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    Tenebrism:  A dramatic painting style that uses extreme light and extreme darkness, and all shades in between.

 

"Suspended" by Susan Stanek

the reign pulls me in,
bends my face around, toward the window
I can't climb through. and asks me to run forward
through it.

My dogs keep barking at
things in the dark.
I stand with authority, my eyes unable
to cut through it.

Suicide is painful. Blind faith is lethal.
Love is substantial. Cause-effect sequential.


Now I find myself gathering my dogs,
and hiding in the dark,
spying on flashing lights in my front yard,

the cop turned off his motor.
small bugs swarm my feet, a tickle.

I don't know what's going to happen. Technology has blurred my vision. My only choice is to be quiet

and listen, to the secrets that are being told, silent,
in the night.

i am nothing
but a spider
hanging, dwindling, suspended mid-web in darkness

silence. bewilders the stealthy predator,
who merely waits,
for tragedy to feed his own, juicy carcass.

 

 

8

Petrified

Petrified wood under a tree.

Where the mushrooms grow.

That’s where he feasted last night.

Just in the twilights of morning.

The emperor was you.  Lost in the dark.

Where the bright red sky closes in

That’s where love is lost.

That’s where the changes last forever,

For hunger.  Come curl with me tonight.

Live my love fair child.

I will love no more.

 

 Rain.

Victims dance.

A prelude to chance.

Fallow me down like rain.

 

Lick me shallow.

Lick me hollow

Lick onto me the rain.

 

Fallow me down

Onto the ground

Kiss on the earth like rain

 

Lift you high

Know you’re mine

Love in dark disdain.

A Kiss behind the Doll Face

hide behind a doll face without a smile,

and smile like it’s all you got.

hide behind the placid illusion

of a porcelain china-doll face

and play with all you got.

you smile, we think you’re not.

 

212  Insect Figures

Lay insect figures in my head.

            Uncomfortable thoughts

Making Love in a frozen temple

Now the decade circles around us

Millions shall dance to your creepy eyes

As the decade passes it answers our questions.

You must believe in something

Every place I go to wander

            And I find myself with a paper doll to feed.

 

a freak's dream...

dark rain post a material thick and black
dark rain dwell in walls thick dungeonesque
Feel alive, scream out the hallow
up through cold ground, my tears I fallow.

Hunt a bisque night, a vapor to fallow
In a cold night, a dream pill to swallow.
A freak steal fast, a whole lifetime's past,
a freaks dream dead in the hours that passed

A freaks dream thrives in the nights that fallow
you a dream, and a night pill to swallow.

 

 

278  The Stars Float Downstream

The stars float downstream

in the shadows I crouch and lean.

I watch them flicker on by.

 

Still in the night, I lie waiting

These orbs before me not for the taking

a stellar dream, your face is seen and I cry.

 

Still I wait by

My heart I deny

to touch this image of you.

 

Yet in mine mind

Our hearts entwined.

This torment cannot continue.

 

elegant wine

so sublime

kiss the vintage out from my neck.

Still embrace

I love your taste

it’s passion and it’s torment.

 

 

 

284

 

Tell me

the ways

I feel

in my

head.

When I

feel the

night

fall

brail

fingers

lend a

hand

catch

my

sight

and

filter

through

my

past,

candle

light in

a car,

driving

fast

full

moon

agape

laughing,

shining

at me!

 

 

 

285

Television glow

all gone—

forlorn

a stare

into the

effervescence

glow-

a canopy,

ginger

piles

on the

floor.

I rest

my feet

in them.

They serve

me well,

my justice

served

thy will

be done-

hopeless,

helpless, not hopeless.

I laugh

a satisfactory

laugh, and stare

thinking about

all the

work

I’ve

done.

  

 

287

I sleep

in a

River-

a bed

made of

sticks.

waters

cold

and

black.

Curly willows

surround

me and

grope

my

hair.

 

the current

leads me

to a

resting

spot-

Weeping

willow

drugs

me-

her hair

falls

upon

me

and sways

like chimes

silvery

leaves

twisting

in

moonlight.

 

 

288

I killed a cow

last night.

He said he was

supposed to

die, but I

didn’t believe

him.

So last night

I cried, and

spat up grief

and a pill.

Silence is

golden squirm

in bed

Suffrage

be still

tonight.

 

 

289

Falling Down

through black air

 

Lying back down

in a grape of darkness.

Squeaker fulfilled

Anguish settled

his head.

   out of fright-

My body

  a temporary

     casing.

A shiver,

     a glow-

   and I still

     Keep on thriving.

A linger

a whisper-

and I don’t

even care anymore.

290

Silly smile

   red lips

      glowing

 

 

291

Periwinkle blue

Slander yellow

killer soft hues

quiet in virtue

a silly laugh

dances like time

skipping across

   the water

Sunshine glow

When the frogs

   sing, the

   water dances

      ripples around

          their cheeks.

 

 

292

The shapes in the

clouds keep

looking at me.

Staring at me.

Swaying and

bobbing their

     heads like

     trees-

Rest for a moment.

find strength in stillness.

Converge in silence

a rhythm-

a sound-

a passing of light-

and the slipping of

days to come.

It’s my past

that haunts me-

the future

anxiety of obligation.

And I can never

loose hold of this torture.

Just a silence-

a whisper, linger;

is all I have now, become.

 

 

293

Nothing to fight

nothing to hold

on to

life is dust

and I am reduced

to memories-mere

electrical passing

    sparking

      tapping heat

         in gray fleshy orbs.

Little brains

twirling around the universe.

Killing the peace, and sadness

simply by remembering.

 

bewildered screams bewildered dreams

It sucks, this fleshy life; where the politics of insecure men and women dictate the misery and productivity of innocent people.

Everybody hates you. I never adored you.

No one ever invited you, no one cares how you feel, or who you're fucking.

Yet you were always there, lamenting,
over your virginity and how sperm tastes salty.
No one interfered. no one had respect, or cared
about who you are.
or how I felt.

Even your true friends deny you.
Even God hates you.

He gave you a false response. A blank.
You dodged anyway. We all knew you would.

a delightful sin, onto yourself--
denial.

That was my line.
I played it like a haunted piano.

I lived it for forty years or more.
and it never showed it's ugly face 'till now.

I dwell in it's temple,
a temple of "wish"
that doesn't exist.

I assumed the loyalty
I gave would be
reciprocated...
it was,
eventually.

I'm not a girl you can lie to

You should know better than that.

I am nothing. The truth,
is mine.

You vested yourself in a false
marriage...in a husband who
already has a wife

and You stayed aboard, second mate believing you're first
your fate
stalemate.

Your only purpose, delegate:
my role second-rate.

I am bewildered, and wander in the dark.

The snow en robes me quietly. I sink

into the icy earth
never to reveal my
pale blue face
again.

My heroes are meat-eaters:
murderers...vixens, & tramps.
You are none of these.
you expel dreams.
you procure anguished screams

You are a wilderbeast, lost
from the herd. good as dead.
You see us all hanging out
How can you deal with all of this?

I do not torment you.
Your dreams you dream yourself.

I am not your anger.

Your envy is not of me,
but an empty hole of your own.

If not it be me you hate, t'would be something else.

The truth thrown in to
your face like the slums of town.

But to be me is not your wish.
nor your ambition.

I am Sue,
and you are through,
Ach Du
Slimy you.

I never thought that
you were true.

I was blue, but now am green.
The white light of the sky,
in my heart I've seen.

Simultaneous bliss:
life and death on crucifix,
we do not remember you.

I die, sublime, bewildered in darkness.
My shouts are heard,
by the underworld.

 

 

 

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