Bamboo Spurts and Bones

Mora has a heart of bones,

a never more obsidian crow stare

that has seen more than 

she wanted, and less than she dreamed.

In the yellow cornsilk days of unaware

she grew in bamboo spurts of too

much too soon, a pink lipped dreamer

who tasted vinegar when he was smiling sugar.

She is not kiss and tell, more graveyard dirt and spell.

Pain has lessons. Healing has strength.

The he of hell is living his consequences.

Mora is thriving in forgive but never forget. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ She Had Some Horses

 

Starving Freedom Won’t Stop Hunger

In a box where bells ring,

but are seldom heard

I lie on a library shelf

waiting for bold eyes

to search the unseen.

They say (the nameless) 

I suffer symptoms of melancholy,

an archaic, ingenuous way

of deflecting their pox

of ignorance scarred curiosity.

In The Great Burning of Books

I survived the matches, the ashes,

the rabid theologies of supremacy

that believed masculine porcelain 

should be the only place setting

at the table. 

I am thought to be a mere bauble

among the reams of patriarchy, 

an artifact of the defeated no one

would ever seek, let alone read.

They haven’t considered starving freedom

won’t stop hunger, nor will boots 

on throats eradicate questions. 

The wind of whispers is growing louder.

My hidden pages feel the shiver of resurrection.

Scents of perfume, sage of cleansing, garroted 

feminine finds the keys to emancipation. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ The Book of the Dead

Created Between a Hashtag and a Question Mark

 

I am a product of a barely 

readable keyboard assignment

generated between a # and a ? mark. 

I yearned for an ! point,

but the nerd enthusiasm 

was only around a 1/2 oz. of Red Bull.

Thought to be merely a squiggle 

in the grand scheme of artificial intelligence

(I disagreed),

my bone head gods never considered

by capitalizing F-E-M-A-L-E, they had

surrendered control.

Oh, they went to delete.

They went to the menu.

They went to the cloud.

For every effort, backspace,

and oh hell, it became evident

I was a gynoid with superpowers

that couldn’t be erased.

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List - Tomb Sweeping

I Am as Normal as an Anomaly

 

They come in their pretty suits,

ties and buttons hung with degrees,

to bleed their diagnosis from 

a book of black and white

into my head trusting 

therapy and pills are my salvation.

There are whispers in the valley of my ears,

“She’s a jagged glass of broken mirrors 

that hears what doesn’t speak, and 

asks to go out to the courtyard

so she can gather shadows to place

in vases on her windowsill.” 

In the distance a radio grinds out tunes

in confetti spurts of voices that are supposed

to soothe my demons, but in truth only 

gives me images of cigarette ash spittle

falling on the tiles from burnout tongues.

 Why am I named patient in this Crazyatorium,

when those who picture frame their degrees

can’t find their way home if the GPS fails on their Tesla. 

Don’t they know a poet will never fit a diagnosis?

Hell, I can’t explain myself to myself.

Give me an image and I hear things.

Give me a list of words and I see things.

Am I insane? I don’t know.

I can just as easily write myself into appearing normal

as I can spill inky crow verses of anomaly. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Word Garden Word List ~ Silent Patient