Butterflies and Bullies

I sleep wide awake between

butterflies and bullies

counting sheep morphed into tribes.

With the new social of antisocial

agree is God and truth is the devil

when it survives the river of lies.

Mining hope from empty, finding

beauty in bare, I fly what could be

instead of a sky polluted with dead air.

In the If Not Now Then When,

The Gray of Blind, even a flicker of peace

can feed a spirit who faces another mountain to climb.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

Real Toads ~ What is Metamodernism

Devil's Comedy

The forest floor sprouts angel wings:

the devil's attempt at comedy.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

#NaPoWriMo2019

Supposedly edible/recent years deadly

Real Toads ~ Toni's Prompt

When Text Meets Metal

My left leg looks

like bloated carrion,

a buzzard’s feast.

Healing from

another’s inattention

takes all my attention.

This morning begins

with standing on agony

and sweet talking my groans

into believing today

will turn a corner to less pain.

Twice my leg has escaped

the knife, limped away

from sever to hold me

upright in my screams.

How far is a shoe?

How impossible is

a shoe lace?

Today my cane and I

have one goal…to reach

my front door.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

It is written in present tense, but it comes from my experience of rehabilitating from a car accident in 2006.

#NaPoWriMo2019

 Real Toads ~ Reboot, Rewind, Recycle, Rebirth

Maybe a Poet ~ More Likely Insane

I am a stargazer,

dreamer, word gatherer

who lives in ink and

the rustle of paper.

Pictures speak, grass sings,

and I feel the color blue

in a hand full of sky.

I spend hours on nothing

and minutes on everything.

You never know where I am

when I’m sitting next to you.

I could be in a chair or walking

on the moon.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

#NaPoWriMo2019

Real Toads ~ I Am My Own Muse

Flesh and Mind

She’s heavy breasted,

brash suggestion,

a silk war with his flesh...

a liar’s tongue preaching

salvation is sin.

Poems shape shift on her lips,

erotic stanzas burning resist

from roped muscles on his thighs.

There’s no escape in the blind

mirror of closed eyes…Her fingertips

paint tremors that erase every

image his mind holds that’s not her.

She’s ice skating him through hell

to see how long it will take

for his conscience to melt.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

#NaPoWriMo2019

Real Toads ~ Poems of April 

Poetry As a Reality Check

(Not every April poem rains petals.)

Copy and paste,

share and not care,

spin a lie because

you choose to believe it.

Truth isn’t even on life support.

It doesn’t matter until you’re not free.

Twitter can’t save you when

your stomach’s empty, when

your child’s tummy swells

while limbs shrink.

Bitter widens the divide,

fingers point, tongues bait.

Anger’s the new religion,

humane’s no longer a word.

Wake up or die sleeping.

Kindness is shrinking

while rancor loosens its belt.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

#NaPoWriMo

Real Toads ~ You Are a Poet!

Any Weekend I Could Escape Gravel

Joint high and music driven

Kansas City lights guided me

to the rock vibrations

of Cowtown Palace.

Thirty first and Gillham

was the hum lane of engines

seeking the golden calf

of guitar jubilation.

Wood and concrete supported

hip to hip drug angels absorbing

tunes through every pore of flesh

and brain wave that worshiped rhythm.

Any weekend I could escape gravel

I traveled asphalt to a Kansas City Ballroom

where in the crush of dancing bodies

I felt forever twenty-one.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2019

#NaPoWriMo2019

Real Toads ~ The Streets (of Brooklyn)

Etiquette

#NaPoWriMo2019

Real Toads ~ Just One Word ~ Etiquette

Gone

I searched your hollow eyes

for my face, elbowed my way

through memories to see

if even a sliver of mirror

held my reflection.

All I found were wisps of blond hair

and a little girl clinging to the edge

of the drowning pool crying

she’d never learned to swim.

Gone, pulled under by the rapids

of erasing I watched myself disappear.

Mama blinked and spoke, “I can’t find my baby.”

©Susie Clevenger 2019

Alzheimer's Foundation of America

Real Toads ~ Just One Word ~ Sensation

Sneaky Bitch

"But I am at the desk upstairs, writing.

And the garden is here outside my window,

filled with fellow citizens sipping lattes

and driving Toyotas.

and I am trying

to become dangerous."

Neruda's Garden by Nathan Brown

I face a wall trying

to pluck words
from my head

to feather a poem.

 No, it’s not a metaphor,

 or grand drama of a poet.

The only place a desk

will fit in my bedroom

is a claustrophobic corner

of green walls.

