"stethoscope" poems
Follow the kick-drum of the heart
to the point where it’s heard loudest.
Spend ten thousand hours on the lungs:
Read the textbook on what fills us.
Dedicate a white board
to what makes us collapse.
Hold the bell lightly
to differentiate your own pulse from another’s.
Then drink, and dance, and pray,
to relearn that they’re the same.
Oct 22, 2017
Oct 22, 2017 at 9:35 PM UTC
03:00
When I think about never speaking to him again, I picture a girl walking in a crowd that’s all moving in the same direction, and then suddenly she drops everything she’s holding and turns around and starts running as fast as she can, smiling and pushing past everyone till finally she reaches an open space and her face looks like sunshine as her hair blows behind her in the wind and she’s free she’s free, oh God, she’s free.
03:15
But then I think about walking into a doctor’s office ten years from now and sitting on a cold metal table, staring at my legs dangling off the edge, waiting. And then I look up as the door opens slowly, not expecting to see his tattooed arms hidden in a lab coat, but there he is and, oh God, his eyes haven’t changed, and I can’t breathe, and he just stands there, looking at me like an unfinished sentence. Then I’d have to let him put a stethoscope to my chest and listen to my heart and I wonder what it’d sound like, if it would sound like messy half beats of missing him. If he’d be able to tell. If he’d care.
03:30
Or maybe the next time I see him, if I ever see him again, we’ll both be whole versions of ourselves, content and in good places, our lives all sorted out and how we always hoped they’d be. And maybe we’d be able to talk about the weather and our kids and the lives we created apart. And maybe I’d be able to look at him with only feelings of pleasant acquaintance and relative indifference, not seeing the boy I fell for when I should’ve been focused on catching myself.
03:45
And I know I should find comfort in thinking about how one day I may look at him and feel nothing,
04:00
but it’s four in the morning and I don’t want to let go.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!
Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.
Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.
A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!
10.9k
He doesn't need Intra Ocular Lenses,
To dismember my defenses.
Without a Stethoscope,
He can hear my heart,
He won't have to take an MRI scan,
To know where to start.
He won't need to inject a syringe,
To romantically unhinge,
My every multiplying cell,
Into a palpitating craze.
He won't need a lubricating gel,
To ****** and amaze.
He won't require to operate
Nor investigate,
Me from head to toe,
To plainly know,
That I'm besotted,
my insides knotted,
My better sense clotted,
In deep rooted feeling,
Of immense love.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 8:56 AM UTC
He will not light long enough
for the interpreter to gather
the tatters of his speech.
But the longer we listen
the calmer he becomes.
He shows me the place where his daughter
has rubbed with a coin, violaceous streaks
raising a skeletal pattern on his chest.
He thinks he's been hit by the wind.
He's worried it will become pneumonia.
In Cambodia, he'd be given
a special tea, a prescriptive sacrifice,
the right chants to say. But I
know nothing of Chi, of Karma,
and ask him to lift the back of his shirt,
so I may listen to his breathing.
Holding the stethoscope's bell I'm stunned
by the whirl of icons and script
tattooed across his back, their teal green color
the outline of a map which looks
like Cambodia, perhaps his village, a lake,
then a scroll of letters in a watery signature.
I ask the interpreter what it means.
It's a spell, asking his ancestors
to protect him from evil spirits—
she is tracing the lines with her fingers—
and those who meet him for kindness.
The old man waves his arms and a staccato
of dipthongs and nasals fills the room.
He believes these words will lead his spirit
back to Cambodia after he dies.
I see, I say, and rest my hand on his shoulder.
He takes full deep breaths and I listen,
touching down with the stethoscope
from his back to his front. He watches me
with anticipation—as if awaiting a verdict.
His lungs are clear. You'll be fine,
I tell him. It's not your time to die.
His shoulders relax and he folds his hands
above his head as if in blessing.
Ar-kon, he says. All better now.
by Peter Pereira
.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 1:02 AM UTC
stethoscope to this chest reading one of these "dubs"
as captions to italics sometimes, we lead
too patient lives, one as receptive the second as disruptive
covertly, convertedso to alleviate, vindicate
these dial tones
exchanged -so to compliment- verses in the clarity
of LP vinyl tracks
posture within degrees
to hear a “Hello?”
