It’s strangely busy around the deathbeds,
as well it’s my last nightshift of the year.
I try to make no noise, can you hear me?
Push my hand, if you can, move a limb.
Your breath is so slow, please keep going,
monitors flash in time with the ventilator.
I’ll control the pupils, I know it’s blinding.
No one goes with their sparkling old eyes,
we are usually fading before we are dying.

The feel of the pen
on the paper
the poet grabs a verse.

the dripping of morphine
the flow of endorphins
flow of electronic lines
across the monitor
let’s hope we don’t flatline

this mere mortal
needs a portal to the stars
this mere mortal needs
defibrillation to the heart
the way the poetry forms
in the lungs and the mind
the way life needs beauty
is sometimes unkind

I am the blood transfusion
the illusion
of poems
bells chime
Electrons flow
Radioactive  X-rays know
Poetry opens doors

I am the emergency poet
I will take flight
in flames
never shall I be tamed
But I will make that heart beat
and get you out of your seat
And on the road to recovery
and discovery

Because poetry heals
and steals back our songs
what could go wrong?

mist forgives the city scene
                          of so much
it permits us a slower pace

over the hospital chimneys
a preditor *****
until it catches the heat exhaust and rises
in a tight spiral

The word “Emergency”
in the acronym ER
sure brings about raw emotion
and pressed awareness

You are further removed, now
both in mental and physical states
The doctor was worried
What comes next?

My mind glosses over possibilities
Too much trauma undertaken
A mask to extract?
Or crisis, true?

What if the end is near?
Rarely do we see it coming
The tears of loss and relief
are all the same to gravity

I’d think of the greatness
you could’ve become
Biting my tongue, speaking instead of
the lives you did touch

Life is fleeting
Worrying offers illusory action
Gratitude is infinite
Connection holds the key

I used to think I'd be saving lives.
But the truth hits me hard and I realize,

Some sickness is impossible to cure,
And promises of wholeness just a lure.

I make every effort often in vain
To send you back home better than you came.

But to prolong life often means to suffer.
So I have another gift that I can offer.

I can be your escort to death;
Be a witness to your last breath.

I will guide you on your final journey.
Give you comfort and numb your hurting.

Don't be afraid, you won't be alone,
For I am watching over you as one of my own.

I stop my tears til I can release them later.
I'll walk you to the doorway. I am the gatekeeper.

I am soft and mandible:  
          fresh clay,         the inside of an oyster,        the belly of an armadillo.  
          vulnerable.                      tender.  ­                             the anti-sharp.

everything is blurred.  dulled.  hidden
behind a gossamer haze and ambient noise.  
a photo out of focus.            one eye closed and ten feet back.  

dizzy.            so dizzy.            disoriented.  
there is no logic here.             no rules.             no laws.  
and that’s what makes it horrible and incomprehensible.  

the transplant recipient still dies.  the man in perfect health
                                                                ­suddenly has cancer.
the proned patient flipped back to supine for intubation
                                                codes and dies immediately.  

nonsense.  it’s all nonsense.  
it's easier to take a breath and
                                                        compartmentalize.

When surgeons open my body
They’ll find
         E v e r g r e e n
Snow capped mountains with endless expanses of ice

They will find a certain
              s t i  l l n e s s
No whispering between the trees
No flowers singing in the sun

I’ll be dreaming of the heat
I’ve been missing in my fingertips for so long
I have frost bite
on e v e r y s i n g l e o n e

When surgeons open my body
looking for my heart
they’ll find S t a t i c
A silence that e c h o s  
A kind of silence you only know after tragedy

I have
An  e   m   p   t     y  space
where my lungs once were
Holding  N o t h i n g
but a vigil witnessed only by one small girl with t i n y t i n y hope
All fading away
in the abandoned town
I have resting
between each breath


- When the surgeons open my body
- They will find many many secrets inside