Through Pen and Paper


As a child, a teen
I swam in tears of trauma
until my spirit rebelled
at the drowning line.

Chasing last place
in a swamp filled
with tossed stones
Poe taught me to breathe
with pen and paper.

Through a pinhole in a nightmare
words bled into light and
I began to feel fledgling freedom.

In April’s month of words I hear
the child, the adolescent sing of roots
and crows and know even if the ink is bleak
it lights another candle to dispel my darkness.

©Susie Clevenger 2017

#NaPoWriMo2017

Real Toads ~ Penultimatums 



Comments

Kerry O'Connor said…
The final four lines say so much about the poetic process, Susie. What it means to us, this art.
April 29, 2017 at 12:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Amen -- Who would think that to write darkly -- a la Poe -- one would find a way out of one's darkness. There's a mantra in AA recovery which so applies to the gifts of writing -- when you're going through Hell, don't stop. Virgil wraps Dante in the meters so they can travel through where damnation means forever being stuck in one's evil motions. There's always the next poem, penultimate of a healing we can't know the name of yet. Thanks --
April 29, 2017 at 1:21 PM
brudberg said…
If writing is swimming, beware of the drowning.
April 29, 2017 at 2:50 PM
Sanaa Rizvi said…
This is so touching, I agree writing is a process of healing, of letting our fears wash away with words that flow on paper.
April 29, 2017 at 5:08 PM
Anonymous said…
Susie you have penned some words of deep courage this past month and this penultimate reflection wraps all of that truth and beauty up in way that just opens me wider. Thank You.
April 29, 2017 at 6:04 PM
Anonymous said…
Thank you for sharing with us your light. Long may it shine.
April 29, 2017 at 8:07 PM
Outlawyer said…
This is just lovely, Susie. The honesty and the particularity of your circumstances are vivid and compelling. I found it so cool that Poe meant that to you. Thanks for the poem and all your energy. k.
April 29, 2017 at 8:14 PM
Sherry Blue Sky said…
This is Terry gorgeous. My path to the freedom of poetry was much the same. Many tears.
April 29, 2017 at 9:11 PM
Margaret said…
Poe taught me to breathe
with pen and paper.

Lovely! light a candle in the darkness...
April 29, 2017 at 11:33 PM
Rosemary Nissen-Wade said…
Thank you, Poe! Please, Susie, keep breathing poetry.
April 30, 2017 at 12:18 AM
Magaly Guerrero said…
Poe has been the giver of breath and ink for so many of us. Now I have one more reason to love his words. This is wonderful, Susie, from beginning to end.
April 30, 2017 at 6:32 PM
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