The Sound of Ink

Love will not let you forget your broken heart or spare you the pain of tearing yourself into a puzzle. When romance sheds its skin, truth can emerge ugly or with such beauty  the spirit is speechless. There is risk in vulnerable, to open a soul’s diary to be read by a stranger. I have been burnt by passion, frozen with goodbye, and tepid with numbness, but no matter how infertile the soil, I’ve grown. If I were an open book, I’d tell you all my secrets, but be assured I never will … I can reveal when it reaches its final page the words will be, “I never gave up on love.” ©Susie Clevenger 2026 New What's Going On? ~ Open Link  

  I used to be a chin up guy, beat the odds, never give up because hell is just a side trip. Funny how naïve weighs you down when reality ages you into cynicism. Listen kids…The devil loves glitter, the shine of the blind spot. He’ll offer you a cigar and scar you with the match.  ©Susie Clevenger 2021 The Sunday Muse #178

  I love dragon fields spewing August dust into rain barren clouds.   The anger of summer at the end of its rope is theater I understand.   Inevitable chokes with its curse, and the rib shredding of change doesn’t earn our applause.   Sisters of sun and steamed pudding moon we know Autumn will soon arrive to taunt us with winter. ©Susie Clevenger 2020 The Sunday Muse #121

Photography by Oladios "I can't see the end of me." Mortality lives in the back of my mind, the place thoughts rarely visit. Why contemplate an empty heart while fairytales still form in my imagination. over the rainbow I fly the sound of color silver drops of moon ©Susie Clevenger 2019   The Sunday Muse #80

Image Source ~ Alastair Magnaldo There are many things I’ll never have in this circus of the sun. Days add and subtract, glow bright even in the sweater gray of grief. Not every ladder climb reaches a dream, but those that do imprint the spirit and keeps my heart reaching toward hope. Life is a high wire walk through light and darkness. I know I can make it if I carry at least one pocketful of sun. ©Susie Clevenger 2019 The Sunday Muse #75

Photography by Svetlana Belyaeva  Life is a party on the edge of tears. Red is the perfect color for kiss and cry. A rose would never bloom without rain. ©Susie Clevenger 2019 The Sunday Muse #71

For me to unmake the wild light that candles me would seal me in the darkness of another’s choice. Misery tried to form me from its clay of sorrow, but I refused to surrender to the sculptor’s knife. Waiting for the world to turn back to me, decide I fit in a slot I’ve outgrown is not living. I believe what you love you must love now because tomorrow could arrive empty. ©Susie Clevenger 2019 My poem was written from Kenia Santo's prompt to create a poem from a list of Post-Rock song titles she provided. The songs I chose are: Unmake the Wild Light, Waiting for the World to Turn Back to Me, and What You Love You Must Love Now. Real Toads ~ Kenia Santos

There’s a lot of flesh and blood in his harmonica, long nights of burnt days, and prayers carrying him to the crossroads with the devil on his back. He testifies about his dark side in blue notes walking their way toward redemption until the liquor congregation pours another amen. He was a lot of things… Is a lot of things. He pours past and future through one day at a time into music that helps every listener carry their own story. ©Susie Clevenger 2019 The Sunday Muse #62 Real Toads ~ The Tuesday Platform