Hope Rises From Coal

Black lung words

hung on daddy’s tongue

pulling me from coal

on the white wing hope

I’d see a better day.

He said the devil paints

rainbows with pills,

but lies stain your body blue

until brown dirt coffins your bones.

Son, I’ve been living gray shadows,

but tomorrow is bright yellow with sun.

Don’t be stuck where midnight owns

the valley… tie your shoelaces and run.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

Bits of Inspiration ~ The Colors In a Song

Poets & Storytellers United ~ Writer's Pantry#2

Offer Me Bread and I'll Choose a Pen

There are ghosts in my brain

chasing thoughts from dark places,

plucking dandelion seeds

to harvest words from wild weed.

Devil’s in the ink…

God’s in the paper…

My poem-father is Poe,

my god-muse a raven.

Offer me bread and I’ll choose a pen.

Crumbs of wheat can’t take me

where black ink puddles lead.

©Susie Clevenger

Real Toads ~ Bits of Inspiration ~ Poet Discovery

Pray Answers Won't Smell Like Alcohol

Photo: Alexander Krivitskiy

I’m over there in the corner

of a dive bar, quiet tongued

and soul eyed.

I pinch my arm to bruise present

on my skin, but thirty years a go

blinks beneath neon.

Reluctant, terrified, sober as a crucifix,

I walk questions to an empty chair

and pray answers won’t smell like alcohol.

Silence beads little droplets on my skin

until I’m feverish enough to gurgle who

from my throat in a semblance of language.

Frowning she places a finger on my lips

and speaks, Don’t ask…I just came

to learn how I can change my future.

©Susie Clevenger 2018

Written from some tough news I recently received. No, it isn't me or my family.

 Real Toads ~ Bits of Inspiration ~ Doppleganger