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Best Poems Written by Susan Finnis

Below are the all-time best Susan Finnis poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Politics and Pulchritude

Higgledy-Piggledy
Forty-fifth president
Some think him marvelous;
Others a jerk.

Chasm political
Breached by consensus, his
Cosmetological
Routine needs work.

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Seams

trapped,
safeguarded,
each appendage
secured in amber,
some Jurassic specimen
created for your gaze

you regard me
with a quizzical eye,
comb your notes carefully 
for collected data
on my anomalies

how to straighten this limb,
shape this abdomen,
bend this thorax
to fashion the perfect
exemplar of your
scientific prowess

no manufactured artifice
will satisfy you
you deftly maneuver
and rearrange,
cut and reassemble,
manipulating your scalpel
and forceps

until you have your prize,
flawless and complete,
but for the glue
leaking from the seams

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Honne

I live in this half-world
doubting the veracity of
words
words of supposed comfort
scraps of care
of whitewashed expression

do you seek to protect me
or to beguile,
draw me into your place
of uncertainty
of quantum thoughts,
shut me in your Schrödinger’s box
until I cannot tell
what you feel
what you say

I want conviction
Newtonian conversation
of truth and certitude,
not to peer through
telescoped eyes
searching for Polaris
in your inumbrated sky

Give me the truth
clear as a winter night,
sure as gravity,
scrubbed of peeling paint
bury your deceptive solutions
and solve honest equations

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Anubis

scarab
glinting indigo and peacock
symbol of resurrection
desert phoenix

you are a jackal
waiting, traitorous,
by my grave
to lunge and devour me,
licking my blood from your snout

you cannot consume my heart,
organ of my soul
for it has been weighed and measured
and I am gone to Osiris

but – see there
peeking out,
brilliant with the sun,
a tiny hint of emerald
glimmers in my smile

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Desert

So long has passed since I was brought
To the point of pure bliss, as I ought.
If no one will bother,
Suppose that I’d rother
See what talented hands will have wrought!


May 3, 2023

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Benthic

in the twilight zones
of the ocean
you will find me
dimly lit from within
for camouflage, for
spotting those I fear
would steal my hazy glow

I am surrounded by
others who linger here,
half-blind, swimming aimlessly,
waiting for the brightness
that never comes

would that I could rise up
out of this doltish, 
bathypelagic state,
break through the water’s skin,
glistening, luminous
with coruscated beauty

but the only hands extended
draw me deeper, 
into the benthic sea,
where I lie, unmoving,
amongst the creatures
who make their own deceptive light
and fear the sun’s 
clear gaze

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Today I Am Querulous

Today I am
querulous
my foot taps a rhythmless tattoo
my fingers roam unfulfilled

this bolus of undetermined want
slides down my throat, 
invertebrate,
lodging in my stomach

dull, 
as a faint scratching on a prison wall, 
carving out the days

heavy,
as a stone unquarried and uncut, 
the sculptor indecisive, reluctant to take up his chisel

some indeterminate 
unfixed need
slithers, struggles for expression
through restive eyes

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Cage

my brain has its own life,
its own conversations,
never-ending circumlocutions

this confabulation of memory
leaves me unsure of
the reality of my thoughts

is this a chemical misstep,
a minuscule of glutamate
misplaced or missing

or is it a mistake in my
biological majuscules,
an A or a G gone awry,
leaving mental havoc in its wake

or perhaps just a wiring mishap,
a failing to bridge synapses to
the branched flourishes of dendrites,
leaving me thirsty for truth,
a truth now conflated with errata

can the brain heal itself,
restore effaced letters 
to historiated initials
or will it descend into darkness,
gradually ceasing its conversations,
forgetting all spelling,
and become a silent grey cage

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Green

stay your hand
with its obtund touch
take away your arid mouth,
your incurious eyes from me,
from my unscaled sight

you are but dull clay,
Ozymandias, barren
and I am fresh green
that strives for the light

spilling from your crumbling ashlar
jubilant, with scarlet buds
to catch the rain
and burgeon in its caress

to sway with the tumult of the wind
to kiss the voluptuous sky
to lay my feet on the lush earth
to live, to thrive
far away from your desert

Details | Susan Finnis Poem

Vivacissimo

Vivacissimo


guitar
sitting unplayed, unlearned
beside its counterparts:
piano, saxophone, koto,
soon to be joined by a banjo

a silent quintet
untouched, unheard

why do I not put my hand to them
why do they sit in this orchestral mausoleum

is it because there is no music
within me,
no euphony bursting from inside
that must find expression
in the movements of my fingers

is it that I fear
untamed chords and notes
will come of the tumult
of my mind,
cacophonous sharps and flats
that refuse lyrical composition

and what if
the clefs line up and Aeodean
beauty and grace emerge instead,
flying from me in a frenzied vivacissimo

how much more frightening
is beauty than silence