Eventually all water drains to the sea,
and so to the body's waters drain to its urinary bladder.
But the bladder,
unlike the sea,
must be drained every few hours,
call it a normative ****** rhythm,
taken for granted, as it should be, by the functionally normal,
but the spine paralyzed
must be catherized
four, five six times a day.
**** breaks through an inserted tube,
to which I can personally report,
the ***** prefers piercing
then being pierced.

There is a new word describing me
type one, type two, type three
nothing is as it once seemed
brown bandages become red, ******
catheters go up my urethra
when I refuse to take your drug test
by accident.
I'm clean, now, clean and pure
I take Abilify to make sure
and remember that it's all an imbalance
and remember that everyone else is balanced
and remember that the whole ******* world is balanced
on a tether formed by gravity
gravity-- the severity of this situation-- is lost on me
and on that tether we all walk
unbridled by the weight of our bodies
we can shake all that makes us human
and pathologize every thought crime
every idea needs to be cleansed
with a catheter into the brain
we would be able to test it for drugs
and find that all I was high on was existence
and how terrible it is
that we will all die
but that shouldn't bother a doctor at all, now
should it.

Tonight, I cannot sleep because
I am too hot.
My face shines like wax
With sweat and oil
And the heat is like wet jellyfish in my clothes
And I must *** so I get
Up and when I see the dark me-creature in the mirror
I think of myself not as human
But blood and bones and fat and meat.
Just a biological fleshpile.
Chalk and butter and copper juice and pink slime hamburger.

I won’t turn on the light because I
Like to pretend to be blind when it’s dark.
I pretend that blackness is just water to swim through
And I feel my way to the can.
I leak yellow
And think of hospital catheters
And how I’m just a bag of warring fluids
Propped up on sticks.
I get up and vertigo swirls my brains
With an egg beater on low
Until my inner ear is quite confused
And I go whump on the sharp tiles like a dropped onion.
Before I flip the light switch,
All I can get through my greasy three-pound brain is
"Maybe it'll need an X-ray."

I slaughter
And mangle myself in this manner
Every five minutes.
All night.

I don’t want to be a thing that dies.

I came home late from work today
My wife was hopping mad
She said "we've got to put him somewhere"
"I've had it with your dad"

I asked what was the problem
She said "The second you left home"
"He was out back in the garden"
"Sitting, talking to a gnome"

"I see", I said, that isn't good
"Then the war games in the trees"
"The next time I looked out he was"
"Crawling on his hands and knees'

"I went out to go and get him"
"He threw me down and slapped my ***"
He said "you have to get down low dear"
"Or you'll be spotted by the ***"

I suggested that we look about
For a nice old country home
He could play his war games in the woods
And I would let him take the gnome

My wife said "Make it happen"
And I heard through the back door
"It better happen quickly"
"Because I can not take much more!"

I called and found a nice spot
Princess Patricia's Old Vets Place
It was cheap and fit our budget
And it sure had lots of space

We went up for a visit
Before we put my dad in there
I mean, if it was not to his liking
Then it would not be quite fair

The head nurse gave us info
About the hours and the fees
And we told her of how Daddy
Liked to play war games in the trees

She said "He's going to love it"
"It sounds like he's a real good sport"
"The vets here have a Navy"
"Out on the tennis court"

"They strap bed pans to their feet"
"And they go skating down the hall"
"Some unhook their catheters"
"And have duels upon the wall"

"They see who shoots the highest"
"Which one can write their name"
"And every time we show a war film"
"It all ends up the same"

"He'll fit right in, no problem"
"I can sign him in today"
My wife just stood and smiled
Pulled out the cheque,with which to pay

Dad, not really caring
Watched the woods for an attack
I don't think that he cared much
If we ever did come back

He's happy at the moment
Giving orders to the gnome
Out deep in the country
At Princess Pat's Old Vets Home

Life is back to normal
All is well for her and me
Although lately I've seen soldiers
Hiding, watching in the trees.....

Letter to My Lawyers.

Being of sound mind and body...

