In Response to a Motivational Speech
One’s worth is measured by what one owns
in the Western, Northern, and Middle Eastern realms
and an academic degree would bring one a tripled ridicule
if it has the potential to become a power abuse
and instead opts for integrity and observing the rules:
it is a sure sign that its owner is a damned fool.
I am certain that your wisdom-impregnated breaths
are not wasted on your attentive audience.
You do transform the lives of people
with your hard-harvested experience.
Yet please make an allowance for one exception:
a person whose life has been war-ridden,
impoverished by recession,
and still subsists without electric currents.
We have been without power for years
so have become like the appliances of our households
in a state of constant disuse,
eternally waiting to be enthused
by being plugged to a charged socket.
They have been experimenting on us with their latest inventions.
We have become the playgrounds for weapons of mass destruction,
and believe me they are not as in Peter Gabriel’s lay:
games without frontiers,
or even without scalding tears.
I agree with you that there are no saviours
to rescue us.
I have waited long enough
until ageing has claimed me a victim:
(I do wear the costume of a victim).
I am no longer awaiting a miracle
but have opted to be waiting for Dodo
in the remaining interval.
When I cannot save a single child from air raids,
or starvation in a siege,
or the theft of their internal organs,
I feel a personal, internal change is not worth the effort.
But thank you all the same
since your speech has inspired this dictum.
In our lives, we have no comfort zones to wallow in,
neither spiritual nor regional.
In our immediate circle swim sharks and snakes,
and the cobwebs we had weaved have all perished
in manufactured storms.
Our only remaining nutrition is music that transcends:
Zimmer’s and Enigma’s.
Your words resonate with Stoic teachings.
I once thought of myself as a Stoic,
and the Brontë Sisters were my role model.
I kept silent for years
until my nose began to bleed
and my subconscious exploded with a surplus of unease.
We are not mere substance like pottery and swords
that can be forged with fire.
We do possess a vulnerable soul
that can get scorched,
that can be depleted by grief and trials
until it grows cold
to everything that humans stand for.
The Gravediggers
My dog utters a howl of sheer remonstrance
for my ears to capture the clash between metal and soil
right beneath the window of my bedroom.
I wake up with a startle
and wonder if some thieves
are up to new mischief.
It is 5 am and still very dark for eyes to dilate.
To my great consternation, the digging continues.
So, I awaken my brother,
who enthusiastically inspects the surroundings
with a pair of sleepy orbs
since he has learned to take me seriously when I become appalled.
He first discerns two persons digging a hole
in the ground below,
with a big dead dog lying beside
to be interred.
“It is just a dead dog,” he whispers to calm me down,
but I find it hard to understand
why this particular spot
has to be the hallowed site
when a neighbouring wasteland is fitter to be a burial ground.
A political turmoil has indeed made the sound of bullets
and every trespassing footstep
orchestral manoeuvres in the dark,
and this is no allusion to the famous pop band.
What sort of?
What sort of dominion do you have over your domain?
Do you keep it under lock,
or does it boast a very wide, open stone gate?
Is it bullet-proof,
or with a monitoring satellite
and a thermal all-seeing eye
that are pinned to a crate?
Do security guards or robots
patrol your massive estate?
And do you at all feel safe?
What sort of noise disturbs your slumberous phase!
Do you sleep with one eye wide open
as birds do and other vigilant breeds?
Do you resort to pills that can keep you sedate,
or entrust your precious being to a nanny
who is past middle-age?
And do you at all contemplate getting betrayed?
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.