Sunday, September 10, 2006
Long time, no write
So, when last we left our hero, he was locked in a battle with the forces of evil bent on world domination. Thenceforth, having lost the battle and the war, our hero finds himself doing mere damage control. More on this later. For now, let it suffice that there is some poetry to offer the interested reader...
1. Dark Star
The unimaginable mass in his abdomen
Pushes mercilessly through his back
Passes instantly through the hospital bed
And sinks into the center of the earth
Pinning him in position
– a specimen in a collection
a great recumbent termite queen
a distended and humbled, Jabba the Hut
Ballooning
Pregnant like a blister
Without shame or irony
He tells me, “I try to drink a 12-pack a day.”
Do I hide my shock?
An awkward attempt at connection,
Or is it that I’m trying to surprise him
right back in the kisser
By predicting that he no longer gets a buzz
that some people drink like that
just to keep from getting the shakes,
“Yep, and so I won’t hallucinate like I did last Wednesday.”
In Labor –
ed breathing
We deliver him by
Caesarian invasion
crossing the Rubicon into his homeland
by “tapping his belly”
He is polite and grateful
Chatting easily about his
Interesting and lost career
Cause and Effect
Ascites fluid – Clear and golden
Streaming into sterile vacuum bottles
Produces a startlingly nice head,
Usually
We fastidiously capture his
Disturbingly milky elixir
Easy blame slips away
7 liters later
He breathes easier
While at the same moment
The other person in the room,
His dark star child
Begins to grow again
Inside his belly
2. On receiving the news that you have lost your nerve
In that moment, when the horror
Of an accidental workplace mutilation gets to you
You wish it just not-to-be, and to disappear from the situation
You do not want to watch this one; you are not fascinated
Between duty and revulsion, you are transfixed
Into the smallest of vector quantities
You stay and watch,
In secret shame and doubt
You gave up everything to become a doctor
After monstrous suturing
The replants remain cold and dusky
You have no hope they will survive
What are you going to do now?
3. Peds Onc Consult
It’s late, on-call-tired
we dash into a third floor room
for a cross-cover page
as always both ceiling-mounted TVs are on
tuned to separate channels
we whisk past a preoccupied mother
the boy standing there with those foreboding
sparse wisps of hair
infused with too many lines
running from as many IV bags
hanging starkly on a wheeled pole
we round a curtain to find
a squad of posed action-figures
resolutely standing guard
strategically placed by their leader
to ward off evil spirits
slumped rag-doll side-ways
a pale, pale, thin boy
with dark-crusted, cracked lips
blood slowly seeping from purple little bumps here and there
The shiner he sports
you wish
was from getting punched
but it’s not, it’s
from the rock-bottom platelet count
from the cancer
from the treatment
from the chromosome
from the mutation
from the virus
that wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside him
the mom calmly consents to the platelet transfusion
which along with everything else tried through the night
will not save him from bleeding out
even till morning
4. Beasts of Burden
Sitting waiting for my pizza order
to be ready for pick-up
a woman my mother's age
comes in to place her order
her accent beckons
with the promise of a story
I chatted her up
She was from the mining districts in the south of Wales
we remarked on the recent mining disasters in West Virginia
I shared that my great-grandfather was killed in a mining accident in Indiana
At the turn of the last century
She then told me about the husband of a friend
who had grown weary of the hardness of the pits
and had gained a transfer to the relative safety of the top
within months he was pining for the grime and darkness
He found his way back down again
by becoming a pony driver
and spent 20 years
hauling carts of coal
According to tradition
once down in the pits
blinded by the stygian darkness and the coal dust
the ponies never left the pits alive
I told her how it reminded me of the K-9s
I handled in the Marine Corps
once the dogs are trained to attack
by the United States Government
they are doomed to live out their days
langushing in kennels
never again to know civilian comfort
coming out only for training or work
When one of our dogs
became too old, too arthritic, too hip-dysplastic
to actually fulfill their purpose
we would fudge, and white-lie and cover-up
to steal them another few, hard months
in our limited, awkward care
before their bureaucratic
euthanasia was eventually carried out
according to regulations
My pizzas ready,
I said good-bye to her
and as I got into my car I wondered
whether we are not too terribly different
from the Pit Ponies and Military Working Dogs
That once we enter into our labor
leaving our houses at zero-dark:thirty
leaving the hospital well past sundown, even in summer
6 -7 days-a-week, week after week
are we also doomed
never again to see the light of day?
or to know the comforts of home?