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM UTC
Vision
is a molded masterpiece
from the Almighty Maker,
an optical order
from the Divine Creator,
becoming sight for we who do not see
Sent to each visionary
to believe
in the simple truth
we possess
Vision
is to glimpse God,
the artistic nature
that His mighty hand has left
Obvious details about us,
even if focus is found
through failing sight
With a heavenly pair of lenses,
looking at what we cannot behold,
we can imagine eternity
Vision
is a tuning device,
a fine violin
rupturing the eardrum
of mediocrity
An untapped well
in refreshing water
designed to leak and splash
and spring into potential
upon the souls and minds
of mankind
Vision,
a prerequisite to each breath,
a telescope to uninhabited skies,
a stethoscope to the desires of the heart,
is Godly intent,
the gut of greatness,
as we mortals
any purposeful plan
conspire
creation
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 6:26 PM UTC
Maveric Prowles
Had Rumbling Bowles
That thundered in the night.
It shook the bedrooms all around
And gave the folks a fright.
The doctor called;
He was appalled
When through his stethoscope
He heard the sound of a baying hound,
And the acrid smell of smoke.
Was there a cure?
'The higher the fewer'
The learned doctor said,
Then turned poor Maveric inside out
And stood him on his head.
'Just as I though
You've been and caught
An Asiatic flu -
You musn't go near dogs I fear
Unless they come near you.'
Poor Maveric cried.
He went cross-eyed,
His legs went green and blue.
The doctor hit him with a club
And charged him one and two.
And so my friend
This is the end,
A warning to the few:
Stay clear of doctors to the end
Or they'll get rid of you.
3.2k
there is an old persian legend of a man who falls in love
with a woman and goes insane when he cannot have her.
even after she is married to someone else, he spends his days
composing love songs in the dirt, building sandcastle hearts
just to watch them collapse again when the tide rolls back in.
years pass, and the girl never writes anything back.
i still wonder if she was ever given the chance to.
i was twenty-seven when i learned that you could fashion a
stethoscope out of a cassette tape, broadcast the sounds of your
heart to a double guitar riff that screamed desire. you pressed
play and in an instant, i was priest to your deepest confessional.
i never asked about how you looked at me on the days that my
husband was too busy finding god to join me in bed at night.
i never wanted to know that you sinned in the color of my eyes.
i never thought i’d be remembered for the moment that i traded
krishna for ******* and the thousand days that followed:
day 176: we mix love and self-destruction in an old hotel room
until they go down my throat as easily as sweet red wine.
day 472: you turn watching me get ready for a party into an
excuse to make love to my reflection with the windows open.
day 894: you spend the entire morning restringing your guitar
but i can still recognize another woman’s voice in its tone.
day 1000: i loved you but never had the instruments to prove it.
we’ve both realized that obsession is a drug best left to legend.
to this day, they still call me the greatest muse of rock and roll,
but each switch of the radio dial is just another reminder that i
once tasted like music in the mouths of men, that their words built
me up like a flower-child mona lisa in all the permanence of three
minutes of vinyl, that though i inspired the most beautiful lyrics
ever written about love, they never called me onstage to sing them.
i was once told that if you love a woman to the point of madness, she
will become it. but any insanity i have remains etched on the insides
of my veins; i walk beaches now, much too old for sandcastle-building.
years pass, and the girl has never written anything back.
i still wonder if she will ever be given the chance to.
even the world’s greatest muses sometimes want to hold the pen.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 8:47 PM UTC
I wonder if my late night plays
Will ever be relayed
To a generation that is slayed
In my play every black home
Has two stories, a fence
and a dad that won’t roam
Their cars ain’t all chrome
No bars on the windows
No grandmas saying lord knows
When cops shows
There are more colors than grey
No dope boys on the corner cliche
Or dogs on chains barking to get away
The colors blue and red stand for a flag
The black youth aren’t in a body bag
And pants never sag
Black men aren’t scary and mean
The system isn’t their adversary or
The silver screen
They don’t fill cemeteries nor chase
The color green
Black women have a name
Not ***** or **** used as shame
No fakes buts for their fame
The son has more hope
Then shooting a ball and ****** bout dope
He aspires to use a stethoscope
The daughter is strong and free
She can either write a song or get a PhD
Her future is whatever she wants it to be
Their ain’t thugs on tv our color
Not every sitcom has one strong black single mother
Or get drunk and fight one another
Gun violence is a joke
the police don’t chock our folk
Our music don’t promote drug use
And Gucci don’t ******
Drivebys are now hi’s
Every family is woke and wise
It’s sad to know
That this world won’t ever exist
Because the world outside
Is to nightmarish
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 9:11 PM UTC
I first noticed my abnormal heartbeat
in Duluth, Minnesota.
