"scalpel" poems
Gendering Woman *******
Beautiful, anatomical part // Ugly, anatomical part
Natural, pleasurable // Burdensome, loathsome
Female Symbolic // Femme Symbolic
MALIGNANT HEALTHY
fearful, tearful, wretched // joyful, hopeful, euphoric,
bereft, wept, grieving // embryonic, rapt, relieving
leaving, loss // believing, gain
m a y b e - d e a t h r e - b i r t h
BI-LATERAL
MASTECTOMIES
Operating Theatre
SURGEON ANAESTHETIST
cleaning/ cutting/ knife/ scalpel // doping/ unconscious/ airway
blood / tissue // hypotension
loss/ damage // shock
drains // sinus rhythm
stitches // pain deadening
tight binding // reversal drugs
POST-OPERATIVE
a l i v e a w a k e
draining, bound & stitched draining, bound & stitched
DRAINED
~ UNBOUND
-- UNSTITCHED –
Empty chest Flat Chest
FREEDOM from Disease FREEDOM from Dis-ease
© M.L.Emmett
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 12:28 PM UTC
Death you are seen so repugnant.
Death you are sensed so vile.
Death you are deemed so untimely.
“Death can’t you wait for a while?”
But Death, aren’t you Life’s true redeemer?
Making everyone think well of the dead.
Death aren’t you Life’s other half?
Death don’t you tuck us to bed?
When our wanderlust has faded,
your embrace remains unjaded.
Death you are humble in your infamy;
Life the glory claims.
Yet sickness, accidents and war
are all Life’s macabre games.
That which kills you comes from Life.
Life will push to make that sale;
living organs mere currency.
Cannibalistic Life - advertising as a fairy tale.
Death you are left to clear the carnage.
Death – the coloseum’s sand –
innocently soaked in the blood of Life’s cruel hand.
Death you are Life’s psychologist;
motivating each step, each trial.
Making us get up every morning
to make each moment worthwhile.
Death you employ Time’s creation
to set a deadline to Life.
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring
Death you are a scalpel; Life a butcher’s knife.
Famine, plague, disease, beast,
Without glorious survival, why feast?
Death your work with Time is inspired,
for we created it to understand your course.
With Time we can learn Life’s seasons
and record it’s length before it’s divorce
from our fragile clay.
Death you make us frugal with our Time,
yet generous with our Love.
For to each heartbeat’s rhythm and rhyme,
we fervently dance to give.
To make another grief-stricken Death.
For if Life is filled with meaning,
it is Death’s boon to us all.
Life becomes exhilarating –
A race before the fall!
Death remains a wallflower to the very close.
Death only wants to meet us;
a gentle lover with a rose.
Encouraging, yet terrifying.
But if we fear the Darkness, it is Life we fear not Death.
How often has a blinding Light been reported on a final breath?
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 6:56 PM UTC
we love
but why do we?
how much easier it would be
only to satiate the needs
forgetting the foolish notions
of something more
the drug induced states
merely staring into your eyes
brings on
brings me
to the brink of sanity
because this tired duet
cries to die
but i can't bring myself to do it
knowing if i cut out your heart
they'll be no beat beneath my breast
you'll have come with one
but you'll be taking two
when you take your scalpel
to my chest
Mar 30, 2021
Mar 30, 2021 at 10:45 AM UTC
It hurts to stay,
but it hurts to leave,
and on paper,
the words find me,
the words that maybe
could put a name to
whatever we are,
because it is not "just friends"
We poke each other
too much to be "just friends",
your bag held my jacket
too long to be "just friends",
your hands stroked my hair
two times more than "just friends"
And whenever you say
"It's okay,"
my mind listens
because at that moment
when a wish and love
are in a perfect paste,
my mind feels okay...
So tell me why now,
whenever I speak your name,
my tongue burns,
oh tell me
when will you learn
that people are not games,
that if you keep pressing
the reset button,
a person might just vanish away...
You make me feel
like the most beautiful flower,
because it's always me
you pluck from the dirt,
it's always you that
trims away all my hurt...
But in your hands, I die
I've died a million times,
And I can't find
a drop of you in this ocean,
am I swimming on my own?
We're both sailors at sea,
but you're steering
this ship terribly,
I do not ship the
situation we're in,
How can love be fun,
when we're both conflicted,
our words restricted,
over-addicted to overthinking,
overtwisting every little thing,
until I am not sure
if I love you,
and you're not sure
if you want me...
But take it easy,
it's not like I'm in despair,
break me;
force a scalpel into my heart,
there's nothing of my own
that I haven't repaired,
I'm caught between
wanting to strip you
of your breath, and
wanting to keep you alive,
even if it'd result in my death.
Aug 18, 2016
Aug 18, 2016 at 6:17 AM UTC
A bridge from colloquial to courtly fare
A span where idealism and fantasy pair
A railway to the existential realm; celestial lair
A conduit through which rational discourse can flare
Deep medium to: forage, inculcate, and inform
Broad brush to paint rare beauty; sculpt surrealistic form
Incisive scalpel to surgically alter the societal norm
Delicate utensil to educate on civility and decorum
A literary ***** a prosaic construct
A mechanism our syntax to deconstruct
An analytical tool; an observational viaduct
Introspective milieu to reduct; extrovertive sphere to reconstruct
A semantical edifice that aspiring wit, lofty orations implore
An experimental structure gramatical anomalies to explore
A thematic repository in which concrete ideas, abstract notions to
pour
A vernacular cathedral butressed by an idiomatic core
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC
Your shrill, yet oddly pleasant sound, echoes loudly down the long corridor.
I try to ignore you as the jaunty sound clashes with my melancholy mood,
Yet I find the notes and melodies cling to my mind like tissue stuck to a shoe,
Hanging on for it's own amusement,
Ignorant of my desire not to be teased nor humoured at this anxious time.
I feel I shouldn't like your racket,
My naïve ears and young years sense, not only an inappropriate comedy in your sound,
But also a daunting undertone,
Adding to my sense of having been plunged into deep icy waters.
Perhaps your music soothes those who are leaving,
Your high happy notes providing optimism and assurance of recovery,
Or of a restful sleep enveloping dear ones.
For me, however, at the point of no-return in my pilgrimage,
I hear only the low notes,
Out of time with my quickened pulse,
And lending a foreboding soundtrack to my slow deliberate steps.
But you play for no pay,
Busking in this hospital,
Doing good both night and day.
Yes, you are well known in this place,
Admired for the hours you commit to this space where lives can hang in the balance,
And where your instrument by day is a sharp sleek scalpel,
Invasive in its desire to alleviate suffering,
Your steady, practiced hand rehearsed and well versed in the methodically planned procedure of a surgical concerto.
But out of hours your instrument of choice lends you a voice,
Allowing flourishes and improvisations.
But were you aware that for visitors like me who visited repeatedly,
The clarinet would take on a significance beyond other instruments,
Taking me instantly back to bittersweet memories of visiting my family,
As, in turn, they aged and became unwell and recovered and became unwell again.
Now I am older and a little wiser,
I reflect and ruminate on this period;
My memories of family are more than just hospital visits,
And I wonder if I could ask one thing of you?
Why no Rhapsody in Blue?!
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
My heart isn't for the picking like a ripe Apple,
It's been damaged, it's been bruised, it's been carved with a scalpel.
And there's one common factor in every ounce of pain,
It all stems back to you and my tears fall like rain.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
We are a deeply entwined vine
Growing ever more far apart,
But still attached at the roots.
He has rooted himself in myself,
And has become a part of me.
I dissected worms in high school,
But I don't feel qualified
To dissect our conjointment.
He has asked me to hand him the scalpel,
And I have become too accustomed
To his requests to decline.
We stare at each other,
Both of us too timid to cut the ties,
And go to bed side by side
With scalpels in hand.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 1:51 PM UTC
Calf augmentation => silicon implantation
Endoscopy, otoplasty, baby
Mentoplasty, rhinoplasty, scalpel
Juvederm at 4, Starbucks pit-stop right after,
pop some xany's and go
Chemical peel, dermabrasion
Dr. Unknown PhD. meet patient Montag XR3.
Brain stimulation, kneecap replacement
Doc, I'm starting to miss the table, is this a complication I should expect?
Fat grafting, bone grafting, mystic tanning
(what really is natural nowadays?)
Chin reconstruction, laser resurfacing,
(what really is me anyways?)
Consultation with your post-op pain,
It's gonna be "Ouchy" for a month,
but worth it in the end.
Self-esteem scan shows a cancerous tumor and growth
Yuck
And here I thought plastic was
"cancer-free"?
Apr 9, 2012
Apr 9, 2012 at 11:43 PM UTC
Sanguine
Choleric
Melancholic
Phlegmatic
Phlegmatic
Melancholic
Choleric
Sanguine
Blood oranges
And hibiscus tea
White wine
Carcrash memory
Hypertensive
He straps me down on the table
This is for my own good.
Too much blood they say,
Too much red wine too much liquid
Too much
My hand is swollen
My stomach distended
The vein in my forehead is bulging
Too much blood
A needle
A leech
A pen
Blood oranges
White wine
A needle is a leech is a pen
Is what the doctor ordered
He straps me to the desk
This is for my own good
A cure
Too much blood
Too much tea
Too many memories
Too many thoughts
Hypertensive
Sanguine
They say
They hand me the scalpel
And show me the line
Too much
I’ve had too too much red wine
To be doing this
A pen a leech a needle
A bucket of blood
A novel
Sanguine
Melancholic
Choleric
Phlegmatic
This is the cure
This is for my own good
Too much much blood
They hand me the pen
I’ve had too too many
Blood oranges
To be doing this
A scalpel is a pen
Is a leech is a needle
A bucket of blood is a novel
(Bleeding is the cure)
I bleed.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 2:58 PM UTC
You are quite a gifted surgeon.
In fact you cut me so clean and sharp
I barely even knew it at the time.
Waking the next day in my hospital bed
was where I met my pain.
Being with you was like anesthesia:
I was so grateful for you to help me.
You were the one who weakened me.
My senses failed: your scalpel cut
clean to the core, and then I just let you
sew me back together. The nurses say
I am very lucky, that I had a good doctor.
I know better. I was once a person and
now I am Sally Stitches, or better yet, Raggedy Ann.
I am no one's operation game.
Letting you in brings only stitches and needles,
and it was I who checked myself in.
I need to learn to stitch myself at home.
Consider this my checking out.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 5:59 PM UTC
Sliding fingers over alabaster shafts,
crevices and nooks catching at delving digits
as they seek between the ****** ***** of
remov-ed meat.
For before the bones the meat.
And before the meat the scalpel,
Running liquid through the tendrils
with its clever carv-ed lines in the
succulent,
decadent
dead.
The gore on the board.
Seen in rivulets of scarlet,
A tracery of cuts,
Multi-layered and exquisite.
I taste the smell of this corpulent finery.
Hands reaching into the layers,
slick with blood
pulling at the fat.
Sleek and deadly
I ply them, my tools.
For I am the butcher
And you will eat my meat.
Feast upon my carnage,
And leave me with the bones.
And leave me with the bones.
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 19, 2011 at 1:01 PM UTC
The Doctor has a Sense of Humor!
<|>
give a surgeon a scalpel
and an excuse,
and the artist emerges,
for creativity is a good surgeon’s
natural habitat
Sure, sure, there’s a plan,
with best and acceptable outcomes,
but when messing with a real heart,
a sly ***** with numerous deceptive guises
at its disposal, you never for sure never know,
despite all the advanced imaging techniques,
exactly
what you will find once you go
spelunking
in caves of life and death
so, he takes a bit from here,
and a bob or two from there,
there a cut, here an incision deep,
Old McDonald provided a body,
or a canvas, and the Doc
is happy.
So I uncover holes where he
probed, redeploying the healthy,
like a good designer, Doc rearranges
and repairs, a travelogue of splicing and dicing,
his handiwork
Now standing over you for many hours,
can get tiring, though each ***** be
different, unique even, but leaving
a little marker, a stylized signature,
is well, is the rightful discretion of the artiste!
So you can imagine my surprise
when the tubes removed (ouch!)
the bandages ripped off in a
signature move of a delighted nurse whose
loves seeing grown men cry from lesser trivialities,
you cannot imagine my surprise
when I discovered my new tattoo,
upon my chest front and center!
*Herein please find your heart repaired,
and revitalized:
Please Note!
We guarantee our work for minimum 15 years
(Aug. 3, 2038),
but our disclaimer
we assume NO responsibility after that
if you should
happen to live for 30 YEARS or more*
Dr. P.
Sep 21, 2023
Sep 21, 2023 at 7:58 AM UTC
Ive always listened to what you've said.
not just the detail.
But everything you've bled.
I've taken it on white shoulders.
Now ****** and soaked.
You told me loving lovely lies.
You left your true heart behind.
Cunning scalpel in disguise.
Ripped deep and tortured.
I've wished instead you had slaughtered.
I've pushed you out of my conscious.
Now your in my dreams where I have no control.
Nightmares like memories.
All that time that you stole.
Your as ruthless as you were then.
You give no warmth.
A beautiful mesmerizing walking corpse.
In dreams where my desires materialize.
Rules flipped like your morality.
I've woken up face red.
You still give me nothing.
Except things unsaid.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 9:06 PM UTC
I think I would like to make a home of your body
Like the dens I used to make with my siblings,
Before I started saying "no thanks".
To take a doctor's scalpel,
Clean and new and never used
And so very, very sharp
And to rest it in the hollow just where the breastbone ends.
Then to push it in along your soft smooth shiny skin
So unlike the mottled scarring that covers mine.
Down, down, down
To where you wear the waistband of your jeans.
A horizontal swipe at the top,
At the bottom,
Like making the fold of a window in a paper house.
Shh, is anyone home?
Lifting the heavy, wet flesh,
Your rib cage is so very white
And so very perfect
Like special cutlery for special occasions-
Births and weddings and funerals.
They hide your lungs,
Bloodshot and tired of the
Eternal
Moving and moving and moving on and on and on
Your stomach, soft
And vulnerable in its hideousness
Yet it hides the despicable necessity
Of human life.
And your heart,
Plump and fresh and young,
It is restless and strains
But for what when all that lies outside
Is incomprehensible and unnerving and unwelcoming.
So I will leave it all behind
And with damp heavy fatigue crawl
Into your torso like the unborn child
We have all been and will be again.
And your ribs will cradle me like a birdcage
That has grown so sick of the world,
And your organs will cushion and comfort me
When I feel that I do not want to live.
And blood will cover everything
Just as I have always wanted.
Flooding my eyes and nose and mouth and ears
And bathing me in the warmth, the constant gentle pounding,
That would make me feel alive.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
Trembling I hold the scalpel in my hand
I know what I have to do
I have diagnosed myself and come to the conclusion that
It has to be cut off.
I can feel the pain spreading through my limbs
like liquid lead
cold.
Sometimes, he's just not that into you.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 7:51 PM UTC
entice:
what does heart
have to do with this mess?
lust can halt finely like
water droplets down your chest
pinch:
little sharks
at her knees
*this will only burn
if you're weak*
steal:
a scalpel to her spine
blow the backbone
she calls
'mine'
blaze:
poor letters
deemed worthy
minor melodies
sung too early
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC
In brief: scalpel words so cheap
Misanthropic cold compress
Jaded and hard in denial
Heavely Medicated without
Prescription
Mute Pain
Guilt soaked peace
Once more
At least
On this rock
I’ve built my church
And drunk of this poisoned cup
Enough
Salted sigh the spike
Do not resuscitate
For the bones of it
Are a pistol cool pressed
To a temple
Derelict
Sleep without rest
Please, one more breath
Vein or scar
Blood loss
And the cost:
Everything
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 4:47 PM UTC
Another day, another hour spent looking at cadavers,
Surprisingly fun, and suspiciously fresh bodies-
"Hey Mrs. Johnson, what do you think John did with his life?"
She gave me a look that didn't seem too pleased at my inquisition.
Or the fact that I named our body John.
Morbidly, I thought she looked at me like a zombie would look at our friend John like a cold cut subway sandwich,
Although I figured if I were a zombie,
I'd prefer my meat fresh, and not embalmed
with formaldehydes and ethanol.
"That thought seems inappropriate and not respectful of the medical sacrifice 'john' made " she said dripping with in my opinion too much sarcasm for me to NOT respond too.
"Well, John is dead, I don't think he's getting offended anytime soon," I retorted.
Her smile contorted like the prudish smile John offered me in support.
"I'm not worried about offending the corpse as much as I am the ghost, and this Lab will NOT be haunted under my watch"
(Her pride in her wit inflated much like Johns body inflated with decomposition and bowel gases.)
I apologized internally for the comment and action I was about to make-
"This medical dictatorship has to collapse sooner or later-
and I still want an answer too my question"
And with that,
I took the nearest scalpel to his bloated stomach,
and watched in disgust and glee as everyone else ran for cover amongst the ****** of stomach contents and Johns final retribution in death.
I got an A+ in that class.
Apr 5, 2021
Apr 5, 2021 at 3:25 PM UTC
You took a scalpel to me, my dear
Skillfully working your way through the layers
Epidermis to lipids to muscular tissue until
The bone
You carved your name on my radius
Lovers' initials on a tree
Marrow leaked across your hand
A gift of the broken
You tried to sew me up, my dear
Realising you had gone far deeper than first thought
Surgeons hands you have not
A hack job, bound to leave scars
You've left me with bumps
Burns
Itches inside my very being
Refraining from scratching
In fear of what might come pouring out
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 5:03 AM UTC
1.
Your specimen:
the cat.
He lies, a stretched out
blob of
whirring, whizzing particles:
You can’t see them –
he can.
2.
His fur is
dried old carpet
left out on a front lawn:
homeless,
floorless;
waiting to be claimed.
3.
His eyes are
blank marbles
flicked by sticky fingers
in a game.
You won them
by cheating,
and stole them but they
turned to mush
in your hands, they
fell through your fingers, and
stained them with purple:
it would not wash off.
It grew:
an omnipresent reminder
trickling down your arms,
pooling at your elbows.
4.
You raise the scalpel:
it is a crescent moon
speckling down to
illicit behaviour
below.
5.
The portraits on the walls
applaud
when you make the first
CUT.
and reveal the
gooey caramel
dripping, circulating, inside.
It sticks to
the blade, forming
clumps of purple
that harden to a
crystallised-honey form.
6.
Later you sleep
with the cat;
he lies on your bed
and purrs
(does he purr?)
and you label the jars:
“Dissection 15”.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 4:15 AM UTC
I've been trying to write something of substance for quite some time now,
trying to collect fresh thoughts from newer moments of you
and rearrange them into phrases that would gift me a new remarkable piece of the puzzle that is the immeasurable complexity of your soul.
I've been trying to bottle up this obtrusive, demanding feeling of utter awe that comes when you and I climb into our honesty and wear it to bed, side-by-side.
I've been trying to backtrack slightly, wishing so desperately (though stoically!) for the return of those painfully dire professions of unadulterated romance, reminiscing in the saturation of your love letters and how the color red is breathed into me time after time to remind me how powerfully you've shifted the balance of my life.
I love you, I love you, by god, do I love you.
My fears are still the same, though, Darling, and I feel that with the redness of passion shall also come a redness of a quality that pertains to homicidal gore,
for you have, still, that scalpel in your hands,
and my heart blooms every moment of my life, not for its love of me, but for the hope that it may one day bloom for the last time cradled in your blood-soaked palms.
I've been trying to say anything else for a week but nothing will break from the gates and give me a solid night's sleep anymore.
I can't tell you how mad you've actually made me.
Though I do dare to hope that I've evoked similar sentiments in you.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 1:49 AM UTC
I find that chromium-vanadium steel,
while holding glimmer and shine
through much abuse,
is harder to hone
to that razor-like edge
that truly makes chopping a breeze
(watch the fingers, please),
merely mangling fine fruits
and tomatoes, instead.
(just tilt your head, thus)
It's a tool best left
for whacking at meat,
as its heft and its strength
make short work of bone;
more cleaver than scalpel,
if truth will be said.
I've always preferred
the high-carbon alloys,
though now out of fashion
in today's haute cuisine.
While rusting and blackening with age -
not the type you'd put on display -
the blades stay as keen
as the day they were minted,
and wipe down nicely on sleeves.
Oct 23, 2010
Oct 23, 2010 at 6:48 PM UTC
Poked & prodded at
Everyday Everyday Everyday
I walk outside naked regularly
(The only one, too)
A shady pornstar they've
Made me out to be
Every corner of flesh, Every corner of flesh
It's indecent to be clothed.
Spread open my legs to
A gaggle of flashing camera bulbs.
Express critique
Save a pic
Jot down notes
'Move it, kid.'
Spread open my legs to
A pod of alien queens
Scalpel wrenches, protozoan logs
I'm the life of the party
As their oval heads crowd around
My *** things
Experimented-on weird-o's meander
The halls of this wherever-I-am
Free to leave at last
I sometimes go home after
A day of that
And do an odd thing:
I cocoon myself in blankets
And sleep for long stretches of time.
May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012 at 7:33 PM UTC