Gin and Keats

He whispered

in my ear

as I was sleeping,

“Tomorrow is already

in its sunrise somewhere.

You’re dreaming through

a thousand hellos while

yesterday still sits on

your eyelashes.”

I wish I could have heard it.

He’s always a poet when

there’s gin on the table.

Last night I was too tired

to wait until the bottle

was empty to hear a kind word.

In the morning quiet of alone

I found his journal, the back of

a grocery receipt, sitting next

to the coffee pot.

Somewhere in the fiction 

there’s truth…Maybe someday

he’ll speak words to me,

and not be Keats straining

poems through a shot glass. 

©Susie Clevenger 2025

I just followed my muse.

A phrase here or there will

lead me to a poem.

 

Stones of Virginia

 Were the stones
Virginia Woolf filled
her pockets with chosen
or just convenient?

She walked years
of sun and moon,
but couldn’t find light.

It is lonely in madness.
It is a cell that doesn’t
have a key or enough
food to feed its skeleton.

Peace teases with hope
while mania plays with matches.

Toxic positivity hammers
obsidian melancholy ignoring
pain should have its voice,
and not turned into knives
from smiling everything is sunny.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Clinging to Moss

 How much can I take
is always answered with more.

Sunny is hard to find in pain.
Hope swims my tears,
and darkness stalks light.

I’m getting through this journey
on weaker legs as silence grows
wild in the corners of each room.

It’s hard to stay resilient when
I am walking tundra clinging
to moss and fighting cold wind.

Honesty isn’t always welcomed,
but I’ve learned to validate my
depression because denial uproots strength.

©Susie Clevenger 2025