Sleepless in December

Insomnia has me at my window

watching moonlight in a flowerless garden

turn dead stems into haunted skeletons.

I feel the goodbye of petals that once

scented the starfields of night, phantoms

of bright color and perfume sacrificed for winter.

Melancholy deposits its chill along my skin

in pearls of grief because I too feel the frailness

of my resilience to push through the loam

of the coming year seeded with questions.

I’ve pruned the panic of November with

dull scissors down to manageable resistance.

Well, that's what I tell myself in the moments

my teeth aren't clinched with sarcasm.

I curse the dictionary for giving space 

to the word unbearable…It stalks my vocabulary.

Also unprecedented has become a weed word for malicious. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Mark Strand

 

Ink and Pad Women

"Relax, " said the night man, "We are programmed to receive

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"

Hotel California ~ The Eagles

There are too many waitresses

in hell, the beck and call, never seem

to get it right, tenders of a menu

that eyes read, but never accept,

“It is what it is.”

It’s not the ladies’ fault the greasy

walls wreak of rehab, and gluttony.

Everyone who takes a seat at a half wiped

table is nursing an addiction of some sort.

Truck stops at the end of the line

rarely see diamond desperados, because

those types like to spend their plastic

where their Prada doesn’t stick to the chair. 

None of the ink and pad women volunteered

to be called the queens of bad examples or

should I say calloused assumptions. 

Each one has a dream, a heart, a hope,

a circumstance they want out of, and

an eye on a view that isn’t in the shadow

of the Hotel California. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Warren Zevon

 

2 Poems One List

I created both of these poems from the same word list.

 I wasn't sure I liked the first one 

so I decided to make an attempt at another one.

 I couldn't decide which to post so I just posted both of them.

Not Every Quote in the Throat

Some would like their claws in my jaws,

pour sour lemons in my tea to see

if I can hold on to every blue note I sing.

So many times, the rhymes hit a target

too close to truth and they want to turn loose

their anger on me because I found the music.

Not every quote in the throat is made to sugar

a day into a peppermint experiment of mindless escape,

but if a listener stays long enough to hear it becomes clear

we’re both hanging from a rope trying to cope 

and it’s often a song that unites instead of divides us.

©Susie Clevenger 2024

South Texas Can’t Sugar Tea a Snowman

Christmas feels more like

a month of summer than

snowflakes on a windowsill.

South Texas doesn’t like

to give up its heat, or lead

a hand to a cup of hot cocoa

teased with peppermint.

Walking down a Houston street

in December is muggy July jazz

dressed in a t-shirt trying

to convince the body it’s a sweater.

We Texans like a lot of sugar in our tea,

insult it with a slice of lemon, and

dance around bigger is better. 

But we get a bit jealous that

the only time it feels cold enough

to build a snowman is when

we pull ice cream out of the freezer. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Ishmael Reed