"uninjured" poems
I'm told you've been in a crash and now in the hospital.
I fish for facts, to know what's going on.
I hear you were stuck head-on on your side, that you have broken bones and a brain injury, that you're in a medically induced coma.
My heart pauses.
I can't think.
I don't believe it.
Then the news story pops up on our local paper's website.
Your friend turned in front of another car which struck you, and your sister in the backseat. The two of you have serious injuries, you're critical. But the two drivers have walked away uninjured.
I just want you to wake up.
Could it have been avoided?
I can't let you leave, I need you here with me.
I need you to push through.
I need God to prevail.
I want to sit by your bedside and demand you wake up but I know that won't help.
I've slipped into a mind coma. I can't smile. I feel numb.
I just want you to wake up.
I just want you to wake up so we can both leave this coma.
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 3:47 PM UTC
Young Oak! when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine;
That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.
Such, such was my hope, when in Infancy’s years,
On the land of my Fathers I rear’d thee with pride;
They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,—
Thy decay, not the weeds that surround thee can hide.
I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour,
A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my Sire;
Till Manhood shall crown me, not mine is the power,
But his, whose neglect may have bade thee expire.
Oh! hardy thou wert—even now little care
Might revive thy young head, and thy wounds gently
heal:
But thou wert not fated affection to share—
For who could suppose that a Stranger would feel?
Ah, droop not, my Oak! lift thy head for a while;
Ere twice round yon Glory this planet shall run,
The hand of thy Master will teach thee to smile,
When Infancy’s years of probation are done.
Oh, live then, my Oak! tow’r aloft from the weeds,
That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay,
For still in thy ***** are Life’s early seeds,
And still may thy branches their beauty display.
Oh! yet, if Maturity’s years may be thine,
Though I shall lie low in the cavern of Death,
On thy leaves yet the day-beam of ages may shine,
Uninjured by Time, or the rude Winter’s breath.
For centuries still may thy boughs lightly wave
O’er the corse of thy Lord in thy canopy laid;
While the branches thus gratefully shelter his grave,
The Chief who survives may recline in thy shade.
And as he, with his boys, shall revisit this spot,
He will tell them in whispers more softly to tread.
Oh! surely, by these I shall ne’er be forgot;
Remembrance still hallows the dust of the dead.
And here, will they say, when in Life’s glowing prime,
Perhaps he has pour’d forth his young simple lay,
And here must he sleep, till the moments of Time
Are lost in the hours of Eternity’s day.
1.4k
Sitting at a tiny plastic table, between microscopes
and glass bottles of corrosives,
his son lets a mouse he named Ralph crawl up his arms.
Sliding on a lab coat, the father faces his back
toward his son and pulls out subject 402.
It’s his weekend. A quick shot to the heart
is all it takes. He puts it back in the cage.
Watches it expire. Takes it out, again.
A slice of time exposes internal
organs, projecting them to the world.
Look at the heart, swollen red,
those tiny lungs unable to exchange oxygen.
His son spills crackers across the table, sharing with Ralph.
Tissue samples are cut, placed in fragile vials,
labeled and set aside.
Disposes the hollowed corpse.
The boy is hungry, clutching his stomach dramatically.
Eat your crackers.
The boy squeezes the mouse. The mouse
clamps his teeth on him until he is flung from the hand.
Ralph slinks into the background
while the boy cries fat tears, his wound extended.
He is like a man dying of a thousand terrible things.
The man grabs subject 403.
Twisting his uninjured arm around his father’s left leg,
he stains the lab coat with mucus.
Go sit down.
He sniffles, pushes over a stool and climbs to its apex.
Go sit at the table.
He leans into his father’s light.
The broken body with its skin pulled back, pieces of metal
protruding.
It’s Ralph! It’s Ralph!
No it’s not. Go sit down.
It’s Ralph!
He throws himself into the table. Swings his arms.
The vials smash. The microscope crashes.
A scalpel makes contact with the wall.
Subject 403 is catapulted.
To the boy, the body seems to come alive in the air.
But it is motionless on the ground,
Trapped by broken glass.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 2:28 PM UTC
I've escaped
without a hangover
far too many times
gone uninjured
when I should've
died
I'm no cat
I'm living on
borrowed
lives
what happens when
I have to repay
my
debts?