Standing across the canal from you
separated by water
and the waves waves waves.
I still swear to this day
that it was your breath I heard
mingling with the hush of water.
The next time I notice my heart
we’re at the hospital.
You tell me to uncross my ankles
and hold out my wrist
your thumb brushing over the more delicate part of its skin
and your stethoscope cold on my throat.
It’s only a
one-two-three
four
before you’re pulling away
my pulse going with you.
I don’t care if I have to live with arrhythmia
live with the pills and the appointments
and the lack of a steady thump thump thump
in my chest.
Just the ghost of the feel
of your thumb on my pulse point
on my wrist
on my neck
curving behind my ear
and my hand on your heart
with your thump thump thump,
will keep my blood flowing.
I’m a girl with a broken heart
and I’m in love with a cardiologist.
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 1:39 AM UTC
She was born in a sightless world, never knowing
The beauties all around, but enjoyed and knowing every sound.
Her hearing had become so defined, she could tell
The dropping of a dime.
The sounds of a car, truck, or motorbike
No two sounds were ever alike.
She knew the sound of each bird high up in the trees
And the sound of a cricket in the summer breeze.
Being sightless did not mean that she could not see
Her hands took away the mysteries.
With just touching a picture would form in her mind
To be seen as clear as day, and wipe all her doubts away.
She would run her fingers around your face
Feeling every line and every space.
She had all the gifts that GOD had given
And making life truly worth living.
With her keen hearing she could tell what was in your heart
And if you was in love – or your heart being torn apart.
Her life was about as normal as can be, but she had her
Human desires and needed a love to put out the fire.
Then her dream finally came true, when a friend told her
“I’m in love with you”!
Her parents told her – “listen to his heart and you will see
If this love is meant to be”!
She listened to his heart like a doctor with a stethoscope
And his heart did beat true – that this man’s in love with you.
Her sightless world is now complete as her heart skips a beat
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 7:54 PM UTC
the Doctor will see you now
the nurse announces into the hallway
she doesn't shout - only raising her voice a little
louder to get my attention.
i'm nervous, it's my first serious appointment.
as i sit down the stool, She looks into my pupils
it's an eye exam, She says
lightly brushing across my face
skincare is of importance, also sleep more
your eye bags aren't a good sign
grabs my arm, pinching it lightly
muscle density isn't all that bad,
her rope of iron is hooked onto Her ears
a small disk between Her fingers
breathe in, breathe out
a stethoscope!
it presses against my chest, the palpitations almost
minuscule, yet She grabs onto my arm
Her ears almost dance at each knock
fingers tap to my rhythm
Her stethoscope presses harder down my chest
it's almost as if my ***** is pushing back
against the now warm instrument
then it sinks, i swallow it
down, down, in! she pushes lightly into my skin
why is Her warm hand in my chest?
She sinks deeper and deeper in
until she grabs the soft fruit of my Eden
She's gentle, feeling every jump in my chest
this is supposed to happen?
Her fingers caress every vein, studying it,
tracing it, she notes down the rate in her head
no good, She says, getting faster by the minute
my sweat pouring down my neck
isn't making this any easier, is it?
then Her hand slips out
i didn't realize she needed no gloves
She notes down Her measurements
in... a blog?
be sure to be back tomorrow
i stand up, button up my shirt
i am sure to be back tomorrow.
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 9:38 AM UTC
She drew an s shape on my foot with a stick
I lay there, paralysed with fear,
thinking was this the subtle beginning
of a programme of torture.
Her white coat and stethoscope
glinting in the strip lighting.
She asked me if I knew where i was.
I lay there, frozen with fear,
not able to open my mouth.
I could read letters on her name badge
I read it as Dr Helliday
So that's where i was
I thought, that confirms it
along with her snake charming smile.
She tried to get me to drink
But I lay there stiff with fear,
not wanting to open my mouth
in case it was poison.
She placed a wet sponge on my lips
my eyes widening in terror.
Can you see how many fingers I'm holding up?
She said gently
I lay there tensed up with fear.
I thought it must be a trap
I couldn't open my mouth
and fall in.
I was seeing things around me
that pinned me to the bed with fear.
Patients pouring blood out of windows.
shadows of nurses in nooses.
I screamed inwardly.
But could not open my mouth
for fear had clamped it shut
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 7:41 PM UTC
there was a mother somewhere today
who held her child for the very first time
there was a mother somewhere today
who gave birth to a stillborn child
there was a mother somewhere today
who made the hard decision of abortion
there was a mother somewhere today
who was allowed to use a stethoscope to listen to her childs last heartbeats as the doctors unplugged him
there was a mother somewhere today
whos child came out to them
there was a mother somewhere today
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 4:48 PM UTC
I was looking at your chest x rays on the lighted wall
Your straight spine centered behind your rounded ribcage
Looks like busted churchgates
from all the times you let your ghosts go
And there are bees buzzing in your shoulders only
you aren't cold this time
So much faith in what I do with words
Willing to love me like a half written gospel
we are filling in as we go
And I want to write us poetry
like the first man was asked to play the first piano
Come
dance with me to my deathbed
I am afraid
That one day I might kiss you
like a deaf stethoscope
that no longer hears your heart
That this language will grow stale
Along with your faith in me
but my knees
are riverbeds for prayer
And I carry my chest heavy like a library
full of books that hate the silence
You should know that
being a poet is more than just a choice
and maybe my body is like a library
but when I pray to you
I'll never use my inside voice
Just like I know that god used nails
to make the iron in your blood stream
That you'll be strong even when you're old
and even then
I still want you to believe in me
When we are like trains that no longer run the tracks
when we've fully mapped the topography of our bodies
But some days
our engine chests come back
and I write a poem about you that is new
And you listen
To my huff and rumble
you lift your tea and saucer with shaking hands
I close my eyes
and hear our train coming
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 8:25 PM UTC
We both traced the constellations
those that were unknown
the stars danced to a different tune last night
Those we called our own
The astronomers stencilled each complicated line
With our bare hands we scratched each curve
We may have not heard yet
We've built a universe of our own
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 5:04 AM UTC
I’ve always meant to sit by the sea and write you a letter
I would acknowledge the setting
(maybe of the sun and the tables outside a restaurant)
I would try to capture the sun-soaked skin and those visionary
sparkles of the sea
Which exist only between blinks
I would try to capture them for you.
I know I'll never send this, there is
No coffee cup beside me; no seagulls
are chirping within my reach
The only saltwater streams down my cheeks
Without the idyllic canvas is it worth anything?
All love gives me now is
the stabbing and wrenching of my heart.
I wrote a letter last year
after tossing and turning.
It's much too late to send
Dead ink on a Christmas card months past its
expiration date
never left the box in my shelf
You never broke your promises, you never kept them either
So what example was I left to follow?
I wonder if I would recognize you
through a stethoscope.
Did I lie?
If I cannot remember I don’t expect you to.
I wonder if your mind ever wanders far enough
(mid-song, mid-tossing and -turning)
to reach me
to write me a letter
Another that you’ll never send
...or perhaps they are all unwritten
even worse; unthought
I wonder if you would recognize me
through a stethoscope.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
Stop your stuttering heart
And attempts to explain how this is complicated
Let me lap the language from your mouth
Until the words become sound
There is nothing complicated about a moan
Or trying to catch your breath
Let me love you primal
Let me rewind your dizzy gut
So I can love you backwards
So we can start at the end
And you can see that we both die happy
There are no words to explain your presence
How I know that at least
One of those hits on my poetry page is you
Even then
You’d need a stethoscope to hear the subtle changes in my heartsong
So don’t give me reasons why this won’t work
You should know by now
That I was born to surprise people
I’m an underachiever
You can let slide by this time
We both know how this ends
Let’s get past this and
Go straight to the good part
Where I turn your doubts into sounds
Even a baby can understand
Adults coo sometimes
Let me be a quiet sigh of relief
In order to mask the mumbles
Of your fear
Let me turn you into a sound
A moan
A sigh
A quiet breath
And then
Let me love you
Sep 3, 2011
Sep 3, 2011 at 6:37 PM UTC
if you place a stethoscope inquisitively on the
beating chest of your life, expect to hear a -
plod, plod, plod.
you'd think it to be the footsteps of a
fumbling toddler; fumbling feet
feeling the flat, alien earth.
or the muffled footsteps of a stranger
stumbling into your path, turning your
tables, stumbling into your life.
you could regret that it wasn't your
feet's soundless plodding on the moon,
that there was no greatness in your silence.
while at times you remember
the footsteps of friends converging
into your life - diverging from it.
and then to cease all speculation -
you recognise the footsteps
of god at your doorstep.
