need

to glory paste confession.

 Black dirt doesn’t ask questions. 

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Even Angels

Louis-Léopold Boilly - A Lady Seated at Her Desk

He sat me among naughty things

and told me to think of innocence.

Of all the sins brushed across my skin,

denial sent the deepest blush.

With my arm pressed against my thigh

I tried to not wonder how his hands would feel

beneath my dress and demon’s silenced.

Even angels hate pedestals.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

Wicked

Darkness paces behind my eyelids

where monsters dance, and

tomorrow is hungry.

Sunlight is my warden…It guards

shadows, peers through curtains,

chases thoughts into inspection.

But it’s when the moon dresses

the wolf howl anger damns

the sweet sonnet I masquerade in.

Evil craves a host and I am its welcome.

Wicked opens wounds.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Friday 55

What Lies Are For

You know what lies are for.

They dig graves in eyes and tongues

to bury trust in plain view.

They are spoon fed until

their poison tastes like sugar coat.

A rat boiled in honey tastes sweet.

Weary them…Weary them…

until the body can’t protest,

and voices drown in the noise.

Freedom no longer has a Wikipedia page

or a definition in Webster…

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

You know what lies are for.

They dig graves in eyes and tongues

so weary can’t transform outrage into resist.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform