The Indelible Stain
“Wake up! sleepy head!”
— tossing a sentence in bed with her —
like a grenade with a pin missing, he thought.
She has struggled to ever understand,
subtleties and complexities of emotion:
‘bare lust, rage, need for food or defecation,
and that instant every child knows
of betrayal in the moment leaving’ Yes:
But how to smile when you wake for your lover?
‘— i know her thoughts — he pretended to himself,
i’ll wait for her in the kitchen, while she gets herself up,
and facepainted like a battle for the day incoming.’
Wakelessness passed like an emptying sink for her,
leaving a rim of filth in the bowl.
loneliness was her life’s metier,
how to understand the daunting horror of another, now?:
i’ll draw lines upon my own face with fancy-chalk,
although they cost a damned bomb,
and be ready with a painted smile, dimples on either end
magenta little full-stops at the end of my expression.
‘this might be taking too long, I’m so glad
I brought a coffee-machine with a warming timer,
what the hell is she doing?’
Walking down the staircase was a careful expedition of foreign lands
treading down carefully with bare feet and painted nails…
when you have been dunked head-first in a
swimmingpool child isolation and hate, from year nunce
to your twenty-adultness…
“mummy! i got… mummy! they hirten’m”
“Good now you see how worthless you is to me”
“Good now you see how pains me to be your mother”
“Good now you see how hateful you is to me”
“I suffer for ever because of you.”
-small tiny voices coiled like a snail in an shell,
sunk every syllable in a mucus slimetrail,
‘i am not worthless, not not!
-but i know, I know, that i am.’
Look!: he looks anxious, but in the eyes,
in those eyes, there may be love in there.
[or trap?! trap. I, hold open my stupid stupid eyes.]
© David Susswein
Chaos
The air is silent,
like a tomb
Her mouth is shut tight,
like fear
Her arms are set
in ribbons of stranger,
Her hands and fingers locked
in cement
Around his thighs.
She has no brothers,
Only cousins
He has no family at all,
Only strangers,
poured like Plaster of Paris
into the cracks of his arms.
The air is silent,
on this their night.
Inside, their acquaintances
wonder.
Outside his bare feet,
break the dry twigs
And her voice, hangs,
like stalactites on the
roof of his mouth…
A breath, a sigh
is faster
Her fingers curl tighter
around stale air.
And up above,
Beyond the sounds and clutching of their bones,
They look for a brighter star,
Something to breath away
This emptiness they feel.
© David Susswein
Memories of a Disease
Kick the dead dog,
kick the dead dog
kick it, kick it.
Hinder bag of fleas
stomach’d-bag-of-maggot
yer’ deadhead junting thru
deadhead-eyed and staring thru.
Lit a match, lighted a butt
upend to my eyes
socket… socket.
Kicked my own leg
kick it, kick it,
kicked my own leg
till i broke my own dumb bone.
..Wished for an easier war
…..Wished for an easier war
…….I had Wished for an easier war.
Run out into the water,
Run out into the stream,
Run out into the ocean,
Where once all living things had been.
© David Susswein
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