Friday, December 13, 2019

The Raven You No Longer Silence


Does it burn, my dear? Does it trouble you
I have become the ink breeding scars
in the starless hours you can’t escape?

You were the cat who owned my tongue,
forced me to live by fist and bruise,
prowl night for one sip of light.

It isn’t pretty when chains break into truth,
when daylight burns away the shroud of threat.

Today is the future you thought would never come.
I have found wings; feel the wind of blue sky.

The irony is the cage you thought would always hold me
is now yours to pace and defend with teeth that no longer have claws.  

©Susie Clevenger 2019

The first line of my poem " Does it burn my dear? Does it trouble you" is from Kerry O'Conner's poem Firefly  I had several conversations about abuse this week, and when I read that line all those conversations began to mold into a poem. 

14 comments:

  1. This is such a powerful poem, Susie! I resonate with; "It isn’t pretty when chains break into truth, when daylight burns away the shroud of threat."

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  2. Retribution is a ruthless bitch, and her memory is almost as good as Karma's.

    I love the strength in the tone of this poem, the controlled anger, the taste of liberation in the ink.

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  3. Pow! Bam! Hard hitting and I love it!

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  4. This poem blows me away, Susie! It is so potent in voice and theme. I am truly honoured that my line could act as a springboard for your black ink words!

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  5. We chose the same line to work with, Susie. I have never been physically abused, thankfully, but I have been psychologically and emotionally abused big time, and so the end of your poem really resonates for me. In the end, they end up squatting in the rancid hell their meanness sprang from in the first place, while we find our way out into the fresh air and away from them. It was never about us, not really.

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  6. "I have found wings; feel the wind of blue sky." So gorgeous, Susie. Yes, we flee the cage and discover our jailer was more trapped than we were.

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  7. Whew... I shivered reading this poem. I would have loved to see your face after writing the final line. HIGH FIVE!

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  8. Such a powerful poem you’ve sprung from Kerry’s line, Susie! I like the way you start with really dark images of inescapable starless hours, the violence of ‘fist and bruise’, written in triplets, and then break free with couplets and daylight that ‘burns away the shroud of threat’, the wings and the ‘wind of blue sky’.

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  9. So glad for the future to have arrived here, Susie. xo

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  10. The day when the jailer is jailed is a future I welcome (but to some extent it might always have been like that)

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  11. Such a powerful vibe in this. Bravo.

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  12. "The irony is the cage you thought would always hold me
    is now yours to pace and defend with teeth that no longer have claws. "

    This poem is as powerful as an explosion (of the mind).

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  13. I love how the speaker owns their power here and isn't afraid to speak her truth to the world. She has nothing to lose but hurt and a world full of freedom to gain.

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