1. Dark Star
The unimaginable mass in his abdomen
Pushes mercilessly through his back
Passes instantly through the hospital bed
And sinks into the center of the earth
Pinning him in position
– a specimen in a collection
a great recumbent termite queen
a distended and humbled, Jabba the Hut
Ballooning
Pregnant like a blister
Without shame or irony
He tells me, “I try to drink a 12-pack a day.”
Do I hide my shock?
An awkward attempt at connection,
Or is it that I’m trying to surprise him
right back in the kisser
By predicting that he no longer gets a buzz
that some people drink like that
just to keep from getting the shakes,
“Yep, and so I won’t hallucinate like I did last Wednesday.”
In Labor –
ed breathing
We deliver him by
Caesarian invasion
crossing the Rubicon into his homeland
by “tapping his belly”
He is polite and grateful
Chatting easily about his
Interesting and lost career
Cause and Effect
Ascites fluid – Clear and golden
Streaming into sterile vacuum bottles
Produces a startlingly nice head,
Usually
We fastidiously capture his
Disturbingly milky elixir
Easy blame slips away
7 liters later
He breathes easier
While at the same moment
The other person in the room,
His dark star child
Begins to grow again
Inside his belly
2. On receiving the news that you have lost your nerve
In that moment, when the horror
Of an accidental workplace mutilation gets to you
You wish it just not-to-be, and to disappear from the situation
You do not want to watch this one; you are not fascinated
Between duty and revulsion, you are transfixed
Into the smallest of vector quantities
You stay and watch,
In secret shame and doubt
You gave up everything to become a doctor
After monstrous suturing
The replants remain cold and dusky
You have no hope they will survive
What are you going to do now?
3. Peds Onc Consult
It’s late, on-call-tired
we dash into a third floor room
for a cross-cover page
as always both ceiling-mounted TVs are on
tuned to separate channels
we whisk past a preoccupied mother
the boy standing there with those foreboding
sparse wisps of hair
infused with too many lines
running from as many IV bags
hanging starkly on a wheeled pole
we round a curtain to find
a squad of posed action-figures
resolutely standing guard
strategically placed by their leader
to ward off evil spirits
slumped rag-doll side-ways
a pale, pale, thin boy
with dark-crusted, cracked lips
blood slowly seeping from purple little bumps here and there
The shiner he sports
you wish
was from getting punched
but it’s not, it’s
from the rock-bottom platelet count
from the cancer
from the treatment
from the chromosome
from the mutation
from the virus
that wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside him
the mom calmly consents to the platelet transfusion
which along with everything else tried through the night
will not save him from bleeding out
even till morning
4. Beasts of Burden
Sitting waiting for my pizza order
to be ready for pick-up
a woman my mother's age
comes in to place her order
her accent beckons
with the promise of a story
I chatted her up
She was from the mining districts in the south of Wales
we remarked on the recent mining disasters in West Virginia
I shared that my great-grandfather was killed in a mining accident in Indiana
At the turn of the last century
She then told me about the husband of a friend
who had grown weary of the hardness of the pits
and had gained a transfer to the relative safety of the top
within months he was pining for the grime and darkness
He found his way back down again
by becoming a pony driver
and spent 20 years
hauling carts of coal
According to tradition
once down in the pits
blinded by the stygian darkness and the coal dust
the ponies never left the pits alive
I told her how it reminded me of the K-9s
I handled in the Marine Corps
once the dogs are trained to attack
by the United States Government
they are doomed to live out their days
langushing in kennels
never again to know civilian comfort
coming out only for training or work
When one of our dogs
became too old, too arthritic, too hip-dysplastic
to actually fulfill their purpose
we would fudge, and white-lie and cover-up
to steal them another few, hard months
in our limited, awkward care
before their bureaucratic
euthanasia was eventually carried out
according to regulations
My pizzas ready,
I said good-bye to her
and as I got into my car I wondered
whether we are not too terribly different
from the Pit Ponies and Military Working Dogs
That once we enter into our labor
leaving our houses at zero-dark:thirty
leaving the hospital well past sundown, even in summer
6 -7 days-a-week, week after week
are we also doomed
never again to see the light of day?
or to know the comforts of home?
