Monday, June 23, 2025

Madman Walking Aspirin

 


He’s a madman walking aspirin
as if he wasn’t the god of pain.

His drooling dementia spills
from his fingertips in the wee hours
of American insomnia onto a keyboard
that smells like ignorance. 

He touts he knows more than everyone
while important anyones hide war plans
to prevent targets from knowing the
when, where and how. 

The deflection celebrity is the star of abuse,
the bottom of the barrel, the toad who
will never be prince, but to some he’s
Orange Jesus who can turn their world white. 


©Susie Clevenger 2025



Monday, June 9, 2025

Two Elephants From One List


Elephants and Madness

I won’t apologize for
addressing the elephant
in the room.

In all the begats I chewed through in the book
of misogyny I never found a woman who was
assigned any title above a breeding cow or criminal
with curves that forced men to think with their genitals.

In the time of erasers, I threaten masculinity 
by my rashness to denounce the red apron
of submission and speak in full sentences
that indicate I have read books banned as feminist. 

My madness is mine…It grows and prospers…
I come from a river of poets who swim
in dreams, ink rafts from visions, and aren’t
afraid they’ll drown if rejection pulls them into rapids.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

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Elephants With Forks


Elephants climb into a rowboat
as if they won’t drown from
the weight of their ambiguity.

Oh, they don’t fool me.
I’ve read a history book,
ate from a liar’s wooden spoon,
and dressed in wool spun from a pulpit.

It is hard to admit I fell for the begats,
trekked through Leviticus, and waded
through revivals carrying coins to lay
at the feet of manipulators.

I’m surprised I survived my chain
of not worthy with any faith, but
once I got off the roller coaster
of the bible brand of the south, I was
bold enough to journey to healing. 

There’s so many why’s in me and yet
there are a few answers why I drank
from a cup that took me where
I should never have gone.

Two little girls, an empty cupboard,
and a promise there would be food
if my husband and I followed
the fork without questioning 
where it led. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Disclaimer: These poems are written from my experience
as a Southern Baptist for over twenty years. Everyone has the right
to their religion and faith or the right to have neither. I am a survivor
of indoctrination and the depression that came with it.