"stethoscopes" poems
if you look up, you will see
the bright-eyed and
the wide-mouthed—
the interesting, the casual, the adored
glistening in the warm night
peered at through microscopes and
telescopes and stethoscopes
far and far away
we are so desperate to be close
close and close and
close enough to see the blemishes
the scarring and the peeling
effaced by obvious and biased inner-commentary
they’re just not as red or sore as mine
perhaps they were formed under
a different kind of sun
what does the unfamiliar heart say?
does it sound at all like mine?
will i ever escape the sloppy grasp of dullness?
will the world swallow me whole?
if i count the days on both hands
on toes, on eyelashes—
if i only eat green things and
read tattered books and
pretend that i don’t mind—will i ever
break the mirror?
will i find seven years of good luck
between the jagged edges?
to exist as a reflection
is to not exist at all
there are lonely, dark purple heavens
waiting for you to sever your longing gaze
to stop lying to yourself
to hop onto the back of the cow
and begin living somewhere beyond the moon—
to realize, with closed eyes
you belong to the sky
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 4:36 PM UTC
This is not a love poem.
Because
I know nothing about the entrancement of Romance
It’s like watching a mime mimic antics
It makes me panic.
No, I write epics and tragedies.
About political catastrophes.
About the rhythmic anatomy of poetry.
Not about “How do I love thee…”
But let me count the ways that these days
Have grown strange;
The passage of time has seemed to stop.
This black clock’s bold Tock and
Tick have been erased and
I’m still sick with the aftertaste
From the venom of your kiss
Your toxic lips made me itch that
Poisoned twitch One-thousand times
Before my bloodshot eyes
Went blind to your beauty.
“A most unfortunate disability”
Professionals told me
But I just sighed and smiled insignificantly
“No, no, you see this,
Ironically, is immunity.”
Imperviousness to seduction
But this is not a love poem.
It’s a professional epiphany
An observation
All research and annotations state things like
Blind Fortunes and
Heart complications are just
Minor alterations that
Spark fascinations in
Lab coats and stethoscopes.
Isotopes of foreign hopes
Are my safety ropes to cope with my
Distance away from you another day
And there I go again.
Every ******* word I say will start out right
But then convey to betray me with the
Cliché decay
Of a fluttering heart.
And on this day when time has stopped
I’ll re-lock my jaw that dropped
And, with Blind Eyes, this mental case
Will try to trace the chalk outlines
Of lucid days
With the white spine
Of the brain stem
But this
Is not
A love poem.
Because
I refuse to be Entranced by Romance.
I’m the kind of guy who would Panic in
That Frantic state of mind
And draw away from Sunlight
To find warmth Moonshine
To bite the bullet and lace up these shoes
Because eleven shots and twelve steps
Is the closest I get to refuge.
See, I dream in the Black and White
Of a first version television box set
About Bloodied tragedies
And political catastrophes
Set to a beat based on
The rhythmic anatomy of poetry
Rarely about “How do I love thee…”
Or the bedpost marks of
Fading, Chalk-Laced Memories.
Mar 9, 2011
Mar 9, 2011 at 8:41 AM UTC
All sounds lay dormant
Packed tight, no leaks
Dark stages none sing
Crowds of ears that still ring
Breathalyzers and torment
Parched throats
Contamination
Cold stethoscopes
Skin damnation
Pair of lungs that lost repetition
Rigid backbones with no support
Will not stand for any court
Needle ****** neck
Fluid builds unnoticed
A spinal tap not quite in focus.
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 4:24 PM UTC
how do doctors live
with themselves after
putting stethoscopes
to people's chests
and not telling them
their hearts are beating
them to death?
i love you so
i tell you now
we're just history's
worst cases
of domestic violence
against ourselves
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 5:33 AM UTC
When I was little I said to myself that I wanted to be a teacher when I grow up. I remember how I used to play the teacher role and the pupil at the same time. Funny wasn’t it? Crazy. It’s just because I have no playmates then. I’m not an only child but my siblings were away from me. I never wanted to go out and play with other kids like me. I just wanted to be at home with my grandmother. I knew then that being there with her was the safest place. But I wasn’t a lonely kid. I always laugh, I sing, I dance, I wasn’t shy at all. I’m a very bright kid. Well, I know for sure, it’s because I am raised by a very bright woman too - my grandmother.
But there were those times when we’re always at the hospital. I saw her lying on the hospital bed and there were things attached to her. I was so clueless. And then there I saw some men and women dressed in white holding records, medicines with stethoscopes around their neck and some tiaras on their head (well, that’s what I thought then). I’ve always watched them every time they go to our room and check on my lola. They always smile at her. They’re like angels. I thought that they loved her very much because they have really taken care of her.
And so, in that moment I had a change of path. I thought, I don’t want to be a teacher anymore and that what I really want is to become a doctor. And yes! Without a doubt, it’s because of her. I know someday, I will be and I will take good care of her too like the angels in the hospital.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 5:53 PM UTC
You want to
Mend my heart;
With what? Staples?
It's more than
Ten sheets thick
I don't care
How industrial you go,
And I laugh
At your staple gun
And even your nail gun,
Put away the duct tape
It'll just slide right off,
Oh; I see,
You brought plenty
Of Krazy glue,
Are you kidding me?
You might as well
Use fly paper,
None of this will do,
No siree, Bob
You can't fix my heart
And you sure as hell
Can't build me a new one,
No one with a hardhat
Nor white coats or stethoscopes
Can undo what she broke,
Only she is the remedy
Only she is the cure,
And my local drugstore
Doesn't carry her
Not even in generic,
So as far as I can tell
I'm stuck with this malady
Most inconvenient tragedy...
APAD13 - 112 © okpoet
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 3:55 PM UTC
Fun fun times in the now and here and in no man's land between the lines where everything that's anything and no one who can be anyone or any one who can be everyone goes.
The weasel may be popped, but the shop's open the whole year through, fun fun things for us to do and who'd have thought that they only bought to keep up with the next door Jones.
Rags and bones and pony carts, Napoleons and Bonaparte's all come to them asylum men who in their white coats, stethoscopes at hand lead the madness of the marching and who'd have thought that they were mad, one and all of them asylum men.
Work they said will cure the blues, but I choose not to take advice, they look twice and shake their heads, Supermen in lockdown wards on lockdown beds with locked in minds find Lois with the golden hair, she's watching any someone over there and it happens to be me, what glee, one more Nero on the deck to fiddle things, in my neck of the woods, goods in, goods out and that's what madness is about, absolutely pointless drivel dribbled by the 14th Earl of anywhere she's just a girl, not allowed the umpire shouts, not PC get out of here and in no man's land the band lays down, Napoleon marches on one more town, Havisham sits in her wedding gown and dust gathers in the corridors.
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 8:32 AM UTC
Good luck trying to "save me"
Because to you all I do is self destruct and **** everything
In your eyes, I need help from people with Ph.D.'s
I need to be stuffed with pills, take EEG scans
Violated with stethoscopes and serotonin shots
"I'll fix you, I promise"
Smile at me like a scientist does to it's experiment
Make me feel like I'm the guilty one when you hold my hand
As I sit down for these doctors and tell them when it starts to hurt
I should've started screaming a long time ago
I can no longer remember when I first felt all this pain
When was the last time I told someone how I felt that wasn't paid by someone else?
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Those blue pills have been given to me by those
Angels in stethoscopes.
The dying will stop, so I’m told.
Your soul will be able to hide now.
I smile at the thought of this blackness
Being ripped from my innards.
A hard night of drinking will
Do well enough, now.
I ***** out my soul.
Every few months I am your play thing, my angel,
My savior in your white coat.
Milligrams increase as I stare up at the hazel
Sky. I ***** out my soul once more.
I am your baby, now. I rely on you not for life,
But rather, not to die.
Cradle me, kiss me on the forehead,
Say it will all be alright.
Die, sweetie, die!
Die, your *******
You venom, seeping through my veins,
Die and come back to life and Die.
This blackness; I need you.
My angel, with his shiny new armor,
Loves me with no remorse.
He’s told me as so.
Let’s put more heaven into you,
He says.
This is love.
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 2:00 AM UTC
This is an experiment
designed to put us out of
our misery and what 'this' is
is hard to tell, to explain it,
well
we could try.
The lab coats with the stethoscopes and
the things that bleep when we go to sleep.
The digital thermometer that measures,
(haha) asif
the temperature.
OCD is just the way I do and
the things I see,
CDO is better though.
The hypodermic terminal
the point at the end of
a fine needle,
they stick it in and
pull the pin
boom, back to the
operations room.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 2:21 AM UTC
Nima's not
in the mood
for the quacks
visiting
the mental
cases ward
coming round
in white coats
stethoscopes
and closed minds
she's outside
in the sun
that despite
the nurse’s
wanting her
on the ward
not outside
chain smoking
a doctor
with a nurse’s
comes outside
the doctor
not happy
you should be
on the ward
for our rounds
not out here
the quack said
Nima sits
on a seat
her legs crossed
the night dress
with no belt
reveals sight
of her thighs
and she smiles
at the spark
alive there
in his eyes.
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 2:32 AM UTC
***standard tunes on the radio
the gramophones are outdated
so dust off your duvet covers
and dance naked for the daily
words are kept frozen in ice cube trays
spray my hands with cinnamon and honey
your rose water sprinkles my nose
and i feel a hundred years
younger than that old toad
sweep out the dining rooms
and follow the relics of the mind
in my time of loving
i will find a way to say i’m sorry
you combine memory with meaning
like stethoscopes trying to cope
with our swollen diameters
growing up is all about coming to terms
with our petty personalities and demeanor
nootropes in the new tropics
some are similar to the old radishes
codes and secret handshakes
shape the lakeside attractions
of parks and fairgrounds
as the storm rages beneath our stereos***
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 12:59 PM UTC