sitting on the edge of the green
that feels more like carpet than
something live; grass
tweezed and groomed
into carpeted submission
we wait for lit
hissed trails into
new nightfall
to bloom into confetti
and smoke
scarlet and silver spark
echoed by answering volleys;
walls of false thunder
resonating in bones
when the target is sky
and the purpose beauty
I am grateful for gunpowder
Recycling an older poem that I would ADORE feedback on!
this was no Pentecost
tongues of fire wrapping the faithful;
simply a baptismal service
where she waited in line
with the 12-year-olds,
but she waited 42 years
to step into
water chest high
her hand gripping the baptistery ledge
as if that could stop drowning
he said the words
& took her under
in an exercise of faith
fighting fear
she let him
tears crowded my own eyes
as hers opened underwater;
an everyday transcendence
In honor of the day we thumbed our noses at the known and stepped off into independence, I give you….Woodie Guthrie
fused from the center
some wonderful entropy
lights the core of us
***now, which of you brilliant people can tell me the phrase I found in my spam that prompted this haiku?
I guess we feminist woman-loving/man-hating
child devouring witches
of women (which I have been told
I am, just for having a voice
and a mind, and not hiding either)
no longer know our place
and we need to be schooled
on who owns us
and decides
what we can do with
these bodies
because we cannot think
beyond our cycles
please legislate morality
for us and tie it all up
with a pretty pink bow
but it is not life
you defend and protect
it is the place
you would send us to
obedient and voiceless
except to say yes, dear
and please, needing to be daddied
as much as the children
we bear and bear and bear
until
we stagger into the background
to let the next generation
of yes-women
hold you up
while appearing
to have no strength at all
to lift up ourselves
Susan Daniels Poetry 