vortices

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

I am spinning in the spin
of unchained polar air,
of the politics of a planet melting
at the tips and freezing
more in the middle

and they call it spin,
they call it science made opinion:
one out of four Americans
does not believe the sky
is past falling and pools at our feet
in a blue groundwater rush
that is half plastic

scrape the mud of it from your boots
like dogshit.

I am spun from words
and the planet pirouetting
on its axis.  I reel within stars and orbits
and circle some more,

no longer searching
because the truth is less important
than its turn.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Not a Ruth and Naomi Story (a sonnet)

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

I never promised to go where you led
With the blind belief of a burdened beast,
My feet following any path you made.

We are not a fated twining, our threads
Spun and woven to oneness, west and east
Meeting and weaving seamless in a braid.

You, unfit to bridle wildness to tread
Steady and smooth enough to press its feet
Into unbroken ground;  ask me to wait,

And I will,  forever, and leave unsaid
My resistance to following your lead
Down any road, no matter how well-paved.

I never promised to go where you led;
I will find you, love, my own way, instead.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , | 38 Comments

For Stephanie

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

You loved children.
You taught vacation bible school in the summers.
You worked on the church nativity scenes,
but what I want to know
what I need to know
is that, just once

and maybe more than once
you opened your arms, simply
and spun, breathed summer
and tasted winter under your tongue
like something metal.

Maybe you fell in love in ninth grade
with the boy who sat in front of you in algebra,
wanted to wrap the hair
touching the back of his collar
around your fingers
at least one time,

and I hope once you danced
with that boy or another like him,
slowly, to some pop beat
but a slow one,

and I hope that once
you walked in a field heavy with poppies
or daisies, or asters,
or whatever blooms in that hot dust
they covered you with
before you were done breathing.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

The heretic

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

“Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam (Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it)”

Can you bind a mind
easy as you burn books
or flesh, or is what’s real
deeper than bone,
something dreamed,
something breathed
stronger than air

an infection that cleans
instead of corrupting,
forces the eyes open
not to think

but perhaps see
somewhere in multiple spheres
god dancing

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , | 33 Comments

for GGM

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

who will bring me butterflies now
in this time of spring peepers and crocuses
before anything opens?

I will watch for you and maybe
see something very much like an angel
but drunk and dirty

whose prayer shakes a fist at god
cursing sky in language earlier than babel

stooping to pick fiddleheads
in these woods, thick-fingered
before staggering towards
some possible heaven

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 22 Comments

spring happens

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

yellow crocuses 001

Forget calendars
Forget light, measured
in axial slant
or day length

spring unfolds
and is less calculation
and more the yellow
crocuses shout
quietly
under this kitchen window

where I dreamed them
expected
but never exactly planned

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

How to Lose Followers

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

Ah, I have done this. I have disappeared for months–not because I don’t want to be all over this incredible community of writers, reading everything, because I do. Unfortunately, that part of my blogging life will not likely come back until after I have corneal surgery of some sort. It is difficult to read anything of substance on the days I am working. Hey, them’s the breaks. If I read your post, I want you to know I blew the typeface up really big and thought it was worth hitting “like” on it. Dammit, you’d better orgasm when I hit like, after all that effort,and a comment should leave you experiencing multiples 😉

LOL, I am reblogging this, and including the second half of my comment as my intro. I did well and truly love this!

Trent Lewin's avatarTrent Lewin

You start blogging to have a voice, to be heard and to listen to others.  It’s an outlet that doesn’t involve you having to go through agents, publishers, or other constructs of the industry.  It’s easy.  You get a blog, you start writing, people listen.  You are not a number.  You are a voice.  You are important.  You are heard.

But you better be careful.  You can amass followers to your blog, yes, but there are some sure-fire ways of losing followers too:

1.  Don’t respond to comments people leave you.  If someone writes you, ignore them.  Don’t answer.  Don’t dare answer.  These people leaving comments are like parasites.  Parasites with a lot of time on their hands, to do nothing but comment.  They can’t possibly be interested in you.  They’re just running about commenting on anything, and thus they are the true filth of the blogging world.  It is…

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Posted in New Free Verse | 16 Comments