He winked his commands
along my body until he reached
the iron curve of my hips.
A cutting from Athena’s rose
I owned the yes of my blooming
and the thorny reach of my no.
He thought he’d dance me through
the devil’s garden only to find
he wasn’t given the power to lead.
I carry the moon on my lips.
I dance between my light and dark,
hold sunshine on my fingertips
while my toes search shadows.
Freedom is taking scissors to the wind
to cut my own map before I’m caught
in the choice of someone else’s direction.
©Susie Clevenger 2021
I am thought to be a devil,
running wild among wings and curses.
Muddy clay, oak limbs, and blue sky
hold me in their spell where words
are formed in feather strokes of ink.
Grown from roots of ancestors who survived
on plucking impossible from stone scarred bare feet
I trust the voice of earth more than the tongues of
humans.
I am as old as yesterday’s eternity and as young
as the first rays of sun on a new day.
Beware or rejoice…It isn’t my journey to make
you feel comfortable with my freedom.
What offense your eyes hold when you look through me
to a window that mirrors only your reflection.
Anger shapeshifts through the sea of blue dreams that
sail
my eyes where tomorrow is not our horizon.
Does love expire like moldy bread ignored on a shelf
or fade when sunlight turns bitter on your lips?
The coldness of detachment marches cigarette burns
through my mind as I fight demons dancing on scars.
I hate goodbyes, the breathless lingering hope feeds
that one more hour can rewind a broken clock.
I am enough…more than enough…Your blindness
is not my curse, not a sentence to serve because fear is
my familiar.
©Susie Clevenger2021
Why look before you leap?
The fall may give you wings
to flee the glass they insist
you walk to pacify their bitter.
Wise is the one who trusts escape
is a better journey than pasting smiles
on a circle that never ends.
©Susie Clevenger 2021
Sunday was turned inside out
like a favorite sweater abandoned to shadows.
Expected comfort, the monotone of routine
became a scream in the cocoon of my wingless day.
There was no escape in a Zombie world of locked doors
and words funneled through lips wearied by counting days.
Stay safe, stay safe, stay safe… It’s crowing rant squawked
from the nest built of torn hours rooted in the back of
my mind.
Madness sat its chair in my palms taunting me with
careless
until my ancestor spirit tapped my spine with drumbeats.
Gnashing teeth and broken eye tears pulsed freedom
into the wounds I’d handcuffed to my spirit.
With fingers pressed against the river of my pulse
I let hope into the dark mirror I’d lived in for months.
I place a word on the tip of my pen
to test the wind that will give it wings.
Do I dare let it be a crow, inky bitter,
dark prophecy wrestled from my tongue
where silence debates with consequence?
Or should it be hope’s feather plucked
from sunlight’s robin singing from
the timid limbs of spring?
Light flirts with sapphire strokes of ink
as I shuffle through the alphabet wondering
which words I’ll draw from poet’s tarot.
