How many ventilators can you buy for the price of an Aircraft Carrier?

her eyes taped closed
to keep them from drying out
IV’s and NG’s going in
tubes draining
ventilators and blood pressure machines
so many tubes keeping her stable
so many tubes
can a person become a shell?
I can still see her

end of life support procedures
morphine drip to make her “comfortable”
gradient decrease in blood pressure maintenance
drifting off to eternal sleep

an impromptu improvised ritual
a heartfelt prayer
a hands on circle of family
touching her
a rosary’s recital

said my goodbyes earlier
I understand it was best to let her go
but couldn't stay to watch her last breath
after Dad and Tops
thought I’d be more prepared
thought I was all cried out

I never thought I'd be
a pack a day
kind of girl.

I've seen the school assemblies,
heard my mother's shrill voice,
Don't you know what those things will do to you?
I've heard about the tar and the ash
and the cancer and the ventilators.

But there's something
about smoke curling around itself,
warm and inviting in the sharp,
snow scented air,
tiptoeing around my head
like a house cat.

There's something dangerous in
the scent of smoke on my skin,
in the taste of ash on my tongue.
Something that seems to say
I am not the kind of girl to **** around with.

It's a secret, a sly smile,
something that is all mine.
It's a destructive tendency,
it's a bad decision.
But it's mine, mine, mine
to make.

The mouse in the maze is very weary.
It’s way too much concerted effort
Just to earn a grain of corn.
The route is always changing
And someone turns off and on the lights.
The music plays the same song, over
The humming of the ventilators
And the shutter bangs incessantly.

The mouse is tired of stupid games.
No one cares which way it runs,
Or how much corn drops into the bowl.
The smell of *** in the far back corner
Makes the air unpleasant to inhale.
The will to win another piece of corn
Battles with the need to find
The exit that is at the other end.

Notes have to be written down
Measurements and timings
Fill the logbooks of the staff,
As bored and weary as the mouse.
Protocols must still be followed
Finally the time clock in the hall
Clicks over to the magic hour
And mouse and men can all go home.
            ljm

A house

A house
without books
is a house
without windows and ventilators

By: Cedric McClester

I take a flu shot each and every year
And I had a pneumonia vaccine so I didn’t fear
Guess that’s why my *** wasn’t in gear
When the symptoms initially began to appear
I relied on RobiTussin instead
And wound up being a day from dead
When the ambulance was called I was code red
We’re off to Lenox Hill Hospital the driver said

Caught a bad case of pneumonia
Weeks before the Coronavirus hit
Which was something I thought that I couldn’t get
And it really had me feeling like a *******
But I was lucky I have to admit
As I lie there struggling to catch my breath
The hospital had plenty of ventilators left
No need to condole or to be bereft

My family gathered in intensive care
To the person they were acutely aware
That I didn’t have a lot of time to spare
Which gave them all a great big scare
But I told the woman in my life
That I would make it, see she was my wife
So she allowed the doctors to intubate me
That’s why today I’m pneumonia free

For a while it was a crap shoot I  must confess
When my temperature went up I became a hot mess
But the nurses and doctors were among the best
So they induced a coma so I wouldn’t digress
My chances of survival were a mere 50/50
And that kind of diagnosis just isn’t nifty
It was only when they decided to shift me
From the ICU that I began to heal swiftly



















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2020.  All rights reserved.

The old house stands still.
Rot has set in.
A flying termite caught in the webs of a dead spider, sway to the shrill of a ceiling fan.
All things sway.
Dreams rise and suffocate in the mouldering  mortars
Falling on the adjacent tiled roof. 
They scream, laugh, make love, declare the infiniteness 
Of their finite existence through diatribes of reality and unreality.

They are passionate bunch, 
Bound by their common desire to be. And blood. 
And the house just is. It still is. 
Once there were sparrows in the ventilators. 
And envious bayas on the palm trees. 
The ripples in the pond sing their dark, merry tunes
Licking away its edges, 
And they shove and trample for the whiff of north wind.

Life persists in slow, lonely decadence. 
The cactus on the roof thrives in monsoon and in summer. 
Basil live and die, live and die trenched in the never ending circle 
Of micro-civilisation. 
The house harvests its own sustenance in the whispers among its bricks
That become a collective 
And a roar is heard. 
They pray to Earth.

The old house is defiant, 
The old house is tired. 
Its melting skin sizzles and stinks of industry of old, 
A glorious past always in the distant like the horizon, 
The promise of bright future exposed to the misery
That is naturalness of time. 
The hammer rusted, **** has grown over, 
They clinch onto the sickle like oxygen.

An older lady…No mask… arsenic and old lace
scuttling along…so I think to cross.
Just to give her more space.
“I haven’t got it…” she shouts, full bore, almost in my face
“No… but I might have - you just don’t know.
There’s no point in you having a go!”

“I’m wearing a mask to protect both of us
so I don’t know why you’re making a fuss.”
“I told you I haven’t got it… so you can just get stuffed”
Whoa… a minute!… Who’s rattled your bars?
Would you like a mask. I always carry a spare?
“You can just *******”, she said “ ‘cos I really don’t care!”

She’s the one who waves her stick at cars
and picks imaginary fluff off her coat…
So she needs to be looked out for… looked after.
Next time I’ll be on the look out. I’ll take special note
maybe go round the block the other way.
That way I won’t upset her; she’ll have a better day.

I know this situation is affecting everyone
in every country all around the world.  People get tetchy.
But that’s no good reason to abandon reason.
It’s rough, it’s tough - and even good manners are
sometimes not enough… So make time
for others who can’t make the best of things.

Best accept we’re in this for the long haul
because that’s what it’s going to be…
For a generation at least this will be
the way we have to live… balancing
breathing freely against economics,
against promises of socialising in the sun…

Then - No Fun!...No Frolics

Against drip-stands, ventilators and fears that run
deep into our county, our country… our world.
Here she comes again… “I ain’t got it, I ain’t got it!”
Good for you girl!

Wow, it turns out Trump was right.
I saw it on “the Onion” - posted overnight.

Scientists woke up today and the virus
was simply gone - the miracle - has happened.
And they said that Trump was wrong!

The once dying - started laughing
first responders broke into song
patients shrugged off ventilators
they can go back home where they belong.

That God has been so merciful
is a story ripped from scripture
and since Trump - the antichrist - is here
we can move on to the rapture!