Susie Gharib

Who said I cannot abort your wayward words
before they attain your vocal cords!
and who said I cannot abort the smile
with which you aspire to paint your mouth!

Who said I cannot de-fraud the air
that each belligerent lip exhales
and who said I cannot de-shroud the intent
of every evil you contend.

Who said I would not be able to contort
the beautiful mirage your verbs extoll
and who said I could not expose
the vermin that lurks within discourse.

Who said!

My eyes mirror the cracks in buildings
and in hearts,
in the pupils of children
who now dread sleeping in their beds.

My pulse beats louder than the bowels of the earth
and fear wrenches my quietude
like the gale that preceded the earthquake.

The ground beneath my feet quails
like a giddy quicksand
for gravity has departed from this region
that is benighted with wars,
with disease,
with seismic unrest.

When Simon had lathered with lavender my branches
and smoothed entangled twigs with massages,
a pair of scissors advance to subdue
the wild overgrowth of my unruly wood.

With no rape-of-the-lock sort of attitude
only the weeds lose livelihood.
I shed no tears on beheaded boughs
nor sing a requiem for severed parts.

I observe his hands in masterful orchestration,
neither gripping
nor clutching the maestro’s brush,
his fingertips waltzing in full concentration,
caressingly reshaping the complying locks.

In the mirror we gaze
at my altered face,
the fringe that vies with Cleopatra’s.
With ‘Merci’ and a smile
he bows out of view,
with metamorphoses all day to ensue.

Frail is the nail
which can’t make me shriek,
the hail that pelts
my petals and speech,
the gale that rips
my roof and peace
for I shall know much better days.

Frail is the pen
whose ink has congealed,
the veil that shrouds
a veracious tale,
the spam that haunts
my fertile mail,
for bubbles will burst in the air.

“Jinny always dances in the hall on the ugly”. Virginia Woolf, The Waves

I abhor everything that Jinny stands for,
her casual sex and promiscuous lore,
but I must admit she animates the book
with her billowing frocks and opening doors
and from her I learnt despite my scorn
to dance on the ugly, and dance for long.

In curfew darkness, I scribbled odes
by the haggard light of a famished globe,
a candle’s orb.

The rattle that Wilfred Owen deplored
in an anthem meant to disparage wars
now live assaults my metaphors,
who, unscathed, tap-dance a rhythm of their own.

And deaths that queued before my abode,
that abducted whoever I adored,
bequeathed an inheritance of fortitude,
of resurrection from every plight and woe,
a new-born soul.