Two Poems

by Susie Gharib (April 2021)


Jeune femme à la rose, Amedeo Modigliani, 1916

 

 

Confiscated Light

Surreal is the macabre dance
of a glance that has been parading before your eyes,
entreating entrance
into an ocean that heaves with floating stars.

Sluggish is the retreating smile
that had been tripping above my waning pride,
enduring rebuffs
from a mouth whose silence had petrified.

Stolid is my state of mind,
a stoic pursuing confiscated light,
entrapped inside
a pair of orbs that had been mesmerized.

 

Dusk

What dusk can resurrect the silhouettes of a child’s past,
of a salty anchor, basking in a harbor’s twilight,
of a girl’s laughter softened by the day’s demise,
of a chimney beginning to kindle its logs of light.

What dusk can unveil the contours of his translucent smile,
that shone each early morning and lit up our evening stars,
that had nurtured my self-assurance,
that had been my little brother’s lullaby.

What dusk can retell the fables of bedtime,
those knights of valor roaming the forest, fearless of the dark,
that mermaid who refused to sacrifice her voice,
that Snow Queen whose frost dissipated in the breath of love.

What dusk can embosom the magic of bygones,
to which every memory clings with a tenacious grasp,
whose fragrance lingers in the deepest recesses of my mind,
whose perennial glow has sustained my insight.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her writing has appeared in multiple venues including Impspired Magazine and The Ink Pantry.

 

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