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Hospital stays are never pretty.
Patients surrounded by the dark and gritty
effort to save sinew and bone
and beating hearts wavering, so alone.
A constant metallic beep and buzz replaces
the sound of family and friends at home,
with laughing hearts and loving faces.
Grim falsity becomes another unknown,
where workers hurry to keep apace
while patients solemnly lie abed
filled with worry and becalmed dread
of what the next test will indicate
the next test to affirm the threat.
The test itself is no gift of nature,
but a torture device to be endured.
Patients find distaste and abhor
the endless infusion of poisonous brews
meant to enlighten the darkest space
within the sublime mystery of anatomy.
The test itself darkens the soul
desperately trying to stay whole.
Patients share their common litany
when nurses and aides walk out the door,
“ Just leave me be. Please, leave me be!
I cannot take this anymore.”
Good wishes and good intent well-meant
is not enough to meet patients’ wishes
to truly be seen for who they are.
But to see a person builds connections
which too often may break, despite intentions
to save that life hanging in the balance
and wrench away the peace of mind required
to cut an incision or suture a wound
of a real person and not just a body of flesh.
What more can anyone expect or be desired?
Health care soon becomes mired
in benign neglect, or outright disdain
for any patient who might complain
of treatment that robs one’s dignity
with the sacred promise of impunity
clothed in false smiles pasted on hurt faces.
The real issue seems to me
that we can never forget our common humanity.
That patients and medical personnel are both trying
to do their best to heal a body which is always dying.
Bodies begin to die from the moment they are born.
No time to waste as we embrace each morn.
The stakes are so high we often forget
the needs of the living-ill must still be met.
Gratitude only carries patients so far.
Hopefully, out the door and home once more.
FIGHTING WORDS
Poetry has fled.
Art hides in plain sight
behind clouds of flame,
beyond winds of change,
before plutocrats take the stage,
no longer waiting behind the scenes
which hide their rage.
Words have lost all meaning
when facts go unchecked
flung too fast to sustain truth
and belief in its power to right wrongs
for the weak and the poor,
tossed aside by courts which cower
fearing loss of wealth and power.
Which words are safe when lies procure
the party in power’s silent vote to score
total control of each life, each thought,
each breath threatened by dirty schemes
to pollute the earth, water and air?
Words cannot be spoken, claimed by death
of the rule of law.
No words exist to describe the depravity
some of us saw
as our words lay dying
first inside
then outside
where meaning can be lost.
Words remain frozen in heavy frost,
weighed down by cold hearts
and dead souls
seeking total control.
Freedom resides in words
which too often remain unsaid.
Words too softly spoken to wake
those asleep, escaping, all hopes dead.
Too few words of truth must compete
with an onslaught of unchecked lies.
I listen and watch, lost in thought.
I write and I plead against what we have wrought.
Poetry, I fear, carries too-little weight.
Poetry, perhaps, has waited too late
to escape the threat when so many lies
have buried the truth for power and greed.
Money has always been the creed
clothed in religion and faith
which grants God’s grace
to those who deserve to see His face
on dollar bills and hung on towers.
False gods seek our praise as they devour
a country whose best citizens
refuse to use their power to remain free,
and would rather lose their democracy.
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