"forties" poems
I am from New Jersey.
From the paradise of small towns
And the inferno of concrete jungles.
I am from truck tire playgrounds,
Porch Clubs, and the whistle
Of the Riverline.
I am from divorce.
From alcoholism and denial,
From broken doors and hearts.
I am from next to hell.
From pouring out full forties
For one's homies passed away.
From too many candlelight vigils
And sidewalks littered with fourth grade pictures.
I am from the garden state.
From cows, corn, and Clinton,
And tractors in the parking lot.
I am from tradition.
From pasta and seven fishes,
From "Mafiosa!" screamed in the streets
And "No WHOPs" pasted on storefronts.
I am from love.
From three parents and four siblings,
From six dogs and duplicate holidays,
And the smell of tulips and holly.
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
Ben Kowalewicz (spoken): Hi, my name is Ben Kowalewicz and this is Billy Talent.
Well I tripped, I fell down naked
I drank from a cup of lead
I hugged a skunk, it peed on me
Yesterday I joined Scientology
Steal a Camaro, then **** Jack Sparrow
Try stupid **** try stupid ****
Jump in a dump truck, smell **** and get stuck
I cannot read, I cannot read
**** on computers, then drink some pewter
Die sanity, die sanity
Marry a cheapskate, gain ninety pounds weight
I'm really dumb, I'm really dumb
I'm stupid, it's my fault, so daft
I like to play in the garbage shaft
The best sport is Parkour, **** straight
I arrive at work five hours late
Drink a deep fryer, eat some barbed wire
Try stupid **** try stupid ****
Sleep in a fireplace, burn your entire face
I cannot read, I cannot read
Cinnamon challenge, go on a chalk binge
Die sanity, Die sanity
Bike into traffic, pose pornographic
I'm a ******* I'm a *******
I ate some poo!
I'm stupid, it's my fault
Try
I'm stupid, it's my fault
Lie
This bad song don't make sense
Pie
Get a Prince Albert, snake blood for dessert now?
Drink some Everclear, cut off your own ear now?
Go back in time to, forties as a Jew
Try stupid **** try stupid ****
Do *** and rip off your right knee
I cannot read, I cannot read
Find the KKK, put on some blackface
Die sanity, die sanity
Locate a pervert, then take off your shirt
I am a twit, I am a twit
I am a twit, I am a twit
Try stupid **** try stupid ****
I am a twit, I am a twit
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 6:15 PM UTC
Babies, babies everywhere
Usually it's your opinion I share
We're too old, too tired, too busy
But the babies all around me are making me dizzy
I'm rational, realistic and levelheaded
It would be enough for me if we were just wedded
Barely in our forties, but our youth in the past
But I feel that the baby window is closing fast
We each have our own and have been down this road a time or two
But they're all growing up so fast, and I've never gotten to have one with you
Robbed of that chance, I feel like we missed out on what should've been our life, our destiny
But I feel blessed for the boys we have and I will be happy if that's all that's meant to be
Babies are loud and they're too expensive
And, truthfully, I really do like the way we live
So many obstacles stand in the way
A vasectomy, decreased fertility, how to pay
It all gets so technical and sterile and void of romance
I wonder if there is even the slightest chance
All the procedures we'd need to endure
So with this decision, we both must be sure
Will we regret it and wish we had chosen a different path
I don't want to end up in the poor house for not doing the math
I'm so busy, would a surrogate be the way to go
A nanny is fine for after, but with a surrogate, can a bond grow
Then there's the smell of their hair
That special bond that only you two share
The way they hold onto you as if you hold the key to their heart
The look of total terror in their eyes whenever you must part
A small piece of me and a small piece of you
Someone we create together, something we chose to do
The one we were supposed to have years ago
The dream that neither of us quite let go
Here we are, decades later, together again
Has too much time passed, too much life been
Or was it always meant to be this way, We're older and wiser and more ready today
It may never work and I need you to know, that I'm happy with just us if that's God's plan
But if this is possible and my last chance, then I know you are the perfect man
They'll all talk about us and say we're too old and crazy
But this is how I chose to tell you, I'd like to try to have your baby
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 1:52 AM UTC
scaled your apartment in one of my favorite dresses
right before sundown
watched the wind billow the blue silk up my thighs,
parachute like
as i looked down,
several stories above your neighbors
(wonder if anyone looked up)
swallowed my human fear, counted the rungs
had opened our forties prematurely in your apartment
sure didn't make climbing any easier
that big map stretched out yawning across the bricks in your living room
spotted the city you were headed for
blame it on uninformed geography but didn't
realize you'd be completely across the country
(didn't tell you but
your cat kissed my nose from the bathroom counter
while i was peeing
and i thought it was one of the most endearing things
that probably ever happened to me)
got to your roof outta breath
all adrenaline and eyes
took off that big leather jacket lined with fleece,
wrapped it around our backs and sat
facing the city you'd be leaving and i'd be entertaining
watched the traffic crawl on the BQE
the sunset bored, you spilled your beer-
kept rolling in it innocently- ******
laughing, god i just
wanted to keep touching you
couldn't decide what to eat
both didn't wanna impose
neither of us could remember the name of that tree
littering pink slippery offspring in spring
for you and me to exclaim fondness over
you were the birth of a simplicity
it was so
terribly easy to be happy
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 11:31 PM UTC
I’ve ordered and carried my steaming cup of brown to my table to ignore the falling snow beyond the walls of this box.
My clothes are wrong, my hair as well.
I just cut it, and everyone knows which mistakes I made.
A man sneezes and the song changes.
Better not make eye contact with anyone; I am not in their league, here at the muddy spoon cafe.
Chewing so loudly in the de-creeping silence,
these safe, polite, quiet ones.
I am the creep here. I am different.
My thighs are tense.
Hunching over the paper, arms tense and clutching a gnarled red pen--
It’s probably self-indulgent to even sign my name.
Someone’s shuffling cards.
I almost forgot.
The awkwardness I’m filled with breathes out a short sigh when I realize
--my part’s over.
“Do you know Sanskrit? Do you know what that is?”
A woman asks another.
I want to choke on the pretension
The tenseness, I adjust my leg to relieve pressure on my ankle.
Why can’t I just enjoy the snow? That’s all I really came here for-- well, and the coffee.
I hear a woman cough with an unaffected tenor, which would convey her gender to an interested party but to me carries no intonation.
I wonder if the girl I recognize from class thinks I’m following her.
I came here for coffee, sweetheart!
Is it yet too hot for me to dare a drink?
I can see it, the steam, rising out of the corner of my eye.
I haven’t looked away from my hand in twenty minutes.
“Who am I?” they may be asking myself for me.
I don’t have a clue.
They can think about that problem
for themselves
while they’re lonely
in their forties.
I’m lonely now and I hope not to live
that long.
Here, we pretend not to see each other’s faces
in the gleaming presence of steaming cups.
“I don’t want to wonder about that.”
I realize there’s nothing I even deem worth writing down.
Feb 5, 2012
Feb 5, 2012 at 4:13 AM UTC
By day he wore a face of stone,
a man at work, a man at home.
Mid-tier, mid-forties, fading fast,
a shadow built to never last.
Unseen, unseen, the hours crawled,
his name half-heard, his voice forestalled.
Reliable. Invisible.
Forgettable. Admissible.
But night —
night gave him another skin,
a grinning mask, a skeleton grin.
Blurry selfies, pumpkin puns,
cheap delights for midnight ones.
And they laughed.
They saw.
He mattered more
than the man he’d left behind the door.
She answered louder than the rest,
late-twenties, lonely, dispossessed.
Her laughter quick, replies too fast,
his irony returned as gospel, cast.
“I know this isn’t you,” she said.
“I want the man who hides instead.”
