Sample Poems by Susan Hahn

Earth


There was a moment
where I had everything
arranged. The furniture
perfect—the space enormous
and elegant.
But once they started
pillaging and setting fires, smashing
invaluable objects
(the weighted Buddha
marble statue;
the Klimt painting—
the bliss on the woman’s face,
the man’s anchored—so certain—embrace,
how the gold
leaf mingled with the oil paint;
the Byzantine glass
that composed the lamp’s light)
and shredding the plans
laid out so neatly
on my desk,
I just ran and watched
from a distance.
The pain—that deep love ache of attachment—
too much. And yes, there too,
was the double electric
fence from Auschwitz—
one of the more recent grotesque objects,
positioned near a bulging closet—
no more room in the tribal rooms, family rooms,
or the ones for costumes.
The junk just keeps piling up.

Then I thought a change,
a different prayer,
might help. Another god—a new face
than those I was used to—
might pull me back,
hold me to what was supposed to be
my place.

---

Man


I remember her body—
most precisely
her breasts
when she put
one on each side of my face.
How they made me overlook
my world mess. Blinders
or dream pillows that soothed
my blistered mind
so that all facts,
all hypotheses, all thoughts,
all gossip

about the fellow
who took my space
would evaporate and I would be left
with just softness,
until a strength

between my legs grew
and it didn’t matter who
“she” was. I’d plunge
myself into her—however anonymous.

Often now, I fall out of orbit,
especially at the moment of full wakefulness,
and am impaled with a rage
not toward whoever she is
who lies next to me,
but the rat
who politicked and won
the corner office that
I lost.

Then I focus
on the faraway woman
who could calm.
How in the aftermath of loss
I abruptly ran

away to what
I hoped would be
a warmer climate,
to forget.

***

That has not yet happened.

---

Woman


Make me turn off the reality
TV I can’t stop watching.
I’ve become a voyeur of staged life
to distract myself from the tumult
caused by his cold exit.

Lead me to a candlelit room
with a thick, cream colored carpet,
a large bed with as yet unspotted
sheets of the highest thread count.

We could stay there forever
far above the city—
our silky love a supple robe
wrapped around us both.

On my low, tiny balcony
I cry to the blotchy sky:

Remember Me. Remember Us.

What Exactly Is Any Of This About?

---

Man


She was too much
a romantic.
It became ridiculous.
Anyway, the growth
on my mind grew too large over
the loss of my corner office.

I remember one night
while working late
a migrating bird lost its way,
mistook my lights for the stars,
and smashed
into the huge slab of window glass.

What a mess.

I am that
disoriented.