we were at the hospital the other day
on acid
saw some people
that looked
subhuman
started thinking those thoughts
like
how i would **** them
and get rid of
all of them
the acid talking
i breathed
and stepped out of the hospital to breathe
no smoking sign
telling me i can't do that
right here
fresh air
is near
over here
by the flowers
i smoked
a girl with purple hair
around me
very near
"is that your peoples?"
no no no
laughing
i don't know why
he thought she was with me
we were just staring
fading
tripping
the flowers looked 3D
the bee inside
looked like some **** from planet earth
i heard it there first
my first trip
a visit
to see a friend
struggling to breathe
while we smoke out front
walked into icu with a blunt
celebrating life
thinking about memories
and how they make us
rely
on what we know
and remember
to tell us the future
but
it's really what we make it
we can create new
break down barriers
break down the walls
make new paths
in the brain
heal
recover
breathe stronger the next day

I close the door of the bathroom cabinet, revealing the figure standing in front of it. I tilt my head back, bring my hand up to my mouth, swallow, and feel the slightly farmiliar sensation of the little pill sliding down my throat. Anything that used to be normal is only slightly farmiliar now, an effect of these little pills.
I look up into the ghost in the mirror, the one that slightly resembles my own face. I can barely pick out the individual features, but I'm pretty sure that's me. I bring my hand back up to my face, this time to pull up my cheeks in something that somewhat looked like a smile. Yep, that's me all right. The hand moved to the left, and grabbed my ear, tugging at it. Slowly, it made its way across my whole face, surveying all my features, feeling everything. I'm still here. Wish I wasn't.
I sigh and continue staring at this ghost of a person. She looks tired, and *****. Her dark brown hair ******* in a messy, greasy bun on top of her head. Her once bright green eyes are now a dull brown. Her once flushed cheeks, now completely pale and lifeless, still bear the scars of the crash.
I sigh once more and turn around, almost losing my balance.
I start toward my room, remembering I have to do something today. Not school, nor work, nor anything else in particular. Well, of course there is a reason, but thinking of that reason makes everything clear and painful, so lets just keep things hazy and safe.
I pull my once too small jeans on, which are now extremely baggy on my scarred legs. I try to steady my shaky hands as I attempt the eyeliner, but give up, and remove the waterproof makeup. It's not like he will care, he can't see my face anymore.
A sudden stab of pain envelops within my chest as everything suddenly becomes clear and I can see his face, his beautiful face, laughing. I blackout and end up on the floor.
When my eyes open, they are greeted with the concerned eyes of my sister-in-law. She's holding my face, trying to wake me up. "Woah there, woah. Are you okay?"
I sit there thinking of what just happened and what she said. It takes me a moment, but I reply, "As okay as I ever am."
She rolls her eyes and sighs. "C'mon, get up. We have to do something today."
Another stab of pain as I remember where we're going today and what we're doing. I ***** on her as the pain overcomes me once more, this time not blacking out. Instead the images, the very ones I have countless nightmares about, flit across my mind. Every one bearing pain, bearing a very specific pain. I start to scream and convulse, as I claw the arms of my brother's wife.
My brother comes in to pull me off of her and put me onto my bed, as I continue screaming. I can very clearly feel the very farmiliar pain in the middle of my chest. It's as if 10, no. It's as if a 100, a 1000 knives are being shoved in, turning, breaking bones, slicing organs. And then it feels as if someone is spitting salted lemon juice into my wounds, stinging.
It's all in my head though. Everything I'm feeling is all in my head. And that's the problem right there. Why couldn't I have just died in the crash, why can't I just be gone already.
I blackout again. And when I wake up, both my brother and my sister-in-law are standing there, watching over me. I see that my sister-in-law has changed clothes. Their troubled faces brighten up a little as they watch my eyes open. Unsurprised. This happens every time we plan to go to the hospital to visit him in the ICU. It's happened before, many times, so they know what to do and how to calm me back down.
They help me up from my bed and out into the living room, where there is a tray of fried eggs and bacon sitting on the coffee table. Probably for me.
I disregard it and instead walk to the kitchen to grab the *****.
My sister-in-law was right there to stop me. "No no no, not this early. Besides," she says as she takes the bottle from my shaking hands, "you already took your medication."
I begin to protest, and quit, knowing that it was no use.
Asides from the ***** and my medication, they have baby-proofed the whole house because of me. All knives are locked up somewhere in the garage, any tool that could be used against myself gone. No rope, shoelaces, small appliances, or other things that I may use to **** myself. The ***** was out because they confiscated it from my room. I had shoplifted the liquor the other day, and was trying to start a collection so that I may drink several bottles of alcohol at once and overdose. Not too smart, they search my room all the time. I'm too drugged to even care. And my medication tastes too nasty to overdose on, asides from being nearly impossible to OD from.

In the car on the way to St. Rosemary's hospital, we stop at a florist to get some 'Get Well Soon' stuff. My brother gave me some stronger medication, as he always does whenever we go to the hospital, and it makes thinking better. I'm able to think about what happened, but it makes the images in my head seem like they're from a movie, rather than my own eyes. I'm able to think about the man who lays there in the ICU, day in day out. That man I was once in love with. No, I still love him. And he loved me too. Loved.
I'm brought back to reality by my brother.
"What colour do you want to give him today?"
I don't know why he asks. I always say the same. "Green. His favorite colour."
My brother sighed. "I think he has enough green. But oh well, it's your choice..."
I love my brother very very much. I'm so grateful that he puts up with me. It's kind of a funny thing, when we were much younger and he was a ***** up, I could've sworn that he would have to end up living with me when we were older. Ironically, I ended up having to live with him. Well, 'living with him' isn't what it is. It's more like 'babysitting' or 'mom didnt want her in a mental hospital.' Like I had said before, I'm too drugged to care.

We also stop by SubWay just before we get to the hospital. I get the usual, a footlong ham and Swiss, with three chocolate chip cookies and a large Dr. Pepper. It's not for me, of course. I never eat anymore. This food is for him, if he wakes up. Because if he wakes up while I'm there, I want the satisfaction of being there with his favorite food. I do this every time. It's been a very long time since my brother or his wife has complained, wasting food and such. I don't care whether or not they're mad I waste stuff. I want this, no. I need this, for my fiancé.

Hospitals used to always scare me. As a child, I never had a reason to go to the hospital, except for my mother or grandmother, and even then I never went. I just knew people died there sometimes. I used to be so afraid of death. Now I'm wishing for it daily.
We head up to the ICU. He has his own room to himself, but he wouldn't care whether or not he had other people in there. All the people here know me, since we come around so often. They always look at me with extremely sympathetic looks, and then whisper about me to the people who they're around.
"Poor woman... Was in a terrible car crash... See those scars?... Just about to get married... **** near lost her life..."
They think I don't hear them but I do. It's a complete blessing for this medication, and that it makes me not care anymore, but sometimes I wish I could care. I wish I could turn around to them and tell them to shut the **** up thank you very much. I just literally do not care anymore.
We get to his room. The nurse comes out with the same sympathetic look as the rest of them.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to remember the last time I heard his voice, seen his eyes, felt his smile, heard him singing, the last time he told me he loved me...
And then the whole scene of when my life basically ended flashed across my mind, like a movie.

We were in the car, driving, listening to the iPod that was hooked up, singing along with whoever the hell was on. It was the middle of April. Nice weather. It was the perfect day.
We were on the way to this favorite place of mine, a 'special date' he had called it. At the time I had no idea what he was going to do.
We went into the place, a rollerskating rink. We got our skates and went into the rink to skate around. The DJ called out a special song for a special someone. As we danced and skated to the song, which was 'our song', the song we used to sing to eachother all the time, when a spotlight shined on him and he stopped what he was doing.
"You know that I love you," he said. "And you know that I want to be with you for the rest of our lives." He got down on one knee. "Will you make me the happiest man alive, and marry me?"
I started to cry. I said yes, if course. It was the happiest moment of my life.

When we were finished with the date, we were driving back home. We were seated very close, holding onto eachother.
We stopped at a stop sign, and I wanted a kiss. So I turned my head toward his, and we kissed. When I opened my eyes, we were in the middle of the intersection, and a car was coming our way from the left. It's headlights were shining in my eyes, and it was too close, going too fast. Right before the hit, I looked at it, knew the danger, and screamed my fiancé's name. He looked into my eyes in alarm, and that was when it hit. The other car smashed right into us, t-boning us on the drivers side, while my husband-to-be was driving. That moment felt like an eternity. We were flown around, and we hit some **** I don't even remember.
The next thing I remember was the sirens. The ambulances came and took us away from the wreckage. He was hurt severely, put into a coma. Me, I had some bad injuries, but not as bad as his. We were rushed to the hospital, and he was flown by helicopter to a bigger hospital that dealt with more serious injuries. Within two days he was considered brain dead.

And now, here I am, walking on this earth, while the love of my life just lays there, brain dead. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to make it so I have to walk around, wondering whether he will ever wake up. The doctors always say that it's been too long, or that there's no hope now, or that we need to pull the plug. But every time they tell me that, I flip out. I flip out so bad they have to basically tranquilize me and send me back to the mental hospital. It's horrible. I just wish I could die, and that they would finally pull the plug after my death, so that we can both be together, wherever we go when we are finished with this life...

And the picture that always haunts me? The one of his eyes, in alarm, when I screamed his name. That picture is what haunts me day and night. It's what my nightmares are composed of. Every. Single. One.

I think all of this over for about a minute before we walk in. No one urges me to go in faster, they all know what I'm doing. They all know that I'm reliving the moment that pretty much took him away.
I open my eyes, ready to see him at last. I take small, careful steps into the hospital room, watching the floor. I finally looked up to see him lying, like usual, in his bed.

...At least, that what I was expecting.

Instead, he was sitting up, eyes wide, waiting for my reaction to see him awake.

And that was when I fainted.

ICU Waiting Room in Advent

Artistic gilded deer repose in peace
Among the store-room-dusty plastic leaves
Of decorator-decorated wreaths;
From thence they gaze serenely down upon
Sneeze-spotted pics in People magazine
And empty coffee cups recyled from
Recycled natural fibers recycled
From green fair trade recycled soy inks.

No ikons grace this dying-place, no cross,
No crucifix to focus farewell prayers;
Christ’s people gather lovingly around,
Their baseball caps thrall-ringed about their heads
In devout remembrance of passing souls.
Their cell-phone aps pass through their vague, weak eyes
As once the ancient biddings and prayer-worn beads
Slipped gently through the lips and hands of men.

She wasn't just a "visitor"  she'd been here a while
She sat in her corner chair, word search in hand
She always had a blanket around her shoulders
A big bag filled with snacks open at her side

Some times she'd have company
Out-of-town family maybe or perhaps a friend
They'd sit and chat, drink coffee from a paper cup
But mostly, she sat alone

She'd always leave her corner neat and clean
During visiting hours a "newbie" would never know
That corner chair was taken....that was her chair
After visiting hours she'd stretch out and re-claim her area

We knew though, we'd never take her spot
We some times met at the coffee ***
"How's your husband?"  "The same...How's your dad?"  "The same"
"Keep praying."  "I will....you too."  

Then one morning I watched as she packed her things away
With tears in her eyes, she looked at me then slowly shook her head
As she walked passed me, we clasped hands for a moment
"Keep praying" she whispered, then she walked away

Perhaps it was just a coincidence....but
No one sat in her corner chair all day
She was only one person and yet...
The ICU waiting room felt empty without her

The lady in the corner chair

A different kind of cold settled
in them as they poured through the door
into the bleak grandiosity of the lobby.

A group of grievers:
Her ashen husband and their two daughters, 12 and 20,
Her two sisters dressed in black fleece
and Her mother with freshly bruised knees.

The night was agonizingly short once they arrived.
Prayer and hope for rehabilitation
between questions about resuscitation.
Her mother clung to the cruel Almighty
While Her husband clenched his fists at the chaplain.

A Stroke of an instant induced a transformation of lives
as Hers ended beneath the blinding fluorescence.

The eyes are there again
egging for inspection.
Look me in the face
and lose your muse discretion.

The weight it bears
ill prepared
to flow without repression.
To know there is a place
where the lion sleeps
moans and mimes
the holes, they blind.

Not a thing in mind.........
Get out of my mind.
Out of my mind
something I force....
farce.....
Faust...

Crept in the surgeon from the ashen winds
Peaceful, baleful autumn fire
A descent climbing ever higher.

A special case to him it seemed, starched white
His breathy steam corroborated.
The nurses rush ‘tween bed and ****, checking
Vitals of lacking that but the enigma
Curiouser and, oh, the blank screen displayed it.

There, as sight, the network of bones, all disposed
To their center, by blood and vein, all there through.

What caught the eye, a screaming white blot
In the thick of his bare cavity
A cold urn, well wrought
Had in its mouth a thousand streaming shards
Burning, pumping all the same by some miracle
That rigid effaced youth and flesh
Taking its gestalt’s place.

A nurse approach in ample fit to begin,
Crack his stern starch baritone, there he burst
Take him away; nothing is wrong
Amateur at best, irreclaimable at worst.

Good morning, my love.
I didn't mean to stare.
I was just envying
the pillow beneath your head,
and the sheets that envelop you
in their comforting warmth.

While you were off
In surreal realities
That shapeshift into truths
I was waiting here,
Watching your every move.

Good morning, my love.
Know that every waking moment
Is the miracle
That brings you home to me.

I've given poetry readings where less than a handful of people were present. It's a humbling experience. It’s also a deeply familiar experience.

"Poetry is useless," poet Geoffrey ****** said in a 2013 interview, "but it is useless the way the soul is useless—it is unnecessary, but we would not be what we are without it."

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and though I don’t go to Mass regularly anymore, I still remember early mornings during Advent when I went to liturgies at my parochial school. It was part of my offering—the sacrifice I made to honor the impending birth of the Savior—along with giving up candy at Lent. So few people attended at that hour that the priest turned on only a few lights near the altar. Approaching the front of the church, my plastic book bag rustling against my winter coat, I felt as if I were nearing the seashore at sunrise: the silhouettes of old widows on their kneelers at low tide, waiting for the priest to come in, starting the ritual in plain, unsung vernacular. No organist to blast us into reverence. No procession.

Every day, all over the world, these sparsely attended ceremonies still happen. Masses are said. Poetry is read. Poems are written on screens and scraps of paper. When I retire for the day, I move into a meditative, solitary, poetic space. These are the central filaments burning through my life, and the longer I live, the more they seem to be fused together.

Poetry is marginal, thankless, untethered from fame and fortune; it's also gut level, urgent, private yet yearning for connection. In all these ways, it's like prayer for me. I’m a not-quite-lapsed Catholic with Zen leanings, but I’ll always pray—and I’ll always write poems. Writing hasn’t brought me the Poetry Jackpot I once pursued, but it draws on the same inner wiring that flickers when I pray.        

• • •

In the 2012 collection A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith, nineteen contemporary American poets, from Buddhist to Wiccan to Christian, discuss how their artistic and spiritual lives inform one another. Kazim Ali, who was raised a Shia Muslim, observes in his essay “Doubt and Seeking”:

[Prayer is] speaking to someone you know is not going to be able to speak back, so you're allowed to be the most honest that you can be. In prayer you're allowed to be as purely selfish as you like. You can ask for something completely irrational. I have written that prayer is a form of panic, because in prayer you don't really think you're going to be answered. You'll either get what you want or you won't.

You could replace the word "prayer" with "poetry" with little or no loss of meaning. I'd even go so far as to say that submitting my work to a journal often feels like this, too. Sometimes, when I get an answer in the form of an acceptance, I'm stunned.

"I never think of a possible God reading my poems, although the gods used to love the arts,” writes ***** Howe in her essay "Footsteps over Ground." She adds:

Poetry could be spoken into a well, of course, and drop like a penny into the black water. Sometimes I think that there is a heaven for poems and novels and music and dance and paintings, but they might only be hard-worked sparks off a great mill, which may add up to a whole-cloth in the infinite.

And here, you could easily replace the word "poetry" with "prayer." The penny falling to the bottom of a well is more often what we experience. But both poetry and prayer are things humans have learned to do in order to go on. Doubt is a given, but we do get to choose what it is we doubt.

A God in the House Book Cover
Quite a few authors in A God in the House (Howe, Gerald Stern, Jane Hirschfield, Christian Wiman) invoke the spiritual writing of Simone Weil, including her assertion that "absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." This sounds like the Zen concept of mindfulness. And it broadens the possibility for poetry as prayer, regardless of content, since writing poetry is an act of acute mindfulness. We mostly use words in the practical world to persuade or communicate, but prayers in various religious traditions can be lamentations of great sorrow. Help me, save me, take this pain away—I am in agony. In a church or a temple or a mosque, such prayerful lamentation is viewed as a form of expression for its own good, even when it doesn't lead immediately to a change of emotional state.

Perhaps the unmixed attention Weil wrote of is a unity of intention and utterance that’s far too rare in our own lives. We seldom match what we think or feel with what we actually say. When it happens spontaneously in poetry or prayer—Allen Ginsberg's "First thought, best thought" ideal —it feels like a miracle, as do all the moments when I manage to get out of my own way as a poet.

Many people who pray don’t envision a clear image of whom or what they’re praying to. But poets often have some sense of their potential readers. There are authorities whose approval I've tried to win or simply people I've tried to please: teachers, fellow writers, editors, contest judges—even my uncle, who actually reads my poems when they appear in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he used to work.

And yet, my most immersed writing is not done with those real faces in mind. I write to the same general entity to which I pray. It's as if the dome of my skull extends to the ceiling of the room I'm in, then to the dome of the sky and outward. It’s like the musings I had as a child lying awake at night, when my imagination took me to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But then I emerge from this wide-open state and begin thinking about possible readers—and the faces appear.

This might also be where the magic ends.

• • •

I write poetry because it’s what I do, just as frogs croak and mathematicians ponder numbers. Poetry draws on something in me that has persisted over time, even as I’ve distracted myself with other goals, demands, and purposes; even as I’ve been forced by circumstance to strip writing poetry of certain expectations.

"Life on a Lily Pad" © Michelle Tribe
"Life on a Lily Pad"
© Michelle Tribe
At 21, I was sure I’d publish my first book before I was 25. I’m past my forties now and have yet to find a publisher for a book-length collection, though I've published more than a hundred individual poems and two chapbooks. So, if a “real” book is the equivalent of receiving indisputable evidence that your prayers are being answered, I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t been easy to shed the bitter urgency I’ve felt on learning that one of my manuscripts was a finalist in this or that contest, but was not the winner. Writing in order to attain external success can be as tainted and brittle as saying a prayer that, in truth, is more like a command: (Please), God, let me get through this difficulty (or else)—

Or else what? It’s a false threat, if there’s little else left to do but pray. When my partner is in the ICU, his lungs full of fluid backed up from a defective aortic valve; when my nephew is deployed to Afghanistan; when an ex is drowning in his addiction; when I hit a dead end in my job and don’t think I can do it one more day—every effort to imagine that these things might be gotten through is a kind of prayer that helps me weather a life over which I have little control.

Repeated disappointment in my quest to hit the Poetry Jackpot has taught me to recast the jackpot in the lowercase—locating it not in the outcome but in the act of writing itself, sorting out the healthy from the unhealthy intentions for doing it. Of course, this shift in perspective was not as neat as the preceding sentence makes it seem. There were years of thrashing about, of turning over stones and even throwing them, then moments of exhaustion when I just barely heard the message from within:

This is too fragile and fraught to be something that guides your whole life.

I didn't hear those words, exactly—and this is important. For decades, I’ve made my living as a writer. But I can't manipulate or edit total gut realizations. I can throw words at them, but it would be like shaking a water bottle at a forest fire; at best, I can chase the feeling with metaphors: It's like this—no, like this—or like this.

So, odd as this sounds for a poet, I now seek wordlessness. When I meditate, I intercept hundreds of times the impulse to shape a perception into words. Reduced to basics, the challenge facing any writer is knowing what to say—and what not to.

• • •

To read or listen to poetry requires unmixed attention just as writing it does. And when a poem is read aloud, there's a communal, at times ritualistic, element that can make a reading feel like collective prayer, even if there are only a few listeners in the audience or I’m listening by myself.

"Allen Ginsberg" © MDCArchives
Allen Ginsberg
© MDCArchives
When I want to feel moved and enlarged, all I have to do is play Patti Smith's rendition of Ginsberg's "Footnote to Howl." His long list poem from 1955 gathers people, places, objects, and abstractions onto a single exuberant altar. It’s certainly a prayer, one that opens this way:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and **** and hand and ******* holy!

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!

Some parts of Ginsberg's list ("forgiveness! charity! faith! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!") belong in any conventional catalogue of what a prayer celebrates as sacred. Other profane elements ("the ***** of the grandfathers of Kansas!") gain admission because they are swept up into his ritualistic roll call.

I can easily parody Ginsberg's litany: Holy the Dairy Queen, holy the barns of the Amish where cheese is releasing its ambitious stench, holy the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Internet. But reading the poem aloud feels to me the way putting on ritual garments must to a shaman or rabbi or priest. Watching Patti Smith perform the poem (various versions are available on YouTube), I get shivers seeing how it transforms her, and it's clear why she titled her treatment of the poem "Spell."

A parody can't do that. It can't manifest as the palpable unity of intention and utterance. It can't do what Emily Dickinson famously said that poetry did to her:

If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only [ways] I know it. Is there any other way.

Like the process of prayer—to God, to a better and bigger self, to the atmosphere—writing can be a step toward unifying heart, mind, body, universe. Ginsberg's frenzied catalogue ends on "brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul"; Eliot's The Waste Land on "shantih," or "the peace that surpasseth understanding." Neither bang nor whimper, endings like these are at once humble and tenacious. They say "Amen" and step aside so that a greater wordlessness can work its magic.

a t-shirt. one that is a terrible color. 
my mom's least favorite, burnt orange. 
it shares a disgusting likeness to rust. 
and yet my dad would wear it everyday. 
regardless of everyone around him's distrust. 
"no one would dare to wear that in public" 
my mom said, she was wrong. 
perhaps when she married him she was not aware 
of my dad's inexplicable connection to 
this terrible color, or to t-shirts in general i guess
for about six out of the seven days a week regardless 
he would be wearing that same shirt
for the almost 20 years they have been married 
he can be found wearing that same shirt
however, there's a slight misconception
he doesn't have just one shirt 
he has dozens of those nasty burnt orange colored shirts 
and i suppose i forgot to mention that it's to support a football team
which seems shallow in theory but the aforementioned is
non-other than the texas longhorns. 
my dad grew up there and attended college there. 
he wasn't even a part of the team, and yet 
for the last 35 years he's been wearing that same shirt.
i simply can't understand his undying affinity 
i barely recognize the mascot of our own school team. 
there is a certain dedication, a certain love that he must feel towards this place, towards that team. 
however as i'm writing this poem i simply can't ascertain what it's all supposed to mean? 
texas, a place of southern accents, cowboys, and racism. 
not somewhere i typically tend to associate with even
though it was the place where i was born in 
on a Tuesday almost 17 years ago at about 1pm 
and of course i arrive
too early for my own good, 
so i stayed in a hospital in ICU until they said i could
be taken home to a house i barely remember. 
i wouldn't call that place home. 
and yet, my dad wearing another variation of his classic burnt orange t-shirt today 
that reminds me that's where i came from 
i came from burnt orange beginnings. 
and even though i might live in a blue ocean paradise as of now. 
that's not where i started. 
i tell myself that i am so much more that the place my life began in. 
so instead of loving where i started and the color that comes with it. 
i continue to despise that burnt orange color and compare it to rust 
and all other things that fill me with unexplainable disgust. 
but in the spirit of honestness. i don't hate it as much as i contest 
don't ask me about it however because for sure all i’ll do is protest
but even when i was little seeing that orange shirt and ******* car 
arrive in the driveway of my old school was truly the best 
looking for that ugly orange shirt at the end of the day when he always asked me what i had learned
hugging that terrible orange shirt when i'm crying 
after scraping my knee on the concrete
taking car rides with that orange shirt seated beside me 
that seemed as long as a lifetime to go see the turtles on the north shore  
after watching him present himself at a showing of a house we could never afford
watching that orange shirt fumble and stumble teaching me to drive 
fixing my air conditioner with this orange shirt at 2am
after a nightmare session that left me too rattled to sleep
that orange shirt who attends these loud rock concerts that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy simply to watch me be happy
that awful orange shirt that has seen me sad and happy and everything in between.
you know seeing that orange shirt for nearly every day of my life
has conditioned me 
and truly i hate it, the dustiness, the rustiness of it all. 
it’s disgusting, appalling and above all terrible. 
but for some godforsaken reason i also love it. 
i love it with my entire heart,
i truly love that stupid orange shirt for all of its awfulness
and logically i know it's not the shirt but the person inside.
because my dad is one of the most amazing people
i know and i hate to admit
but that color has grown on me, because of him
it's become home to me, 
it's my dad.
and maybe i'll never figure out why 
my dad loves his college football team so much 
maybe i don't need to 
what i know is that while burnt orange may be a truly terrible color, 
it's become home to me.

Eighty years young
Speaking in tounge

Your body fought
Head full of bizarre thought

Arms and legs restrained
How are you not frightened

Are they violent, Yah?
We tried, everything,
for the shake of your revival

I can't bear to see you like this
I wish you are dismiss

Heavily sedated & exhausted
To tired to wrestled & agitated
Lord please take his pain away

Beneath
the tubes and wires,
past those frigid machines,
you'll see the pleading eyes of a
human.

(This is a true story)

Working in the ICU, on the graveyard shift,
Paul here's your admission, into bed we must lift.

I had overlooked the name while taking report,
The past was calling, she was an old cohort.

My beautiful Linda, five years together,
We'd still be a couple except for her daughter Heather.

I couldn't win over the child, tried though I might,
She wanted her father, always an uphill fight.

So my friend, my love, my perfect mate,
Parted company, feelings of pain and sorrow, never of hate.

Time marches on and the years rolled by,
Less were Linda tears shed that I needed to dry.

Back in the ICU, esophageal varicies was her fate.
Alcoholism eroded her neck veins, death couldn't wait.

She looked up at me, smiled and said,
I never stopped loving you, always in my head.

The ***** helped dull the pain and regret,
Without it your recollection did constantly beset,

And into my life left a gargantuan hole,
Not just in my body, into my eternal soul.

I have to go now God's calling my name,
As she grabbed my hand her strength did wane.

Great efforts were taken, for life we do strive,
Compressing her chest didn't keep her alive.

Prepared her body I did clean and did wrap,
Placed her into a shroud, my strength this did sap.

I finished my shift and went on my way,
Her sweet warm memories caressed me that day.

Dearest Linda I hope you found peace,
My love for you never will cease.

Please visit poemsbypaul.com

my life has changed forever

from normal, my everyday life now does sever

july 4th weekend, fireworks were going off inside of me

my racing heart had finally brought me to bended knee

afib, supraventricular tachycardia...

congestive heart failure was my flava'

rushed to the icu...

sign these here papers the doctor asked me to do

we've exhausted all medicines, all of them we've went through

i ask, can i call my wife in case i never speak to her again

there was no answer, it was the most scared and alone i ever felt then

icu doctors huddled and staring at me like i am a mystery

they shock me and send thousands of volts of electricity through me

the paddles burn and welt
my chest and back

my room filled with chaos it certainly did not lack

bells and alarms made my ears want to cry

lying there thinking....it was my time to die.

'Yours and everyone's concrete poet Part Deux'
👷🏻‍♂️

I twist and turn,
Suffle in my
Hospital bed.
The drum of
The dextrose drops,
Plays as the background
For my despondent lulluby.
Clickering and clackering;
The white feet
On the frozen
Hospital floor
Feature the vocals
Of the weeping relatives
I do not know.
A chorus
Of morose songs
That bellow
From the valley
Of faded faces
Dulls the senses
Of the patients
In the ICU.
Doctors wearing
White garbs
With darkened eyes
Whisper to each other
Like a cult gathering
With prayers
And curses
On their lips.
They appear
To me
Like snakes
On the tree
Throwing sins
And travesties
To the
Invalid saints.

I, fight fervently
Against sleep.
Although almost
Twenty-four,
Am a child
Again.
A child who
Detests sleep
Like the plague
That took me.
In this hospital bed
I start my vigil;
A pilgrim to zion
Daunted by
The task before him.
Beset on all sides
By treasures
And trinkets
That would
Want him stray.
My eyes serve
As the lamp
To which
My body,
A servant,
Keeps alight.
In wait
For the return
Of the master.
An encounter
To rekindle
The bond
In childhood.
A chance
To decide
Which fashion
It will end.
So eyes,
Stay alight,
For your oil
Will only
Last one night;
Keep the fight.
Despondency
May fill these
Final moments
But at the moment
Of the master's
Return
The chorus
Of faded faces
Will turn into
Choirs of angels
And there;

Sleep.

i don't believe in reflections
or the poisons that you're mixing
i do, however, believe that hobby
is just a fancy word for addiction

yesterday my feet rested comfortably on the bar of someone else's chair
and my eyelids slid heavy and the world seemed slow
a graph of survivorship curves glowing blurry on the whiteboard
and then words slid from behind a neatly trimmed white beard
". . . .as our bodies are programmed to die."

as our bodies are programmed to die.

thousands of miles away
one gleaming thought against a murky sky
(that's how i imagine it anyway--murky, cold,
stagnant air)
a frantic explosion of lean muscle power
and a body launching into the lake.

he was 17 and in that moment gears somewhere in this world shifted,
numbers were crunched and
some profound device processed the seconds, linking and unlinking them with an automatic, well-oiled certainty

he was 17 and the number on his football jersey suited him like wool socks on winter feet
his stride under the lights a weekly prize to all hungry, bleacher-ed, washed-up life-hunters bundled against october-night chill-streaked skies
they drank hot cocoa and he took three sips of gatorade

he was 17 and his smile
and his curls

and we all hear about hospitals but
this feels different because
he was 17 and suddenly,
instantaneously
his body was just a beep
and his skin turned the color of the walls

first the ICU painted quick brushstrokes across his wrists
then it stopped giving a **** at all

and the water rushed endlessly, heartlessly.

when I shift through memories and
find his seven-year old face in my mind, i remember a gap
where he'd lost a front tooth and i remember sunlight streaming behind his hair
it was valentine's day and he gave me a small smile and a silver charm bracelet in a powder blue box.

i shifted my feet
heard the snap of a binder closing
and all i could think about was
the oversimplification of words
and survivorship curves
and 17 years


and
and

piles of numbers spurting from a computer

and an echo of a splash.

So many lies from her to me
please don't tell him I'm pregnant
I was ***** she told the clinic
and me
the baby seems big for three months.....
but clinics get money for this
and charities give grants
they don't ask too many questions
6 hrs crying and screaming
till they chopped it up and ****** it through
a young doctor panicking
haven't destroyed one this big before have you you ****
took a long hooked thing to really mess the wee thing up
I saw it's dead eyes in the pan
her dead eyes
half-open and in a silent scream
where is the ******* dad? The nurse whispered..
somewhere ******, I said, I'm just her pal.
Dad didn't want a small thing in his life
my hands bled from her nails
and this felt right
my heart bled despair for her and the mess in the pan
took her home in a taxi suspicious eyes on us, huddled smelling of sweat and blood, no clean-up
she wanted to stay as soiled as she felt

Year later in another room
couldn't *** she wouldn't let me leave her
got a urinary infection holding on
longer this time
thirteen hours of pain and fright
no-one seemed to care again
on a trolly in the cold where is the magic
where is the ******* dad? A nurse whispered..
somewhere ******, I am just her pal.
twisting my hands
she bit my face wanting a kiss as she pushed so hard
the midwife dropped him halfway up her belly
I dragged him to her face
let go the doctor shouted
told him to shut up or *******
got yellow baby **** and blood in my mouth
wanted doctor blood too
tasted sweet somehow tasted of alive
took 83 sedatives that night  her sister found me in ICU
hard to die swap me for the wee dead one
I'm ****** she would have been special saw her face

She would have been 14 yrs old today

Don't leave please.
We all love you so much.

We're all so thankful
for the love you've given us.

Have you ever loved someone with

bird bones
paper thin skin
irises like pooling blood on a tile floor

Have you ever loved someone who
wears their heart on their sleeve in the way of a tattoo

Have you ever loved someone like

you wish their arms had heavy locks so that
you could keep them wrapped around you
until you grew tired of their embrace

Have you ever loved someone like
dripping IV bags
ICU at 2 am

Ever loved someone like
laying on the carpet in pain
watch the shadows on their face change
see the door open and close
these days the sunlight always looks the same

Ever loved someone like
dark circles under their eyes

Ever loved someone like
you wish to wear them like a necklace
have them ******* in a locket

Ever loved someone like
I would take a bullet for you

On the first day I sat
I stared at my hands
I silently prayed
Please...get better.

After a week
Things only got worse
Family began to show up
Some from far away.

I didn't know how to act
Seemed like a reunion
People greeted me saying
"Oh honey,  it's been too long!"

I wanted to scream
I wanted them to understand
My dad was dying!
But, I knew he wouldn't like it.

My dad would say
"Show some respect mija"
He'd want me to say hi
He'd expect me to greet my elders.

So I did.  Every time.  
Every newly arrived relative
I faked a smile
Then sat and silently prayed

(A message to you
Inspired by the THR Family)

You came to us sick, frightened, confused
What happened next became international news.
We saw you so ill, with everything to lose
Our goal was to help you because that’s what we do.
Alone in a dark ICU room
We fought for your life, our team and you.
We cared for you kindly
No matter our fear
You thanked us each time that we came near.
As each day pressed on, you fought so hard
To beat the virus that dealt every card.
No matter how sick or contagious you were
We held your hand, wiped your tears, and continued our care.
Your family was close, but only in spirit
They couldn't come in; we just couldn't risk it.
Then the day came we saw you in there
We wiped tears from your eyes,
knowing the end was drawing near.
Then it was time, but we never gave up
Until the good lord told us he had taken you up.
Our dear Mr. Duncan, the man that we knew
Though you lost the fight, we never gave up on you.
All of us here; at Presby and beyond
Lift our hats off to you, now that you’re gone.
You touched us in ways that no one will know
We thank you kind sir for this chance to grow.
May you find peace in heaven above
And know that we cared with nothing but love.



~  postscript.

this poem is not mine; it was penned by a nurse who wishes to remain anonymous. it spoke to me of the passion with which so many, many caregivers serve, so i wanted to share it with you, and in so doing salute each of those who serve us all in the medical community.  

the following was published by ABC News on 10/20/14:

"The last nurse to leave the hospital room where Thomas Eric Duncan died has written a poem about the Ebola patient, penned during the sleepless days after Duncan's death, a source told ABC News.The Associated Press. The source provided the poem to ABC News, noting that the nurse who wrote it asked to remain anonymous. Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, died at the Dallas hospital on Oct. 8. Two of the nurses who cared for Duncan -- Nina Pham, 26, and Amber Vinson, 29, have been diagnosed with Ebola.(Editor's note: THR refers to Texas Health Resources, the company that owns Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.)"

had a picture of dad on my nightstand
it fell not too long ago
but landed upright
atop his shoe shine box that I kept
its new position not precarious
I let it stay there
thought it was kinda fitting
a picture from his older years
taken in the kitchen
looking up into the camera
from the task at hand
peeling boiled potatoes
for potato salad
my potato peelin' pop
morning sun shine spot lights that picture
warm, smiling, reassuring

mom's back in ICU now
transferred to rehab with high hopes
bleeding, unresponsive
cardiac arrest en route back to ER
x-rays, CT scans
transfusions, blood draws, ventilator
endoscopy?
colonoscopy?
dialysis?
quality of life questions
the more I watch her
the more I wonder

How I wish pop could tell us what to do

I understand a flatline
soap scrubbed hands punching chests
the sound of air escaping in a last breath

I can grieve
black hood and buckled shoes
kicking up dirt in the cemetery grass

I thought I had time so I held off saying it
as your congregation sent you inky kisses and prayers

everything is bleached white and sterile, we choke down chemical soaked breaths

holy fools that come to take you
bone by bone

salt crystals form on my eyelashes
as if I've drunk the sea

I am swollen with bread and wine
and sins

the weight of the three words
I didn't say
catch like pills in my throat

I splutter and cough but there is no
shifting them

just the shifting of tectonic plates as my world starts to move

without you

Dear Poet Friends, this short poem was composed during the Summer
of 2010, and posted on ‘Poemhunter.com’. Hope you like it. Thanks.


WHEN YOU CATCH THAT FEVER!
When the body temperature exceeds the normal,
You know you have got the fever on you.
High fever can get you in a delirium,
And even inside the ICU!

One must guard oneself from the Summer’s sun,
Take precaution from exhaustion and heat.
Wear dark glasses and use a parasol,
And sun-tan lotion makes the picture complete.
‘Prevention is half the cure’, is an old saying which
is true!
With cool butter milk and iced lemonades, -
You can keep that heat off you!

Now there is another type of fever, more potent
than that ‘Swine Flu’!
It can strike you anywhere and anytime,
And you cannot take adequate precautions too!
When your heart starts to beat faster, -
And a fever rages all inside.
You get melancholic and delirious, -
When someone calls the doctor by your bedside!
But when no temperature gets recorded,
And the doctor looks all concerned!
For you have caught the 'Love’s Fever', -
Oh, what a lovely way to burn!
                                     -Raj Nandy, New Delhi

(Comments from Fay Slims, a senior & a veteran poet from
Cornwall, SW England:-  “Raj, catching that fever is never
avoided by those who have given their heart!”)

I’m thinking about the doctor's hands shaking as she
                                               struggles to intubate a cat.  
I’m thinking about the technician's hands squeezing the cat’s rib cage,
pulsing life with a delicate force; she is much more gentle than
                                                      practition­ers are with humans—
hard and quick down with the palms; the ribs snapping,
                                                                ­     the sternum sore.  

Some time ago an 80-year-old woman on my unit was
opened up bedside for a cardiac procedure during a code.  
After a week in ICU, she came back to us on the unit, was up and
walking and talking, and was discharged home within another week.

Meanwhile, the 60-year-old man was dead in the morgue
       after a 45-minute code failed to resuscitate him.  

The flip of the coin.  The thin line.  The blessing or the curse.  
The absolute darkness of a body bag.  The cold chill of absolute zero.  
The fresco painted on the catacomb walls could either depict the
light of the sun or the multicolored lights that the
brain shoots off minutes before death.  
                                                        ­               The eleventh hour,
                                                                ­  isn’t that what it’s called?  

We don’t want to talk about body care, death care.  
We have to, but it won’t register.  
                                                     ­       After a loss, after a trauma,
                                                                ­   we are on autopilot.  
I think of my mother,
                                        six feet beneath frozen soil in
                                      a pink padded casket and think:
                                                                ­                             I don’t want that.
I think of the prearranged plots my grandparents picked out
next to her in an above ground crypt and think:
                                                          ­                                   I don’t want that.
Bacteria still causes decay after the embalming process.  
Putrefied flesh.  Bones visible.  Muscles eaten.  Tissues disintegrated.  
We don’t talk about it.  

We try to think the opposite.  The positive vs the negative.  
(But that’s not always possible or healthy.)

I’m thinking about hands inserting IVs, hands taking
blood pressures, hands documenting the code notes
on a clipboard in the back of the room.  
I couldn’t do these things.
                                                 My hands tend to break what they touch.  
The glass bowl in the pet store.  
                               The clay project in art class.  
                                                        ­    The succulents, the basil, the orchid.
I’m good at things I don’t have to think about:
good at the autopilot, good at the autonomic,
                                                                                    good at trauma.

Still be hoggin' in the game
Ya know my name
Yosef is the same
That was since i was born
N served my cain
I got these hippies going insane
Against the grain
I drop the real **** blood ****
That start wars n ****
Reach my hands in the pulpits
Of hell broke out the cell
Now all exposed is hell i dont yell
I let my guns brag n tell
N you can tell i been through drama
By lookin' into my eyes
Ya see a cold glare stoppin' stare
Ya cant figure me out im all.about
Big bens franklins to washingtons
Dolla dolla bill yall i stand tall
With my hand on my *****
Slap it across ya jaws
Now how it taste to be the big boss
Im.outta space
My layers come in ozone so why dont ya phone home
***** i hit a switch pop a lick
Now ya laying hands clutched
In a casket
Stiff n cold ya neva thought yya could fold
But i broke through ya mold
Rode with the baddest OGs
Your game is the saddest **** ****
Like Gladys
Night im on the midnight train to Georgia
So pour me up some of that drank
Sit n park my mind n thank
Uh all my enemies couldnt the best of me
Cuz they wanna get paper like me
Cheese is stinkin' got ya eyes blinkin'
So fast im gone like a lightening flash
N ya can call it what ya want
But the west side riders is gone taunt


Yea fools im old school like Rodney O
With everlasting bass fo
Ya *** finish yo *** with the chrome thats stash
My heaters make ya sweat im an imminent
Threat so forget
All that chit chat
These cats aint spittin' facts
Facts is they wack as soulja boy
Droppin' Superman never been a fan
Of ***** **** im down for gangsta ****
Roll with OGs n TGs who push ozs to keys
No fleas
No me cuz im sucker free **** the industry
Im callin' out everybody
That done did it o ya ******* ya been admitted
To my ICU Camp
Ya couldnt even pay ya way out
With a billion dolla foodstamps
I hit ya with stamp ya know im postal
Quick to grab a pistol split yo temple
100s or 300s spinnin' off the box top
Caprice 84 with vogues n switches on hop
Cant stop wont stop
Its still one eighty seven on a undacovee cop
Beat the case cuz i keep been big bens in my case check the smile on my face
We aint grimy we shining hotter than sun
The luminous one knock off the crumbs
Off my table cuz yall aint able
To handle me too hot to touch
N if ya try my whole clique gone blow up
On you what ya gone do?
Red white or blue?
Doi have to spell it naw ill just let my past deade enemies tell it!!!

Your sleek real smooth
How you sleeked into me
Into my mind,I shared my thoughts
Into my body,this fingers sinned forth
Into my soul,this fragile broken frost

We played games different games though
I played wanting only you
You played wanting the whole crew
Only I couldn't see we were playing differently
Only I was borderline stupid to fall this hard

Even this nose ring didn't hurt this much
Neither did this tattoo no not this much
What is it your looking for?
What is it you want from this crew?

All this hate that was spewing from this crew
You knew the reason,while I  was hanging on being love struck(stupid)
You just sent me to this ICU bed like my twin
You just plucked me off your bed of lies


Spero tu ottenere che cosa tu siamo ricerca per
I really did love you but its time for me to wake up
Don't worry I'll remove your thorns from my back
You just turn this heart into stone

Sunny day in June, the tenth to be exact
The horrible day my sister was attacked
Beth was in the house, her friend Mark outside
She was cleaning,he in the yard kept with pride

Beth Anne was on hands and knees scrubbing the floor
When she heard real gunshots, at least she swore
Snuck to the window and peered out with care
On the rocky driveway, saw Mark sprawled out there

Been shot three times in his back,lay in his blood
Beth saw her ex...with a .38 he stood
While terrified, behind the aquarium she ducked
Brad blundered in dressed in hunters camouflage- ****

Her heart hammering in her ears, bursts of short breaths
Saw him through the murky water, planning two deaths
Beth Anne cowered down praying to her dear Lord
He found her, pulled her up by the hair, fired once more

The bullet blew off her ear and traveled on down
Collapsed her lungs, in her blood she would drown
Brad disappeared and the firing just stopped
For Mexico he fled, red ranger with white top

Beth dragged herself the complete length of the rug
Called 911, shed been shot...head ringing from slug
She was determined to live, wouldn't give up the fight
But then she passed out endangering her plight

Came the Greeley police, fire trucks, EMT's
Assessed the situation, perp further he flees
They all worked on Mark, too late he was dead
One smart responder....woman shot in the head

They spreading out rushed the house, found my sis
Beth was unresponsive, victim almost missed
Speeding to Weld County General, sirens blaring
Got her in the ER cut off what she was wearing

O.R. She went with damage extensive
Not much hope, docs and staff apprehensive
For many hours they sawed, pinned, stitched and closed
The ICU threat of infection posed

Her body and face were unrecognizable
Family stood believing the impossible

Appeared an Adonis with blonde hair and blue eyes
Talk of afterlife evidently not lies
Her guardian angel told Beth he was there
Would appear much later, in death they would share

Two weeks ago I got in an accident while mountain biking. I broke my collar bone and fractured my sternum. Abrasions covered my back, my hip had a puncture wound that turned into a hematoma and was swollen 2inches (I couldn't wear pants for a full week). I hit the ground with such force that air was forced out of my lungs and into the sack around my heart. I spent 18 hours in the ICU and three more days in the hospital after.

A long time ago I crashed. I crashed after you left. My ribs were caving in and making it hurt to breath, my cheeks burned, I swore to god my heart was never going to be okay again. The pain in my chest was incredible. The worst pain I have ever felt was when you left.

I flew over my handle bars two weeks ago and rolled down the mountain and still your absence hurts me more.

I've been to all ends of the earth looking for you but you are not direction
I searched the sky for you but you are not a constellation
I looked to the sea but you are not the waves
When I searched the trees I was disappointed by your absence but you are not a bird
I looked under the ground but you are not the roots of the pines
I dissected every line I ever wrote but you are not a collection of words
When I listened to the wind I couldn't help myself and I tried to hear you but you are not a whisper
Screaming in caves creates company but you are not an echo
I gathered a crew and set sail in treacherous weather but you are not a lighthouse
I've heard the floor boards squeak and the walls moan but you are not a house
This car has carried me for ninety five thousand miles but you are not the highway
I climbed to the tops of mountains but you are not a feeling of victory
With thoughts of warmth I struck a match and lit the woods on fire but you are not heat
I stood alone in the night watching the snow fall but you are not the cold
Hundreds of hours spent in the ICU have proven I am sick but you are not the antidote
I melted thousands of renown paintings but you are not inspiration
Millions of scientific advances have been torn apart but you are not understanding
I've searched the words of prophets philosophers and teachers but you are not wisdom
They drew blood from my veins but you are not life
A psychic read my mind but you are not thought
I visited with inventors but you are not an idea
But the day she ripped my heart out of my chest I found you nestled inside safe and sound
And it dawned on me that you are my sunshine
*~W.C.

such a pity, really
we had such a good weekend
but then you snapped

so silly actually
we were off to see a friend
but then you snapped

he's just got out of icu
and you cooked him up something better than
that hospital food
delicious hospital food
and then you snapped

he was in icu because we put him there
heart attack, maybe, something went wrong
we were on our way
and then you snapped

like that thing in his brain
that made his his heart beat at 202 bpm
that they could only fix by stopping his heart
and then he snapped

so i turned around
i almost walked home
don't know where my keys are
and then i snapped

and all this time
you haven't said a word
except 'there's food for you at home'
and then i snapped

and thought 'let's try this again'
but you still didn't speak
instead you sulked
and so i snapped

you haven't said a word
since we got home, so maybe i should try some of
that hospital food
delicious hospital food
and now i've snapped

but there's something else isn't there?
if there's nothing to say then there's something to hide.
is there something else hidden in there?
sometimes the hubris sneaks out of the pride.
surely.
really?

such a pity.