Mar 10, 2012
Mar 10, 2012 at 6:58 AM UTC
nearly five years old
my nephew plays
with a stethoscope
a fully functioning
auscultatory device
not just some toy
of unavailing plastic
and purposeless rubber
lost to his imagination
he holds the chest piece
against my sternum
the diaphragm cold
even through my shirt
making me pull away
momentarily
out of instinct or habit
even though
it is not needed
he sits listening
concentration tight
across his brow
with very real concern
as he informs me
that he can't hear anything
that i must just have
no heart at all
Mar 27, 2024
Mar 27, 2024 at 9:39 AM UTC
The doctor ... says... I have a serious issue...
He say it's life threatening you guys
...
I don't know what I'm gonna do...
All this research
This inaccurate treatment
Being high to distract my lows
Not really knowing what to suppose
He gave me a date...
He claims it's an estimate, but if I keep feeling like this; this could be it.
He sends me home each visit, telling me that this is rare, but common
It happens, but don't normally conclude in such trauma
His coat, or stethoscope doesn't always mean that he has the antidote
...
As for the symptoms:
•The dry skin,
She used to help apply the Shea Butter
•My hair all over my head,
It was funny when she brushed my hair, she didn't know what she was doing
•Long nails,
She HATED that
•Morning breath the entire day
I would chase her all over the house trying to give her a kiss
•chill bumps •shivers •teeth chattering
We used to cuddle to stay warm, so we didn't use the furnace
•starvation •no appetite
She cooked 5-7 times throughout the week
•restless
I could not fall asleep until she got in from work
•angry •outburst • complaining
She always said "ahhh shut up and get over it punk"
•Listening to the talk radio station LIPZ 102.5 to be exact
I gave her my undivided attention
•heartache
I loved her
That's why it's difficult for Dr. Carmichael to prescribe me medicine
How am I suppose to treat this?
There's no special enough specialist
No surgeon so precise
Not even the smartest scientist,
divinest pastor, or
The most thoughtful psychiatrist that can save my life...
I'm doomed
All I do is sit on the couch in the house that will soon be a tomb
...
My hope is fading
My pulse has feinted
My arms are folded
My back is *****
Back and forth
My rock is steady
... My soul is light
And my eyes is heavy
I'm taking the departure hard
...
Love can be deadly
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 10:01 PM UTC
I woke up today,
My thoughts scrambling
Through my head,
The noise is uncomfortable,
So much that I can’t go back to sleep.
I stand up to go to work,
I untie my hands and do my usual,
I get dressed and out of the corner of my eye
Shadows dance and drink, making a mess of my room.
I try not to pay attention, as they drop me down the stairs, right to my front door.
I reach for the doorknob,
I grab and tap it.
Waiting for it to open,
But shivers run down my spine.
As my lungs fill with red and oranges as I inhale
And an emptiness only the woods understand
As I exhale,
My hands continue to tap the doorknob
From Right to left
A symphony to my hears,
Dopamine On the tip of my fingers
Suddenly but not so sudden
the door opens,
And I feel,
I feel like a knight without his armor,
Like a doctor without his stethoscope,
Like a prisoner without his cell
Like a kid without his favorite toy.
Maybe I feel too much,
Maybe feeling is not the problem here,
Maybe I’m wondering about the wrong thing
And I need to remind myself to breath
Because the emptiness its unbearable.
Something is missing,
I should go back inside.
May 14, 2023
May 14, 2023 at 10:55 AM UTC
the chair in his office was uncomfortable
as was i
when he pushed his wide-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose
adjusted his stethoscope
and asked
why on earth i would want to have an eating disorder,
my body was so beautiful
his eyes lingering on my thighs
a few seconds too long
as he looked me up and down
in that moment
i didn't know whether to thank him
or get out of the room as fast as possible
i wanted to puke
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC