Two Poems

by Susie Gharib (September 2020)

Fire at Full Moon, Paul Klee, 1933

 

 

A Lament  

 

A full moon in our narrowed sky cannot comprehend

the absence of gazes at her bewildered visage

since eyes are now bent on gadgets and visual gossips.

 

The stars lament the litter that now mars

their studded skies

that teem with satellites,

with morbid gas,

with terrestrial trash.

 

And birds that traverse miles and miles

without a guide

now need traffic lights

to avoid collision with military mites.

 

 

Body Snatchers

 

I first heard of body snatchers

when I was in Edinburgh on a bus tour.

The guide spoke of grave-desecration

at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Victorian Scotland.

The bodies suitable for dissection

were those of prisoners, foundlings, and orphans,

the second-class citizens,

but the shortage in cadavers

made doctors and students resort

to theft of the exhumed corpse.

 

To protect the dead, watchtowers were erected,

yet in our modern world,

the bodies of the living are daily snatched

in sexual slavery and trafficking organs.

 

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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.