first-world problem

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

you pay a company
to tell you what to eat
to lose yourself
in fractions
adding up to the mass
of an 8-year-old,
because other companies
sell food in boxes
easy to cook, but hard
on arteries, but few
sell discrimination
so you vacillate,
gain and lose
that same 60,
a pendulum of flesh
swinging
from substance
to sustenance

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , | 50 Comments

snowfall

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Atrazine and estrogen
pink the ground water,
shifting boy to girl–
bull alligators growing ovaries
and double-bull frogs
croaking less
and dreaming tadpoles
instead of sperm

it’s all
fem-
i-
niz-
ation,

penis lengths
shrink
because femi-
Nazi witch doctors
work below the belt,

and

have nothing
to do
with keeping pests
off corn

but
particulate cocaine
and marijuana
floated over cities
will buzz us happy
and dickless

while fish
school in currents
of Xanax

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , , , | 42 Comments

w(Hol)l(y) or broken

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Who among us
takes that name
in vain when none know
it’s diction, the sound
of all sounds shaped
before any lips were made
to sing such fullness.

If I heard even one syllable
of that name,
my mouth could not hold it
and unspoken it would resonate
inside my throat
and I would sound it
like a struck tuning fork,
humming always
a single chord of praise.

At dVerse, we are writing work inspired by Leonard Cohen.  I wrote this listening to the studio version of Hallelujah.  You can listen to it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Fkuq5Lf0Q

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 53 Comments

Haiku Heights: Sugar

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

she sings of losing,
that blues queen who dusts her heart
with smoked sugar sad

Posted in Haiku and Related Forms, haiku heights prompt | Tagged , , | 30 Comments

candy

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

she is so much craving–
rainbow wrapped
tooth-aching sweet vacuum
easily swallowed

paid passage to
those red licorice whip lips
stings instead of kisses
and unwrapped

the release melts
to stain hands
with stickiness
some call sin

soap
won’t wash off
no matter how hard
the scrubbing

you leave
still hungry
though full of those
empty calories

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

My editor and friend from way back wrote this.

Posted in New Free Verse | 4 Comments

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

George–brilliant as usual.

Posted in New Free Verse | 4 Comments