Poetry from Susie Gharib

Surveillance

They keep a constant surveillance on our lexicon,

processing every content pattern,

every sound and stimulus,

intending to detect any intimidating competence.

They monitor every word of our utterance,

targeting the sense inherent

in the radiating features of our crafted letters,

scanning every idiosyncratic figure of speech

with unremitting reconnaissance.

Clairvoyance II

He sees humanoids dating the human species,

Aliens sunbathing on terrestrial beaches,

newlyweds booking rooms

on the overpopulated Moon.

He hears the throes of a newborn era,

free of -isms and hybrid terrors,

the jubilation of deer and fowls

over the ban of hunting on every ground,

including the Crown’s.

Ephemeral

Ephemeral is this stillness of five at dawn,

when what would follow is sheer turmoil.

No wonder suspense has become a much-dreaded foe.

Illusive is the silence that aspires to lull discourse,

since a torrent of abuse

will be blighting our morns,

seducing with the semblance of a dialogue

our entire afternoons,

only to then burn the midnight oil.

Frail is this temporary cloak of warmth,

the coziness of lying snug

inside a breath-warmed home,

with curtains fortified against wind and storms,

but cowering before a psychological cyclone.

Milieu III

I see carcasses everywhere

of birds and abandoned pets,

of a pigeon lying supine,

hit in the middle of its breast,

of a cat, its mouth wide-open

with the last throes of death,

and each daily walk with my discerning dog

is more than any living soul can bear.

Littered with the hookah’s remnants,

these streets abound with burnt-out coal,

some scattered cones,

and the residue of incessant gossip

that sheathes pavements, street corners, 

and the auras of pedestrians,

whose breaths still linger, 

weaving webs of indelible distress

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