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
I will remember tomorrow what I found fruitful today
Like a sudden symptom come alive
A cavity
Decaying my roots
The trees I grew up climbing
Rhyming limb after limb
I broke my right leg twice
Once while jumping off the jungle gym
Holding Chip and Dale stuffed animals
With a beaming smile in my elementary hands
Back then it meant more
Another time broken again to
Remind myself this can still happen
It's always happened
The fracture
The departure
The flight from here or there and
Farther
Look it's like a crutch
Holding you up
Or holding you back
Remember breaking your arm
When you could've broken your back
For lack of a better word:
Dramatic
Fell from a fence
As dense as my youth and
Made as much sense as you or I do
But I tumbled head over feet
To have a meet and greet handshake with the grass that kicked my ***
The tears ran down my face as if
Disgrace had painted my way
I walked the long way around Because stopping to think or look behind me
Apparently wasn't an option
Still crying tears of embarrassment
I said they pushed me but they didn't
A full circle fall
Back to where I started
Uninjured and insured
Go to bed back to where I started again
In the morning my bruises will be fresh
As last night with the sunset
But now the orange juice brings it out best
And my army is broken
Acknowledged at last
Cast in blue
Singing my favorite colour
Thinking the authorities will
Swoop in and take my mother
But they had another thing coming
Me
Broken bleeding
Disorganized obsessively
Compulsive jealous
User taker
Bridge breaker
Me
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
Two cars, separate, the people inside would never meet outside of this,
A young woman, her name will not be spoken here.
She was reckless, but she didn’t intend cruelty.
She was trying to get home
Now in the second car, the girl and her mother were headed to a funeral, out of province
They never made it, and their family are now planning another.
You will not know the two who fell, but
An entire little town in Canada will remember where they once walked.
A sister, a daughter, at 21, now an orphan.
She will not recover.
The uninjured woman, her kids will not soon forget
What she was willing to do.
I am not saying to lock the woman away forever,
Maybe she wasn’t capable of ******
Maybe she’d never hurt a fly,
Maybe she loves her kids, but today, she did not.
Do we forgive, and forget something like this?
I know her name,
And the orphan will forever know her name
But I will swear, to whatever god, to whatever I can find,
She may be forgiven, she may run
But this is more than her.
With any say,
I will never be stained,
With another human’s life.
Mar 14, 2025
Mar 14, 2025 at 10:31 PM UTC
there's no such thing as a uninjured soldier
We all come back with some type of scar
Whether it's physical are mental
it's not always so obvious to see right where they are
our job is not for the faint-hearted
there were decisions that were made
some stories would never be shared
just know that history was changed
while fancy speeches are given and politeness is practice
those who are in power look to us to have an eye on the factions
those who operate in the Shadows are always aware
that there are only a few
that standing inbetween success and
failure knowing the odds and still
choosing to be there
Nov 17, 2017
Nov 17, 2017 at 10:24 AM UTC
I had you first
Heart soul and mind
Grown up, not apart by time
So alike, so unchanged
Through different environments, in a different stage
Now they have you, thoughts and body
Weeding away our time though unsteady
So many wishes, so many prayers to one not there, answered suddenly but incompletely
Now I have you soul mind and body
Your heart is away, on vacation these days
Now I again begin to pray, to beg one not there
May I have you?
Again the way you once were?
All mine finally for once
Uninjured, unbroken
Loved and loving but mostly; loving me?
God please!
You know me better than I know myself!
For years and years of my feelings bottled on a shelf
Resigning myself to a secret love ocassionally crashing from above, to break my heart all over again
I never minded it then...
But to have you and have you ripped away
Every night, every day
I will never be ok
The jar is unscrewed and feeling renewed courses through my chilled veins
To remember your gentle callused hands
To remember your words to me when secrets spilled and my tears would repeat
I would give anything for you to stay
Even a day or two of having you Completely having you, is worth more than lifetimes having the next best thing
Jul 5, 2019
Jul 5, 2019 at 12:55 AM UTC
She cleaned me in the shower and I cried.
I never did quite feel my age.
Whenever I look back at old artwork of mine,
old writings or drawings,
it is a clue for me, to me, from me, of me, by me and through me.
I’ve long been a mystery to me.
The night of the accident they put me, uninjured, on a stretcher and there
wrapped me in a pink blanket.
I was so happy for that because I was so cold
om-ing in the corridor.
They took me and put me on a table to slide me in
an MRI machine.
I was so sure then that they were going to **** me.
-the Red Blanket and elite ********* ring and the dark light.-
I was crying then as well
and she promised me I wouldn’t die that night.
My only choice was to trust her
so I did
and wept
and listened to the sounds of the machine.
So it’s like that now.
The dust is all kicked up and
every time I look back there’s different
patterns on the floor.
When it’s my turn for the sound healing
I lie down with a hood around my eyes.
Because the eyes are the only part of the brain
that you can see through the body,
if you don’t count the body.
And I know now I’m going to die a little more today.
So without another pause I say goodbye.
not because I’m used to it,
but because there is nothing left to do.
Dec 24, 2020
Dec 24, 2020 at 1:14 PM UTC
The eyes that watched people die
The bare arms that manned battleships
The legs that walked a thousand miles
The heart that beats with vigor for one
The face that launched a thousand ships
The mind that devises ten thousand plans
The wit that confuses men of fame
The sarcasm that drowns the pain
The fierceness that breaks the vibranium chain
The face that launched a thousand ships
A token for her name
A coupon for her fame
A word for her pain
A comment for her gain
The face that launched a thousand ships
Killed her sanity
To salvage her dignity
Faked her content
Disguised her grunts
The face that launched a thousand ships
A dime for her thoughts made me the richest person in the world
A star for her accomplishments brought the universe to my abode
A ***** for her happiness, left me uninjured
The face that launched a thousand ships
~Pacific Wolf
Jan 6, 2018
Jan 6, 2018 at 6:53 AM UTC
The day flows on
even in the most basic ways
when we have the best of our days
there is still the pain
It radiates and rises from the pores
when we are uninjured
but who among us is ever truly
unhurt?
At my best I rise and fall
in various states of anger
angst
bitterness
I cannot recall the last peaceful day
a day without pain
be it the pain of the mind
or the ache of the body
the first because of the latter
Yet it doesn’t seem to matter
what is done
or undone
it remains and I remain
two enemies trapped together
my Pain and I
like two bitter foes who’ve been at struggle
so long
they couldn’t understand a day alone
without the other
Nov 16, 2020
Nov 16, 2020 at 2:35 PM UTC
you tellem I never owed God nothin'
or He's a liar.
So, it ain't no debt t' God what Jesus called Our Father,
in theithereal-orgnot heaven of heavenly places
hallowed...
from PIE root *kailo- "whole, uninjured, of good omen" (see health).
is yur name,
give us, we ax ye, this day plenty enough
----
It ain't no debt we all owe our father who it seems,
if you can belive it, is known
to have give us defined rights we can't loose.
So it must be money debt we be axin
for give and for get, two words diffi-cult for me, but your knowing my
ever intention assumed, I pray on but
add a deal,
based on my believing you in me is all I need to pull my weight,
do to me as I do to others, I dare you. Oops
---
forgive our, our, Jesus said, our, (He surely was debt-free, to God, right)
debt to anybody or thing, not you, cause the reconcilin' was done,
the angels, messengers to earth from God knows where,
they say. Peace, on earth. God and the disconnected reconnected.
At the first breath, God knew, ah
this is why iyob refered me to the flesh as an experience ungodly,
by design, as it were.
A glitch.
Well now. We know. All fixed. Fret not. The crossed wires were
mylinated,
the insulation needed an upgrade anyway,
evolve,
it is finished. Listen.
Clear signal right? Quiet,
Think what peace on earth would feel like, imagine
having a one eight-billionth part
in making that happen,
by being peaceful in your self, in a noisy moment of
interesting time
when odd ceased meaning untouchable and
truth as a way of life made peace
with all our reasons for war, once honored by faith in a lie
cold-cocked by the reason for the faith in me.
Jun 20, 2019
Jun 20, 2019 at 4:57 PM UTC
I wonder what goes through that soldier's mind
What do you think, soldier?
Fighting in a war that is not yours
With bombs louder than your heart beats
Tanks going straight to the enemy territory
Indeed, to your city, your soil.
City of lost souls
Blood on the streets, did you enjoy it, soldier?
Earth of no one, chaos in the air
That feeling of denial coming right from your eyes
Exactly what I needed to know.
They tell you it's fair
And that you should fear the inverse
Your enemies would beat everything
But aren't you your own enemy
In this endless war
I see the grief and sorrow in your gaze
Your captain only has vapor and determination_
To **** more, to decimate hordes
Hordes of rebels or not, as your family.
Captain, oh captain
He would do whatever it takes
Old and glory hound
He brought the misery to his own people
To have power in his hands before dead
Seeker of the disgrace he had in his eyes.
This war was fought in two teams
The ones who wanted to fight and who really had brain
The captain had both, as well as power and lack of mercy
Never saw such an evil man in earth
I wonder if his skin burns
Like evil incarnate.
Oh my kind soldier
I know you can't give up of the fight
But could you come back safe and uninjured
Come back home, to me and your family?
Sep 8, 2019
Sep 8, 2019 at 9:30 PM UTC
If there ever comes a time that you'll miss me
Read this
My handwritten soft kiss
The first time we spoke was like a hot summer in winter
You melted all that icy shell around my soul
As our higher selves whispered
To leave me lying uninjured
And as that once cold husk splintered
I knew then all my morning and night prayers had been answered after being heard
(C) Copyright John Duffy
Feb 9, 2025
Feb 9, 2025 at 8:51 PM UTC