rendered

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Happy New Year to all of my digital friends! I trust “reading more poetry” was tops amongst your resolutions.

Super happy. I’m coming off of a productive December – six poems published in a new poetry anthology, two poems published in a brilliant literary journal, plus two more notifications of early 2026 journal publications. More details below.

Now on to some new poetry….

This week’s poem got me thinking about how pretty language can help smooth the ugly edges of our lives.

As adults, we develop the habit of choosing words that make difficult things more palatable. Softer. More reasonable. More presentable to ourselves.

We get very good at this over time. There is a kind of bullshit fluency that comes with age.

We learn which words calm a room, which ones keep the conversation moving, which ones let everyone go home without unnecessary discomfort. We learn how to narrate compromise so it sounds like wisdom.

Poetry is especially complicit in this neutering. It can make a quiet surrender feel like grace. It can make stillness feel like resolution. It can make us feel safer for not asking harder questions anymore.

But it can also deceive us. We read something for its beauty because those words resonate. We gloss over the challenging words, and in doing so, we can miss the real message.

I don’t think this is a moral failure. I think it’s a survival skill.

But I do wonder what gets misplaced along the way when our words become too careful, too soothing, too good at smoothing over what actually happened. Is that not a form of delusion?

An academic friend of mine who pre-screened this week’s poem put it this way:

The language is beautiful, but it never lets beauty off the hook. Every soft image carries consequence. I kept thinking about our complicity as readers when we allow tranquility to become a velvet disguise.

I wonder at what point language stops clarifying and starts anesthetizing, and what effect that has on us. Do we really understand each other anymore?

As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to this week’s poem in the ‘Leave a Reply’ comment section at the very bottom of this page.

-PS Conway ☘️☘️☘️

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

rendered

you help me dream of dragonflies
floating on a bed of lotus flowers,
each a part of my longing,
an un-evolved predator, now,
a fusion designed and rendered.
i am who i was intended to be –
part of this gentle lake,
a gentle and fermented scent
clinging to the breeze.

under an un-waking sky,
i am the wake that follows their wingbeats,
slowed for my ears to recognize
their ancient humming nascence.
my eyes sewn shut –
wounded snakes hissing with new stitches,
off to serve their Master,
send Eurydice to her fate.

beneath daylight, warm upon my face,
i hear no trace of violence.
only the lapping
of wing-worn waves on gray stones
while your words of love fade,
promises made, trailing off
as if they could not bear
the echo of their own return.

you make me dream of dragonflies
lying on a velvet grave of lotus flowers,
feeling life flowing away,
blind yet knowing,
i have found the peace you spoke of
in the shadows of our bedroom
where we discovered
the weight of a kiss was worth more
than a subtle death could ever transform.

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

This Week’s Links…

Media News…

*NEW* My interview with author Tricia Copeland on her podcast Finding the Magic Book is now available to watch: https://youtu.be/NhieYECI-H4  🥂🤯

Latest Publication News 

December has been a productive month for me. Eight poems published (so far). If you are interested in a copy of any of these, I have embedded the Amazon links below.

  1. I have six poems published in FromOneLine Volume 7, an anthology of poems/stories where the writers were given one opening line to maintain, then build a poem/story around it. Gratitude to Meghan Dargue for including my work and for editing such a thoughtful compilation from a deeply talented group of writers.
    *
  2. I have two poems published in The Belfast Review, Winter/Spring 2026. Based in the north of Ireland, this gorgeous emerging literary magazine, in addition to poetry, “aims to create a dialogue between the arts, featuring genres not usually included in literary journals such as song lyrics, plays, screenplays, and hybrid forms, to better reflect the lived experience of art, the self, and the city.”

Latest News – Life Sucks…

So far, Life Sucks has received so many ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Editorial Reviews. More to come soon.

I’m anticipating a whole bunch of solid Reader Reviews to begin populating Amazon in the next few weeks, too. The goal is to get to 50 Reader Reviews asap to kick Amazon’s promotion engine into a higher gear.

Speaking of Editorial Reviews, we secured a BIG ONE – BookLife. This is the indie press division of Publishers Weekly and represents a major credibility lift to my published work. Here is a link, in case you’re interested in reading the entire review:

https://booklife.com/project/life-sucks-memories-and-introspections-during-the-great-covid-lockdown-101267

And here are a few other snippets of other editorial reactions so far!

– “Snort-laughs and gasp-worthy wit – PS Conway goes there, and it’s hilarious.”

– “A must-read for anyone stressed, cynical, or just in need of a damn good laugh.”

– “Darkly funny, brutally honest, and weirdly comforting – like therapy, but with colonoscopies.”

 ☘️ COME BACK EACH WEEK FOR NEW POETRY ☘️

3 comments

  1. This poem feels like a beautiful but sad dream about losing yourself in someone else, P.S. It shows how love can make you feel peaceful and “new,” but also how it can change you until you don’t recognize who you used to be. It’s a reminder that even the softest love can sometimes feel like a quiet surrender. Great job, P.S.! Time for a horror write, though.

    Reply

    1. Ha!!! Thanks so much, PS. Consider that a challenge accepted! A horror write shall arrive in the next few weeks…. Can’t wait to hear your reaction to it! 🥂🙏🏻🌹🖤

      Reply

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