Before

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Thanks KB

Did she dance or fall, steps choreographed
By gods or devils, before the moon’s birth;
Her hands stained by fruit already bitten?
I cannot know, because I am no Eve.

I do not remember innocence.
I was never in any first garden,
This life sprung from dust and breath blended
Before I knew death was hungry.

I was never in any first garden,
Tasting temptation and finding it sweet
Before I knew death was hungry
And death grinds our bones for bread.

Tasting temptation and finding it sweet
On my lips a fruited kiss-stung acid
And death grinds our bones for bread
That beauty is in the breaking of.

On my lips a fruited kiss-stung acid
This life sprung from dust and breath blended
That beauty is in the breaking of.
I do not remember innocence.

I cannot know, because I am no Eve
If we were betrayed or freed by that choice
To sample sin and learn what’s forbidden,
Her hands stained by fruit already bitten.

Posted in pantoum | Tagged , , , , | 26 Comments

small stone 1/10/2013

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Once sun strikes that ice, it will slick to a tractionless slide tires try to grab and instead spin.  The speedometer goes to 60 in that burn to go (any)where, but you are fixed and spun; not up or down, forward or back–but precisely where you were, you are now.  So much work expended to stay in one place.  If all the ice melted, I would shift the image to me watching you tread water and never swimming.

Posted in small stone | 10 Comments

too tired to name it

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

Defeated, broken
sagged set to the shoulders
I can list 100 modifiers for
and never really catch
what it means to walk
into a lit kitchen, hours late
and past the point of any
be(lie)vable excuse,
though you spun lots of them
into a flag
the color of sur(render)
but you wave it all wrong,
like you are directing a plane
to the proper strip
for landing

that’s not how
apology works.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

I am reblogging this, because not only is it great–I love the criticism cartoon!

ruleofstupid's avatarRule of Stupid

Conflict comes because two people are searching for the truth and think they have contradictory information.

War comes because someone wants another person to agree with them regardless of the truth.

At the root of this, for me, is the way in which we become attached to ideas about ourselves and to our own actions. If we have an unhealthy relationship with ourselves, we are likely to go to war instead of having a healthy row.

For this argument there are two opposing positions to take in life:

One: all you say, do and create is an expression of you, and what happens to these expressions happens to you.

Two: Once you have said, done or created something, that thing has a separate existence from you – it’s nothing to do with you any more.

Just to give them names, we can call type Ones Clingers, and type Twos Refusers.

View original post 1,224 more words

Posted in New Free Verse | 8 Comments

1/9/13 small stone

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

What is infinite, if not something
that defies measuring?  This, where we stand
or walk, lie dreaming or just sit on a hill,
or a stone, or grass, or around a fire, chanting;
this had a beginning, and is not a forever place
but finite, measurable on some scale I don’t know.

Posted in small stone | 17 Comments

Small stone 1/8/13

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

I am full body and thick bones.  If I travel to you through ether, then it is not me weaving a shirt for you from pine needles.  It is not me feeding you stone soup and snow bread that will only break butter.  

Posted in small stone | Tagged , , , | 35 Comments

roses (metrical experiment)

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Susan L Daniels

I believe bloom
and know of red

I have explored
the sting of thorns

but there is more
to being rose

than what is seen
and what I know

what those roots taste
as they drink earth

in another
kind of open

***here you go, Jeremy

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , | 62 Comments