To whom should I leave my teeth
Which person do I love
Enough, to leave my smile to
When I'm dead and up above

My grandson will get my glass eye
When my life is at an end
I'd imagine I could see him
playing marbles with his friends

My artificial knee cap
I'll leave to my younger sister May
She can have it in her living room
As a brand new candy tray

I think I'll leave my hearing aids
To the woman up the road
They don't work too well anyways
And in truth, the cow's a toad!!

The breast implants that I have got
Are old, and slightly mottled
But, I'll leave them to the nursing home
As two hot water bottles

All my unused catheters, to the pet store
that's my wish
They can use them in aquariums
Pumping air for all their fish

This is my will and testament
It's my National Health Care list
These bits of me are all I own
There might be some things that I missed

My artificial hip joint
I'll give to the fellow down the lane
He can clean it up a little bit
And there's a topper for his cane

Anything else that I forgot
That is still good, I want to go
To someone who might need it
Make it someone that I know

One last thing I ask now
my support hose, goes to Jack
He always wanted a nice hammock
To swing in out the back!!!

those are very sharp apples. bobbing for catheters and chasms have their own parabolas  
or might you think your urchin skin; the pinnacle of passive violence
in the **** kingdom of your vibration
in the valley of our entropy.
the Either Nor'easter
of our zero degrees
West.

Due South of Sound Reason.

the locals call  " the sound "
where the heads pool the dark waters of our consciousness
and eddies abide beneath the radiant dirge
of sweet sweet life, and  singing blue whale pods in the dodgy brush-fires
of our Marianas Trench-coat Lining
the vocals explode the random and un-cloaked , it disappears as phenomenal
and all men seize the kelp beds of our delirium
with bashful wisdom.

I press my lips against your wet yes! and all this is January-nettles for jam.

for all seasons.

~
Weather balloon for a hat
propeller on his back
morning is observably alive

leaving it to atmospheric pressure

he consumes today's newspaper
with the enthusiasm of a bowl
of Corn Flakes

this Heath Robinson contraption
of getting to work first
over enemy lines
is all the rage in his satirical
state of mind

that is until the absurd derailment
of wartime employment

and so he returns home with tubes
and catheters attached to his body
and feeling like one
of the unwieldy machines
he had so often created

full of atmospheric pressure

and apparently thinking it
an undignified fate
he pulls out the tubes
and quietly dies
of his own invention
~

The first one read, simply, that you were finally going to die
It was short and sweet and it was a beautiful goodbye
I read on to hear of pain, of catheters and of humiliation
Your tone was calm as you spoke of rosaries and salvation
but your less than poorly cracked jokes tell me that you're tired
from sewing buttons down the back of vertically slit night gowns
unable to conjure up the strength to feed yourself to gain pounds
I received a letter each day for six days
I opened up a letter each day for six days
I hesitated reading a letter each day for six days
until you said how much these letters had brought you peace

pulsating and deep

dripping sweat,

and nothing but heat.

hips pointed high,

and eyes to the sky.

In a rocking motion,

thigh against thigh.

while you just lay there,

with your eyes open wide

... never knowing,

you're tearing from inside.



Until you're moving,

moving all about.

And you're bleeding,

so you shout!



And friends come running,

while the boy once full of motion -

just continues lying there.

With no concern at all,

except for himself,

and his hair.



Soon the hours start to pass,

the catheters, the doctors, the glass.

The blood flows, but the heart just stops.

Maybe from the morphine drip,

maybe from the tear,

maybe from the Mother,

whose now standing there.



The one who will stroke your filthy palm,

the one who you'll tell:

you raised a little girl, ma,

who can't choose men real well.



But if luck still exsists,

she'll hold you without a care.

And she'll help to mend the tear

that left you lying there.



Eventually you'll drift to sleep,

maybe out of weakness,

maybe after a good weep.

The suture will come out,

and the blood will cease.

But you, sweet darling,

will awake nowhere near peace.



Know you can clean up the mess, girl,

and you can hide that scar.

But the truth is, it's there,

wherever you are.



And he's not alone.

There's plenty of him.

But maybe next time sweet girl,

you won't just seek a lover,

but a friend.

If you should find yourself nineteen,
far more concerned with the outside world to consider
the worth of drawing breath on this Earth,
I urge you to listen.


This will hit you harder than most,
feed you the value of time in the form of pills,
catheters, biopsies,
injections, therapy,
and hair loss.


Lessons come in sessions,
prolonged periods of side effects
enough to fuel your impatience.
You’ll find yourself staring blankly at the ceiling,
perhaps more often than you’d wish,
deep in thoughts built to land you in a ward.


But you are not here to write poems
dwelling on the uncertainty of your further existence.

You are here to dance in the face of adversity.

Dust off your armor.
Take aim.

Alone in the wind,
Blowing me once again,
Someplace, far off from here.
Better to live admist, breeze and mist,
In the clouds, awaiting a writ
To come on down, from a supposed higher power
Than labor on the wager
That things get better.

I remember nothing, that night I had my crash
7 cracked ribs, 1 punctured lung, the other collapsed, my spine taking the ultimate bash
9 months inside, those doctors saving my life, where would I be without the NHS
27 years old, life just at its beginning, those days gone would now be your best

Waking up I looked at my mum and then looked at my dad, tracheostomy stopping me from talking
6 weeks induced coma, crazy dreams I couldn’t tell you, girlfriend now presumably walking
Knowing before told, who is going to be so bold, to tell me the news I knew but still did dread
Dad by my side, a finalisation they could not hide, it’s unlikely you will ever walk again

This I knew but dare not say, family and friends suffering in the know
A wheelchair for life, not me, its not right, too young for this to swallow
Moved to a place where spinal injuries were rife
Stanmore National Orthopaedic Hospital. an institution where you start to see the light

Moved from ward to ward, progress slow but on the mend
contemplating so many situations and a world I did not understand
faces and places now all the same still lying on my back
I want to sit up, be normal again and get this soul back on track

Taught about so much that I really did not know
your biggest priority now was your skin, pressure sores a definite no-no
learning to go to the toilet in a completely different way
catheters and a tube of ****, a perverted dream for some that even pay

The outside world a playground not built for the likes of those in a wheelchair
a trip into town, get used to the tube, disabled design back in the day not really a care
getting into a car, an ease all my life, now governed by the height of the roof
legs under a table, as some now unable, the world now a minefield is the honest truth

I met some characters in that place, men and women with stories to make your mouth drop
some on drugs, some back from the war, one woken from a spinal stroke, wow what a crop
I met certain nurses, most of whom were fabulous and are still now friends
then there were a certain few, riled and crass and basically, a pain in the ***

And this is where life starts all over again
getting used to the looks, sympathetic and loving, life now on a new trend
from being stuck in that ward where a suppository is now needed for my ***
you’ll know where I am, end of the corridor, bay 3 bed 1

JJB

As much as one hates to use the pronoun “I”, writing or speaking, there are times when ‘I’ is the middle point and of the essence.
Sincerely,
Arlene (see footnote).        

  Now & Then, How I Miss…

I practice living the Now.
But now and then
I miss the old Arlene
Who had ten
                    fingers;
Who could play arpeggios
With ease:
Adagios, capriccios,
Effortlessly
Trouble-free.

Un-nostalgic, chanced to see
And old Youtube of Arlene-me
Singing, playing“All God’s Chillun” speedily,
Gleeful, musical and jazzy.
Wound up teary-eyed.

With just three left to play with:
Thumb and index on the left, only lonely thumb the right,
Filled with weakness
I can play a swinging bass
With Monk-like dissonance between,
The right thumb not at all a small dumb finger.

The trick will be to sow creativeness anew.,
Augment, stretch, grow and not go into
Any other place than Now
(if Now at all can be referred to
                                        as a ‘place’.
I rather think of it as space).

In any case,
I was a little sad today;
The old Arlene who cannot play
The way she used to,
Caused by nature’s vagary.

Dear reader, please forget  
This sentimental, reminiscent “…How I Miss…”
A useless business at the very least.
Now &Then, How I Miss…1.6.2020 Vaguely About Music; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin collapsed on August 3rd, 2019.  In a coma for a month, when she awoke, there were 4 fingers missing on the right hand, 3 half fingers on the left,  and two catheters in one kidney   The cause: Blood poisoning or sepsis (from the Greek ‘sepin’ make rotten).  After two months she was home.  Muscles shrunken, walking with help she began a regime of sit-ups, pushups, yoga…and using every object inI the house as tool now is fully flexible and growing stronger with each day.
But the hands, those hands…We’ll see what happens.

two catheters
one in each tender cavity
the bag held above my head by a dark
evil face, smiling, ready for destruction
fluids of fear
desire drips into the divet of my elbow
floods into my desperate body
what i would do to wrap these punctured arms around you
but for your sake i lay here
i must keep you away, let you go
i don’t deserve your love
i am a disappointment

the wind and mind flavored
by extraterrestrial wanderings
i crave the six tastes
especially salty, sour and sweet
as a water buffalo ambles down the street
catharsis in somnambulant heat
sweat and catheters dripping at our feet
the precipitous welcoming party
where chaos and compassion meet
in the etheric theater and compare notes
about a performance some dare to call real life
upon ubiquitous streets
covered in grief, street food and ***** soil
that might someday be the only things left for us to eat

As much as one hates to use the pronoun “I”, writing or speaking, there are times when ‘I’ is the middle point and of the essence.
Sincerely,
Arlene (see footnote).        

  Now & Then, How I Miss…

I practice living the Now.
But now and then
I miss the old Arlene
Who had ten
                    fingers;
Who could play arpeggios
With ease:
Adagios, capriccios,
Effortlessly
Trouble-free.

Un-nostalgic, chanced to see
And old Youtube of Arlene-me
Singing, playing“All God’s Chillun” speedily,
Gleeful, musical and jazzy.
Wound up teary-eyed.

With just three left to play with:
Thumb and index on the left, only lonely thumb the right,
Filled with weakness
I can play a swinging bass
With Monk-like dissonance between,
The right thumb not at all a small dumb finger.

The trick will be to sow creativeness anew.,
Augment, stretch, grow and not go into
Any other place than Now
(if Now at all can be referred to
                                        as a ‘place’.
I rather think of it as space).

In any case,
I was a little sad today;
The old Arlene who cannot play
The way she used to,
Caused by nature’s vagary.

Dear reader, please forget  
This sentimental, reminiscent “…How I Miss…”
A useless business at the very least.
Now &Then, How I Miss…1.6.2020 Vaguely About Music; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin collapsed on August 3rd, 2019.  In a coma for a month, when she awoke, there were 4 fingers missing on the right hand, 3 half fingers on the left,  and two catheters in one kidney   The cause: Blood poisoning or sepsis (from the Greek ‘sepin’ make rotten).  After two months she was home.  Muscles shrunken, walking with help she began a regime of sit-ups, pushups, yoga…and using every object inI the house as tool now is fully flexible and growing stronger with each day.
But the hands, those hands…We’ll see what happens.

in sheepskin and marmalade we palaver and jig our rods in the Nile
but seldom, Our sunspots blighted and the constant barrage of
darkening's become the strobe wafer-thin ramblings
of madmen with catheters for priests,
and Catholics for conniption fits
for faraway kings
to dish about in near-away
parlors of unpolished reality.
Yea! sans varnish and crickets with rickets
and a whole host of dismay, dismayed by gardens-
and a whole menagerie -
an appeal to a constant
NO!

receiving a fair bit of the Real on a stick
and a few fairies
in the wing ***** of our falderal  
Nesting in Summers, too keen on Winter
and anointed by the drizzle
of a sumptuous outsized
Joy

a dangle in the tinsel of a calm.

half annoyed.

I roll into the shower and feel the heat
The hot water on my head, my shoulders, my soul, but not my feet
Then I close my eyes and wish this forever as my sleep.....


SMASH!

I look around and my baby has tipped over my catheters
Well she has only just turned one, God bless her
How could I wish for a life away,
When I now have her forever in my days

JJB