Mushroom of Gossip

She’s a storyteller,

a woman in white,

cage of black, spilling

my mad love into the ear

of the giver of stars.

A god, damning

me for the moments

at midnight, judging

my weakness by narrow

verse, she hangs me on

opinion’s tongue forgetting

I only grow stronger in affliction. 

Starlight tests the mushroom of gossip,

sifts through foul soil of its roots,

and finds the gaslight it feeds on.

A storyteller, who would be god,

discovers the shadow words

she hoped to crucify me with

are now the cage she must survive. 

©Susie Clevenger 2023

I was looking at my bookshelf, and found these five books stacked exactly as you see them. They are th inspiration for this poem. 

 

Blackberry Bruised Moon

 

I’m daddy’s girl,

blackberry bruised

moon shadow of dread.

 

I never speak because

the walls listen and

tattle tale to ears

that grow fists.

 

Inside my head words

walk my teeth trying

to find an exit, but

any sound they risk

would open a river of blood.

 

Hell has a cradle, a salt thread quilt.

Daddy owns a Bible…I hold the truth.

 

For everything there’s a season,

Now’s the time for Daddy's blackberry bruised moon

to shine light on his guilt.

©Susie Clevenger 2021

May the Turpin children never know horror again.

House of Horrors

Created from Shay's Word Garden Word List #2 (Plath)

Words I chose are highlighted in list

Word List: blackberries, brag, coiled, counterfeit, daddy, dithers, exit, gobbledygoo,

hearing, idiot, lilies, lioness, mailed, maniacs, mend, moon, peacocks, shadows, space, water

Mapping Silver

 

Be pretty…

Paint yourself

into the shape of his eyes.

 

Are you kidding?

Conjuring my mirror

into his vision to erase mine

is silvered hell I won’t enter.

 

Does the moon dress in fear

or kohl its face to appease

night devils who stalk light with evil?

 

I have lines on my face mapping

the journey of calendars I’ve traveled,

dark hours I’ve survived, bright days I’ve danced.

 

My face is my face.

It holds gifts of my mother and father, ancestors,

shapeshifting, joining the unique reflection I possess.

 

Bare or painted, smile or frown, it’s taken several wrong exits

to finally reach the truth, the only voice in the mirror

that matters is mine.  

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #180

 

 

 

Thin Hope of Resurrection

Truth moans in the butterfly spine

pressed against my lips…

Chained to the thin hope of resurrection

my eyes walk gray smudged clouds

praying the sky doesn’t suffer

 a drought of wings.

While crows watch I dust shadows

for fingerprints of misery to collect

evidence roots are forced to grow

green with death so dinner plates

look pretty before obituaries.

Souls line plastic bowls mined with fork and spoon

so the wealthy can grow Eden in glass bubbles and

trust Flint’s river of Oz will never reach their faucets.

Little is done when no one leads.

I am one but louder when others join the chorus.

Insurrection stores matches in hollow eyes

until Karma signals results have almost

traveled full circle to reasons.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2019

Notes: I have watched my oldest daughter suffer health issues which I believe have roots in chemical exposure in the city where she lived and the chemical lab where she worked. The Flint reference and the Roundup reference are well known here in the United States as I imagine they are in other parts of the world. When my mind went to Oz, I decided to do a little research. I found a political interpretation of the book to be quite interesting.

Political Interpretation of the Wizard of Oz

Flint Water Crisis

Man Award 80 Million in Round-Up Settlement

Real Toads ~ Get Listed

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