He recoiled.
Deleted.
Ghosted.
Fled.
But silence is a mask that turns,
and absence is a fire that burns.
3:33, the phone alight,
a skeleton meme each waiting night.
3:33, a plastic hand,
a note enclosed: You’ll understand.
3:33, the offering grows —
a pumpkin smashed, its seeds exposed.
Her love became a ritual rhyme,
his jokes became a curse in time.
“You don’t get to leave,” she swore,
“You owe me you, forevermore.”
And he —
the man who sought the crowd,
who wanted laughter, not too loud,
who craved the gaze but feared the weight,
found every mask could seal his fate.
No one is innocent here, no one.
Not the trickster, not the one undone.
He wore deception like a shield,
she made obsession her battlefield.
Now only one mask still remains —
cheap plastic grin through windowpanes.
Spoopy, childish, still, absurd,
yet sharper than his final word.
The curtains gap, the silence bends,
a tilted grin that never ends.
And he knows, beneath the grin so slight:
her mask will never leave the night.
Sep 22, 2025
Sep 22, 2025 at 4:41 AM UTC
You were in a Donatella Versaci masterpiece
I was in a Bottega Veneta custom
Diana Krall was in the stereo
Lemon lobster baking in the oven
And you and I
You and I were slow dancing like eighth graders
In the living room
With the coffee table pushed to the wall
And the T.V. cabinet cupboard shut
So we could have a little more room for our evening waltz
I guess that's what I get
For watching a romantic comedy and the Emmy's
On the same night
And even though that dream may be twenty years from ever coming true,
Because both you and I were in our forties
Trying to impress each other with how interesting
We could keep our relationship
Even though we both knew all we had to do
Was wake up in the morning and smile at each other
To fall in love again,
It was worth it because in that dream
I could actually dance
And the lobster was amazing
Say what you will
I have very sensory dreams
And things feel, taste, and smell like they do in real life
And it may have had something to do
With how beautiful you looked in that dress
Or the scent you were wearing
But that lobster was amazing
And your hands on my shoulders
Was a massage you weren't giving
As we two stepped through the room
And my lips mouthing every line
That danced through the air
Directly onto you earlobe
Was just an excuse for my cheek to touch yours
And as Veneta and Versace got comfortable on the floor
And my sensory dreams turned into a little bit more
My fleeting thoughts were of your smile in the morning
And I know you don't see yourself there yet
Taking pleasure in slow dancing
And waking up next to each other
But I see myself there just as clear
As I see myself right here
And I'll to drop the Veneta for jeans
Your Versace for pajamas
Lobster for KFC
If I'm slow dancing with you to Diana Krall in our living room
I don't give a **** if
We own the coffee table to push out of the way
I want to spend my life with you
I want to spend my life slow dancing with you
I want to spend my life whisper-humming
Standards into your ear slow dancing
In the living room of our house with you
Duplex with you
Apartment with you
Trailer with you
I don't care
I want to spend my life slow dancing with you
I want to spend my life with you
And I'm not being too sweet
I'm being too honest
And I know grand romantic gestures aren't your thing
Girl, flowers on Valentine's Day aren't your thing
But I hope someday soon you make a hobby out of slow dancing
Because I had a dream last night
I'd love to come true
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 10:19 AM UTC
Houses sitting condemned, taking up the view
while the old guys sit sipping forties in forty degree
temperatures facing the wall so the wind doesn't burn
their faces too much in what could be called a modest December.
They turn their back to the guy hiding bags of rock
in his lips to avoid detection from the cameras posted
on both street corners. This place is set to a constant sneaking
violin pluck. We are all capers in a burgle commune.
I hung up a tarp today so the stray cats can hide from the wind.
In one stanza, January has set in and it is bitter to the bone.
We summoned the name of old man winter from repetition and
no one man may hold that burden. The ***** only warms their blood.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 4:33 AM UTC
Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road **** home.
A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the
forties.
But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s
why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn.
Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s
disease has finally broken her.
It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode.
None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a
thunderous downpour during her last hour.
I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin.
Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their
cherished adopted daughter.
So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own
thinking about discipline.
Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.
Soothing—the mourning doves.
During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green
bower.
We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains.
In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica
and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and
pearly everlasting.
We let Nicky nurse her road **** watch over it, roll around on it.
Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.
Jan 16, 2024
Jan 16, 2024 at 7:35 AM UTC
been pecking the pole since the forties
we think,
how delightful.
yet it must be changed and moved
in case it falls down, what would we
do then? he asked.
i decided not to think about that, and
rejoice in the creosote
of the new thing.
may be the woodpecker will
too?
sbm.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 1:29 AM UTC
In the ashes of division hope ignited
Unity decided a new fate, in its wake.
My father lived in Chester Road,
Off Ladbrook Grove, eight children
In a tenament flat back to back.
The poverty of the forties are
Now palatial palaces, white pillared.
My father joined the army to escape
To marry and move to Streatham,
South London, to an Edwardian terrace.
Notting Hill, the divided community
Chelsea and Kensington let it happen.
My grandmother moved to a new town
And this year we all watched on TV
Grenfell burn as an inferno in the dark.
Love Mary
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 12:48 PM UTC
Somewhere seabirds pipe and bleat,
gathered on a dark low tide.
Shapes and shadows line the fleet,
cold and calling.
In the shore hide facing north
I'm focussing black ten-by-forties,
hunched against the wall for warmth;
the tide still falling.
Looking out, I'm looking back,
thirty years have ebbed away;
the boy, his joy, his haversac,
his notebook scrawling;
I see him, tremulous, wild-eyed,
among the plovers, curlew, knot,
a loosed dog shakes them and he flies,
the seawall salt sting cuts and dries;
there's no recalling.
Jan 22, 2012
Jan 22, 2012 at 6:55 PM UTC
A crazy ************
got in my face
the other day.
"This is my shop!,
I put the work in this ************
see ya'll young people come in here
trying to mess up my shop,
this is MY SHOP!"
"Mmhmm," a fat ****
in the corner affirmed.
Crazy *************
are often your
barbers.
He's pulled this **** before,
I've seen him do it.
He'll just throw the clippers down
and get in somebody's face,
while they flip dumbly through
Sports Illlustrated.
It's funny as hell.
He had spittle
in cakes at the corners of his mouth
that wiggled
like eggs on an unbalanced beam
and fat lips that looked
like rotten peach slivers;
all brown and ugly pink.
He's in his forties and stumpy.
But all he ever does is yell.
I punched him
right in his lips.
His teeth were hard and scratched my knuckles,
but he backstepped,
gave me one of those crazy people
"I might just cut your head off" looks
and walked to the bathroom to clean himself up.
Crazy *************
think
they're the crazier than everybody else.
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 9:28 AM UTC
It was a fortunate evening
I chose to stroll out. Somewhat cold
and cloying soft for recent rain.
The grass arched speculative at me
the better to see Godot on his way to an appointment.
Just so, the stage light
mixed its ponderous firmaments
to a more even pigment.
I gazed upward at the longing, doleful
eye and felt the monochrome sigh of
that girl who sits upon the air.
She directs her lambent limelight
half-heartedly for she only reads the script by candlelight.
You can see her strolling over gondoliers
or pausing on the running man in a
nineteen-forties travel film with all
the ubiquitous pains of
a villain in a childhood mystery.
A bleating bulb that never burns the eye.