Frustration is a sneaky bitch.

She directs me to a book

written by a favorite poet,

and reminds me I’m surrounded

by the color of envy.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

Real Toads ~ Instructions For Living a Life

Broom Eyed Tin Angel

He smells like the rotted breath

from a dead lung and swaggers

as if he isn’t the last call at a dive bar.

My (no)soles heel the side walk

right past him loud enough to make

the dead dance, but wasted Romeo

is too beer eared to hear never.

He lunges…I sidestep…The ice house

choir dollars a bet on how long it will

take drunk lover to rise from his fall.

Some call me tin angel, others swamp call

me broom eyed…I don’t care if it’s wings

or cauldron…I’ll follow whatever anointing

it takes when a woman calls my number

and tells me, “I don’t feel safe in this place.”

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Come Clockwork the Orange

Wolf Moon and Flesh

Before the wolf moon

can puncture the heart

of dreams I meditate in

its howl, lift a prayer

for every scar on its

journey to forgiven,

and light a candle to guide

spirits through the valley

of extinction.

Pulled through the eye of empathy

I feel the wolf lead me deeper

into black coffee night.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

#55words

In Shay's prompt she led us to  to a beautiful extinct creature the Thylacine, but as poetry does it lead me to lament the passing of such wonder through a wolf moon. 

Linked to:

Real Toads ~ Fireblossom Friday

&

Real Toads ~ Moonstruck

I Won't Choose Empty

I can’t swim in another’s baptism

or walk the path of a constrictive

definition of un(conditional) love.

Love can’t be commanded to leave,

or be erased when it consumes the soul.

...I won’t choose empty...

There is no light in a sacrifice that

denies the heart’s own revelation.

I no longer wish to live in a prison

built to keep me from my truth,

or whither to appease another’s blindness.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Revelation

Hell in My Sweet Tea

I’ve put another flower on my handbasket

and another no in where... If love brought

you to my door, why pamphlet me with judgement?

Mix a little hell in my sweet tea.

The Bible belt likes sin cinched tight

across the ribs so misery words

are easier to spill, but I prefer a little

sugar coat on venom before I strike.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ How Does the Story End?

Agony of the Moon

Howling moonlight walks the horizon

searching for souls of brave poets

to feed the monochrome night

love is both torture and

ecstatic freedom,

a heart walk through

the how and

why of

war.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Fussy Little Forms ~ Nonet

messenger

rain threatens the sky

and i wonder how

long the moon can swim

before it drowns in the

love sonnets pooling

on my lips

alone sits on a windowsill

begging a warm hand

to break the chill…

i fold a verse conjured

from dead poets into

his palm and whisper,

“love stays when you

give it away”

i melt into the shadow of echoes…

there’s no rest in a city of open wounds

©susie clevenger

Real Toads ~ On the Edge of a Starry Night

August Requiem

Outside my window

the sun boils summer

into rotted tea.

I ice cube a prayer

across my brow and

wonder how many

pretty words will survive

the sorrow of dying petals.

Autumn will be a bitter queen

when she learns there are

no brilliant colors to weave into

her crown.

  

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Micopoetry

No Place to Hide

Her eyes can kill, or so they say.

There’s nowhere to hide when her

green eyes collide with secrets

before they can pool on the tongue.

It doesn’t matter how deep in your bones

you bury what shouldn’t be known, Trysis

can see what shouldn’t be sung.

A needle for pain, a knife for lost.

Ponder what you will…Prepare for the cost.

An eye for an eye…She’ll always win.

There’s no shield for where, no protection from when.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Trysis is a fictional name I conjured from the prompt. :)

Physics With Bjorn ~ Radiation

The Valley of the Sky

Leave by the same door

you tore from hinges,

spill rumor, feed snakes.

My life is not yours to barter,

nor is it yours to take.

It doesn’t matter how close

you dance me to the cliff,

blood will never clip my wings.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ Micro Poetry ~ It Doesn't Matter

Welcome to My Birdcage

I write backwards

in search of beginnings

because now can’t decide when.

For every bird chirp

there’s an empty nest,

and stars hate to dress

for dinner when  wishes

stain their best glitter.

There is too much boring

in narrow minds that

walk black lines because

dreaming requires new crayons.

Welcome to my random,

my unpredictable, my disconnect

to connect to a butterfly

while water boils.

Madness sits on the tip of my pencil.

She hates lists, using ink for temporary,

and my obscure aversion to seeing

someone lick the palm of their hand.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Real Toads ~ An Antic Disposition