I am no phoenix

I am no phoenix,
whose resurrections can boast an infinitude.
My heavily bombarded system
has not attained any hardihood.
Frayed are the nerves
that have not been forged with steel,
and no brakes have been installed
on my constant tears.

I am no serpent,
who can slough her aged skin.
I cherish every wrinkle
that maps my plighted years.
I spew no poison at foes
or peers.
And I still nurse my deep-rooted fears.

Cartoons

“My life is a children’s cartoon,”
he used to reiterate in a vehement voice,
a bachelor whose name I fail to recall.

I think of his statement as an appropriate metaphor
for my own complicated discourse,
with Tom and Jerry
as an adequate trope
for my domestic turmoil,
with Remi and Heidi,
whom I used to adore,
as tales of the orphaned,
but who would grow into a world
as callous as a whore.

Don’t bury my candles

Don’t bury my candles
in the dunes of your sand.
They’re bound to scorch
your barefooted feats,
your roaming beasts,
your scarcities.

Don’t suffocate my candles
with the debris of your sands.
They’re bound to flare up
in your fitful sleep
to contaminate your dreams
and submerge the residue of your sanities.

Don’t enshroud my candles
with the palls of your sand.
They’re bound to leave holes
in your troubled discourse
in your diffident pauses.

Dr Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a PhD on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.

Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.