Feb 28, 2010
Feb 28, 2010 at 6:15 PM UTC
he was forty but lied about his age,
told everyone he looked young for his age,
and still shopped at hot topic
he is in late forties now, still thinks he looks young,
and still shops at hot topic
he buys the same stuff that people were buying
in the 80's before hot topic existed
he describes himself as having such a brilliant mind that he is easily bored with people. he is an intj, so this means that he knows everything. he is very intelligent according to the re-occuring craigslist misc. romance ads he has been posting for the last decade.
when he gets inspired, he updates his fetlife profile
(or his ok cupid profile)
i met him when i was too alone, but not numb enough yet
he kept on telling me that depressed people were really just narcissists who couldn't stop thinking about themselves
i couldn't tolerate him, but had nothing else to do, so i had to be drunk and ****** at all times in his presence and i don't drink very often
prior to that i was only a weekend stoner,
but that changed real quick
he made himself too comfortable
and bought me a bob dobbs book for my birthday
because he thought and still thinks bob dobbs is hilarious
he kept on using my bathroom for long periods of time
and bringing the bob dobbs book in with him every time
i told him he could keep the bob dobbs book
but he said, "no, it's more the kind of book that i want to read when i come over and use your bathroom"
so i swallowed the throw up in my mouth, asked him to leave, threw the book away, and never had anything to do with him after that.
shortly thereafter, he started diagnosing me and every other woman who is not attracted to him as having borderline personality disorder via craigslist missed connections and/or his fetlife profile (which i still read for laughs).
then he broke into my apartment through the back door the night before he got married to a woman who needed a green card. i'm not sure why he did that, i'll never know. he broke the door, so it wouldn't shut properly anymore and i smashed my fingers in it once while trying to shut it. my fingernails fell off.
and this is why i have been celibate for the last 7 and half years.
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 12:41 PM UTC
You were in your forties then, lived upstairs with your
old man, gave the neighborhood someone to feel better
than. I was maybe nine or ten, and Franny, oh! I could
have cried when he blacked your pretty gypsy eye and
Franny, oh! my restored hope when I saw Joe, his lip laid
open; Franny, you could throw a punch. So here's to right
hooks, Franny. Here's to gin before lunch. Here's to street
smarts and cunning hearts. I didn't end up like you. I got
out of the neighborhood. I'm my own woman; that's our
slogan, but you know, Franny, sometimes even that
makes me feel like I'm swinging my fists in a third floor flat.
Nov 7, 2011
Nov 7, 2011 at 10:29 PM UTC
Enter the winter of our life as one
The months and years have rushed on by
Together we’ve endured what life has dealt
Our true love’s the reason why
We both were sweet 16 when introduced
We waved hello across the room
Was one year later till we met again
Wasn’t long before love bloomed
When reminiscing through our life
there’s so much that we hold dear
Regret is not a word that we would use
despite all the tears …
Our vows were said when we were just 18
We pledged a love to last the years
Such declaration gave us confidence
Helped mitigate our fears
Our firstborn son came after nineteen months
Our second son just eighteen more
Now in their forties with wives of their own
Ladies whom we so adore
When reminiscing through our life
there’s so much that we hold dear
Regret is not a word that we would use
despite all the tears …
And so we live to love another day
You smile at me and take my hand
Assured that as we face life’s obstacles
Together we will stand
Just for a moment, I go back in time
Freshness of youth as memories soar
If I were asked to do it all again
I would wish to love you more …
Mark Toney © 2021
Dec 22, 2021
Dec 22, 2021 at 2:50 PM UTC
It didn't start off with a white cake
carrying forty-something candles
Rather, it was the chimes of the phone alarm
later, a cold run through the foggy streets
then back home to nurse the joint pains
The phone buzzed with messages
first from the wife, then my best friend,
then my brother, to whom I got to respond
"and the same to you too"
then my ghost friend, who only sends a message
on this day, each year
before vanishing out of my life
I'm home today, having a party of sorts
with the twin monitors
and the tailless mouse
At least they look dressed up for the occasion
sitting on the workstation
in their black soft-plastic jackets
They don't dance or sing or even mumble anything
They only look down at my fingers
going back and forth
around the letters of the alphabet
as I go to work while sitting at home
At this age, I muse to myself
some people don't want to remember
how they have moved closer
in the journey towards
forgetting one's name, family
and eventually how to eat
And almost imperceptibly
we have become the dad, or mum
or auntie that we looked up to
or held under the magnifying glass
and judged for their decisions on our lives
But now I'm only trying
to live in the moment
as I pour a bit of whiskey
swirl it around gently in the glass,
watching if it shows
within its brown circular current
the regrets of the past
or the shrouded future
and hopefully, the number of my age
May 15, 2022
May 15, 2022 at 9:22 AM UTC
Oh, many remember that black maid that cleaned many well off white families houses during the forties, fifties and sixties.
The ones that raised many whites children's during those days.
The ones that listen more about the kids relationships to their parents.
Yes, that faithful black maid.
Who faithfully arrived to work?
And put their child through school.
Things others remember that others chose to forget.
But can't.
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 9:45 PM UTC
The schoolteacher had an affair in Santa Fe.
She was a schoolteacher and a tourist.
And an affair adds dimension.
It makes a place more than memory.
The notion of it inverts.
Santa Fe now resided inside of the schoolteacher.
The city had a cracked voice and blonde hair
and a slightly sagging belly and pictures
of a New York niece on its phone and
an ambivalent relationship with combing its hair
and an irrational fear of left turns.
She expected young artists with vague academic worldviews,
chainsmokers talking loudly about point of view and Heidegger.
Instead the artists were retirees, painting nothing but landscapes
of red earth, attempting to improve on the natural world.
The schoolteacher did not like this kind of art.
It was trivial.
Wholly unnecessary.
Then the blonde artist walked up behind her
in a stucco gallery. He said, "You hate it don't you?"
"Yes."
She turned. He appeared to be in his early forties.
"Tourists never understand it."
"I'm not a tourist."
"You are. You've never been within the land."
"Don't talk to me like this."
"This is how women prefer to be talked to."
"Not this woman."
"Even you. You want to be told you're wrong.
'I look fat' No. 'Everybody hates me.' That's not true.
I'm skipping the stage where we agree. I'm going
straight to the stage where we are opposites.
Plus and minus."
"The part where we *****
"Or connect or lose ourselves."
"I bet you live in a loft. Dozens of half-finished
canvases strewn about. Dabs of dried paint on
newspapers."
"I live in my big sister's basement. She isn't home."
"There's not enough wine in the world."
"That's where you're wrong," he said.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC
I recently came across my first journal of poetry,
written in my early forties. A tumultous time in my life, I kept a hand-written journal and the poems flowed. It began on a (recovery) escape~vacation to Mykonos and many other Greek islands. Unable to sail, (stuck on Mykonos by fierce winds that grounded even super tankers), I wrote to pass the time. Even then, I dated my poems, noting when & where the poem was composed. Themes were employed, that twenty years later, reappear (to my surprise) frequently, in my poems of today (by example, "The Wind of Correction"). Even then, I wrote long, way too long poems, some good and some awful ones. Judge this, one not too harshly, judge it as a first endeavor, simplistic, crude and heartfelt.
What seems to have triggered poetry to be the outlet for my emotional upset, as a father of young children, in the midst of a bitter divorce, was a Greek poet, Cavafy, that I must have stumbled on during my visit
and a particular poem he wrote in 1908. I include it the notes in shock and awe, for it unconsciously informed my "style" and seemingly, or unseemingly, still does.
