Lying in my bed,

I saw a house being build --


for after my life.

Searching for Galileo,
    the race to be first home,

In a sea of patients
    we climb the probability tree,
    walk upon the shore collecting
      memory shells,

We win the little wars,
     lose the big fight,

These windows are breathing apparatus,
     this ceiling, a blur of tungsten sky,
     rain, tears, weep,

To rest near to you,
     the technicolor sleep,
     and I died with you,

All farewells are sudden.

In room 214B
As far as I can see
Stuck in my mind,
And my bed’s binds,
Lacking mental affinity.

Respiration is a curse.
My mind just makes it worse.
It creates these tiers
Of endless fears,
And inspires my every verse.

I know my life is ending,
My heart has not the mending
It needs to live,
And only gives
Away the time I’m spending.

Can’t waste my breath on crying.
All hope is only lying.
I hear my fate,
Outside he waits,
As the strings of fate are tying.

So in room 214B
I’ll know, by Death’s decree,
I’m out of time,
So I’ll write my rhymes,
Awaiting my darkest infinity.
A void that steals my humanity
In room 214B.

To crave,
Wails of agony, voices soaked in terror?
Call after call, message after message.
Care, love, sympathy?
Succor, surveillance, support?
Tear after tear, hands shaking and grasping?
Pity, solace, warmth?

To receive,
Levigating guilt, being disintegrated.
Evanescensing from reality.
Blood clotting and drying.
Those who are paid to give care,
Who seem as though sympathy;
Hadn't glazed over their eyes in decades.
A room so cold and sterile,
That not even the warmth of my breath
Could stop my bones from shivering under my skin.
Desolating abandonment,
Hums of fluorescent lights,
In chorus with sobs of despondency

It isn't what I wanted.
But it is what I deserved.

I have a special interest in telling about my colonoscopy.
The doc cheerful, secure in his specialty, colon cancer being
the second leading cause of cancer death after lung tumors.
They can snip the precancerous polyps right out of you during the test.
At first the doc gave me the statistics but having paid 25 bucks for this
      interview
I decided to make him explain the science. He was most comfortable
describing the physical architecture of adenomatous v. hyperplastic
      polyps
but what about cell structure I said. He was vague about genes and
      hormones,
I could have been chatting with an Electrolux salesman.
I wasn’t worried although my *** was burning.
Everybody dies, everybody, even Whitman and Emerson, so I browse
      models for dying—
mine are middlebrow, saddlebow—John Wayne in The Shootist, Paul
      Newman in Hombre—or hagiography
Plath her head stuck in an oven, Hemingway who ate his shotgun.
Anyway I was upbeat flirting with the nurse, a muse who has seen it all
      before,
acting tough, which isn’t actually an act
you do your prep and say your prayers.
I thought I’d be in and out **** as you probably already know
the prep for this procedure is worthy of Gandhi. A day of fasting,
clear fluids only, and constant voiding.
You arrive at the hospital one spiritual chicken.
I reflected it can’t hurt, lose a little weight, remember who you are
without so much **** and flesh between you and the natural world.
Snipping polyps is like taking electrons to a lower quantum energy level,
      nearer the nucleus, with fasting and ****** abstinence.
The art of total presence and abstinence, dependence on the Other for
      future existence.

The nurse got me in one stick
A bed is ready for me upstairs,
just as my angry ER neighbor reaches higher octave
The blankets are heated
Most of the staff is kind
Trying their best
I’m losing blood
Not enough for transfusion
More often I find myself floating above the stiff hospital bed on a cloud of Dilaudid
I shuffle to the window in the morning
Stare longingly into the cemetery below
A well kept patch of grass
A smattering of carved stone
No needles
No wires
No tubes
No beeps
No yelling
Peace