What she said (a sort of roundel)

Posted on October 26, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Return to me, love.  My feet are planted
deep in this country, sole to earth, rooted
in the same soil where my father’s bones sleep.
My spirit flows here, exhaled and rebreathed.
Return to me and take what is offered.

In invitation, or is it demand(?)
you want life on your terms, open-handed,
insist that you miss what you chose to leave.
Return to me, love.

More than my hope must pilot you homeward–
life keeps house and bakes bread daily, leavened
to lightness not by saudade but by yeast,
this practical, practiced magic completes
without competing, if you surrendered
(and) return(ed) to me, love.

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

Reinventing the Medicine King

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

In other countries,
they call it baptism,
that moment yielded to burn,
when flesh rises like incense.

Not here.

We want to know why, 
but what can be said
of worship
when there is nothing
left to give
but this instant

where flesh marries fire,
when body becomes
a candle casting prayer
against grass, over stones;
the bright shadow
of an immolating monk
leaving his borrowed bone house.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

cinders

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

pumpkins
are unpredictable;
not always orange

and nothing
is guaranteed

not even a ride
back from the ball

I stood there,
slippers shattering
under the weight of
too much dancing

but the gourd
stayed a gourd,
implacably vegetable

once the magic wore off

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 58 Comments

Shutdown/Slimdown/Dumbdown

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

We just turned off the news in our house.

We are already, just a few days into it, sick of the rhetoric.  The brinkmanship of 80 members of the House of Reps, whipped by the BS of one Alfonso Cruz (that’s what I am calling him–no “Ted” on this blog) is, among a slew of other distasteful things, denying 800,000 federal employees their paychecks, shutting down the WIC program, and closing the national parks.  AND they are still getting paid while doing this.

One does not get to hold the US government hostage, and then whine that the other side is failing to negotiate.  The time to negotiate on the ACA was when it was a bill.  The time to eliminate it as unconstitutional was when the law was reviewed and judged by the SCOTUS.

Stay strong, President Obama and members of the senate.  I can tell you right now who will get my vote in 2014 and who will not.

As for the suicide caucus, impeach those bastards.  Impeach every last one of them.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , | 28 Comments

this ain’t art it’s digital mindporn

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

if you read this
and call me brilliant
for that nanosecond
I stopped writing paperclips
metaphorically
and became instead
disposable
lightly curved steel
useful only
in my holding together
the curled sum
of so many pages

you have forgotten

(this is a poem
only because
of the trickle down
language used

irrelevant
in practice

because all that
reaches the page

is piss gone cold
)

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Indian Summer–a tanka

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

I need to burn this
embered red on simple green–
how frost mimics fire
the shades of burning, smokeless
kissed light on the edge of leaves.

Posted in tanka | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

When You Leave

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

When you leave
there will be empty
in my hands instead of the enough
filling my mouth I choked on;
spitting out sour words
instead of the sweet
I used to own.

When you leave
I will have an empty closet
to fill with clothing I don’t wear
and a bureau to ease the too much
overstuffing my drawers:
there will be space for me
to spread out, to stretch
I have forgotten.

When you leave
there will be silence,
first lonely and then the welcome kind
that falls over me easy
in the seconds before sleep.
I will sleep sideways
across the middle of this bed
and let the gray in my hair
grow in streaks like it wants to.

When you leave,
I will hold words
close you threatened me with:
I will be the witch, the crone
comfortable in her bones
who learns herb magic
under the new moon,
not to curse you
but fatten me from my long waning.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , | 34 Comments