"bedpans" poems
it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse
a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...
it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
****** ****** robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
*** except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
youve monopolised our lives
and get it wrong at every turn
we are born into one of your hoshitholes
destined to die in the same hole
some day
under your care
no other option
but to put our lives in the hands of incompetents
NHS doctors
NHS doctrine
NHS business models built upon sugar pill suckers
cant afford bedpans
funds low
i feel my pain
i havent got the *** to **** in or the mercedes benz to sustain
my sympathy ended the same way your empathy did
in your apathy
like my life will one day soon
under you care
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 3:38 PM UTC
this must be satan’s emergency room. where so withdrawn I declare myself in need of stitches. where my mother empties vending machines once a week hoping to see me but dresses like a man her father knew. where paperwork is accepted from females only and files one as pregnant or twice as pregnant. where my son would make an airplane but for the heat in his hands. where my feet grow toward the ocean until I am all feet and my face goes straight. where satan himself does what he can. fills the bedpans on days of inspection.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
My total
independence
has gone.
I can't see
where I 'm going,
my blind eyes
fail me.
I can't walk anywhere
as my leg stumps
prevent that.
I can't even do
the usual things
I used to do:
like urinate
or other.
Just dependant
on the nurses
to come
and deal with me,
and the things
that need doing.
I lie
in the bed
waiting,
listening to voices,
hearing bedpans
being taken by,
wheelchairs
needing oiling
being pushed past
the foot
of my bed.
I habitually go
to scratch a foot
that's not there
because it itches.
I go to get up
to go somewhere,
and I realise
I have no legs
to get there.
I call out
and wait
and a nurse
comes and says,
what is it Grace?
I want to get up
and dressed
and go out
in the sunshine
not be stuck
here all day.
I say.
We will be
with you
in a minute,
we had a rush on
last night
the German's bombed
the docks
and quite a few
were injured
and were brought here.
She goes
and I am left
here in the dark.
I think of Clive
that night
he brought
me home
from the dance,
and I asked him
to stay the night.
It was the day
before he was due
to join the army,
and I said,
it could be
our last time
for ages,
so he stayed,
and we went to bed
and made love
as never before,
and it was
the last time.
And that moment
after he left,
I felt so alive
so fulfilled.
Then went
and got
himself killed.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 3:11 AM UTC
I wake up in a panic,
but it is still darkness
my blind eyes see,
having dreamed I saw
my garden at my house,
but then it dawns on me
that the house was bombed,
and as I feel for my legs,
I realize the stumps are there
and the legs gone.
I lie on the pillow
and stare into darkness,
listening to the sounds around:
voices, calls, bedpans
being used, footsteps,
wheelchair(needing oiling)
going by the bottom of my bed.
I smell disinfect and *****
and perfume, and ointment.
Morning, Grace, a nurse says
to me on my right, how are
you this morning?
I dreamt I was in my garden
and saw the flowers
and the apple tree
and woke up to darkness
and depression, I say,
staring towards her voice,
trying to give an impression
I could see her.
Yes, that happens to those
who have seen before
they lost their sight,
the nurse says softly.
She lifts up my nightdress
and I feel her fingers
touch the bandages
on my stumps,
her fingers moving
over them.
They still hurt,
I say,
still painful, despite
the medication.
I know, Grace, they can
only take off the
edge of pain,
but they will get better
as time heals the wounds
and the stumps
seal up properly,
the nurse says.
Another nurse comes
on my left and says:
there was a jam factory
got bombed last night
and some of the girls
who worked there
got horribly burnt
by hot boiling sugar and jams.
Yes, I heard,
the nurse on my right says.
I lie and sink into
a deep hole of self-pity,
listening to the talking
as they unwrap my bandages
and finger the stumps.
As they touch me,
I think of Clive,
that night he first
made love to me,
his kisses, and him
lying between my thighs
and me sensing him
within me and the bed
moving beneath us
as if on a vast sea of pleasure
and we on a small craft
moving up and down
and him kissing my lips
and ear and head.
Now he is dead.
The nurses touch my stumps,
then clean them and wash them
and bandage them up again,
all the time talking around me
of the jam factory blast
and girls burnt
and some dying,
and I lie here
gently crying.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 4:36 AM UTC
when you agonized over bed sheets and bedpans,
the drip of the IV and the trip of your heartbeat,
the messages (or lack thereof) that you received and the faces you had to greet,
the sweet, un-soothing words of sorrow spoken over your head,
what did you believe heaven would be?
did the crusted blood on your stitches burst forward like coral?
and your bruises, did they blossom into crocuses -
the violent violet of careless injections and the yellow-green of chemotherapy nausea?
what about your articulate thoughts, the ones under your sunken skull?
surely they went out the window only to perform sun dance amidst
the snowdrops at the end of your winter.
when you agonized over your will and your will to fight,
the house-turned-mausoleum and the North-less children,
what did you believe heaven would be?
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 2:40 AM UTC