The Geometery of Greece
(His Very First Poem)
~~~
the geometry of Greece
is the perfect intersection
of clear blue sky,
right-angled to azure waters,
with puffs of white clouds
to mark off distances
only
the wind is non-linear,
like feelings,
the wind,
it washes and caresses you,
envelopes and wraps you in
its totality
what it all means is this:
all that I know,
all that I love,
have, got and given,
is leaking and pouring and leaking
from the rectangular shape
what I
now know as,
now call,
my previous life
so now,
the winds of my true self
direct me on a course
that can be plotted
but one day,
one island ahead
no long range planning
on the sailing waters of Greek isles,
the wind does not permit it
the perfect line of the horizon
is not anymore a limiting
boundary
rather,
the sourcing place from which
the wind comes,
that buffets,
to and fro
throws,
carries me forward,
and ever backwards too
this horizon line
that I sail towards,
neither marks nor closes in,
it is always there,
to be sailed to,
ever anew,
to renew
~~~
August 6, 1993
Noon
the Isle of Mykonos
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 4:48 PM UTC
Snared heart kept, imprisoned could be potential dying day,
Lips regaled in ischaemia, blue blood,flows.....cold,
Face scarlet,temperatures up, pyrexia rules, as she tries too cool,
Mouthing strange babble,
She's talking in tongues,
Beaded mask sparkling, droplets trickle,
Tachycardic, heart beats, trying not to escape this life desperately, Heart trying not to explode!
the forties....roaring!
She breathes, so fast... the forties....roaring!
It's tragic,like everything's trying to meet demand with supply........!
Inadequately,
Currently on remand, waiting for her sentence to be be passed,
Docs and nurses they rally, running with obs,
All taking their roles, while doing their jobs,
Mews activated, doc visits he's, anxious,
Iv antibiotics he orders,
In plastic sachet, hanging up high, hereby, lies the awaited decision, if she'll have the will to live, or will she die...
Hope not!
It's not in an instant, but, recovery apparent, as breathing slows below twelve,
Heart beat, it settles,
Her kidneys show function,
Her temperature chills slowly, 36.5, she's still alive,
Thank God,
She got off the train at sepsis junction!
Copyright Livvi Kent (RGN) 11 /04/2013
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 7:06 AM UTC
May 16th: You learn by doing.
If I keep following by your example,
I'll be a ghost soon too.
I want to meet angels.
My memory claims to be subjective
But I'm calling its bluff.
My hand has cards in high places.
Hot boxing joints and chugging forties,
Trying to forget my questions,
Cause the answers were nothing but a let down.
You're still up in the sky
but soon enough you'll come free falling
back to hell with a headache and a hang over.
May 17th:
I'm tripping *****
cause life is nothing but a good trip.
When you think,
think with your mind.
Your brain will always have two sides.
KEEP YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT.
May 18th:
I'm avoided like the plague
cause I spread like disease.
Sin is subjective, keep your opinions to yourself.
Mar 14, 2012
Mar 14, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
Why I Lay Awake at Night
Some people lay in their beds unable to sleep,
unable to dream, or not wanting to.
They each have their own reasons not to enter the nights embrace,
Whether it is the future or the past.
I find myself with a foot in both camps, fearing the past and future,
As my mind decides which nightmare is to come on a nightly basis.
Should I remember the looks on my family’s faces, the rage inside,
When I looked into my cousin’s coffin, the victim of a cold-blooded ******
The face of his murderer and the image of the acceptance letter to West Point,
The kind Lieutenant Colonel or the Deacon who presided over Requiem.
These all haunt me at night,
The images of a time past and great loss.
Should I be tortured with other images instead,
Those of my uncle or brother or a different cousin, all in the Air Force.
I cannot help but think of what may happen,
Of the horrors of war and loss.
I live in fear of the letter bearing the seal of the Air Force,
of the phone call from my mother or the two officers at the door.
Finally, there is my grandfather, who served in the U-boats,
One who never showed fear, at least to me, reduced to a frail old man in his last months.
A once proud, strong man, a father of 3 daughters,
A fighter, a survivor of untold horrors from the forties.
I build him the box in which he now resides,
And I see him before me when sleep does not come.
There are few things that can haunt someone like death,
Or death yet to come.
There is no reprieve from this constant torture,
The fear, the agony, the sadness, except death itself.
These gruesome specters, of Christmas Past and Christmas Future,
They, are Why I Lay Awake at Night.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC