Best Dementia Poems
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and
can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words"
~ CS Lewis
If ever I don't know your name
recall these words that I now write:
no season ever stays the same -
fall yields to winter, day to night.
If ever I forget your face -
though hard to fathom now, dear child,
I ask you to recall the days
we walked on trails through canyons wild.
Those nights we camped under the stars
and filled our lungs with mountain air,
the trips we took in vans or cars
while singing songs from here to there.
Remember beach days, Sunday hikes,
or at the lake shore skipping stones,
those Saturdays we rode our bikes
for donuts or for ice cream cones.
I hope you won't become too sad
nor let my absence cast a pall,
for I will always be your dad
I pray our good times you'll recall.
Now go and make new memories -
in moving on, you play your part.
Sing soft our favorite melodies,
I'll sing along deep in your heart.
written 25 June 2022
Night of the Dark Soul;
shadows infiltrate
the gap between self
and oblivion.
You're in a scary
dysfunctional place
under constant siege:
where there's no escape.
As reality
morphs into a dream:
sanity slowly
starts to slip away.
A part of you is
lost to dementia:
and confusion lurks
behind every thought.
Memories vanish,
time's all that exists,
and your frightened heart
cries out for a friend.
When robins appear an angel is near.
* * *
A memorial dedicated to my mother who suffered from dementia for many years.
November 1920 - July 2008
Mother and Dementia
When dementia creeps in, through the back door
Loving is needed, like never before...
An expressionless face, an empty heart
A once dazzling life that had lost it's spark
I saw your sad tears and felt every fear
Of foggy days that for you never cleared.
All disappeared, those happy golden years
Memories you held, so precious, so dear
The loveliest of smiles, gone without trace
Who was that stranger who dwelt in your place.
Tenderness was missing, none existing
Care and affection you were resisting
It sure broke my heart, to see you like that
When we'd shared love and friendship in the past.
My one and only forever mother
There couldn't have been a better another
I still pray in hope, again and again
You didn't suffer any physical pain.
As you loved and cared, like a mother should
I cared for you, as I promised I would
I hope that these words to heaven get through
"Dearest Mother, I will always love you."
25th July 2021
DEMENTIA CASTS LONG SHADOWS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sunlight fades from the window ledge
hands tremble, reaching through
mist where memories dwell
her memory – a moth-eaten shawl
whispers cling to dusty frames,
familiar faces blurred
like rain on windowpanes
keys forget what doors they knew
chairs hold ghosts’ warm weight
the clocks hands swim backward
through forgotten dates
footsteps echo in empty rooms
long shadows cast where memories pass
In sleepy
synaptic
catacombs
theorems dream beneath calcified floors
neurons stretch filaments of light
paleontologists of lost certainty
tracing the memory of what
once
coruscated
alive
each recovered syllable rises in luminosity
trailing sediment from older visions
when knowing shifted
steering truth by
extinguished
stars
their light arriving as memory does
late and changed
waves breaking against my palms
sometimes a word returns
with
a
quiver
a neuron long faded suddenly firing
unmasking me
language has a pulse too
memory susurrates in its syllables
tissue pressed beneath the skin
a word returns and with it
a face
already
fading
In dementia's neural ossuaries
they slowly resurface
refracted through time's
fossilized
strata
what returns exceeds what departed
yet what returns also slices us
so softly
with its incompleteness
a small lance lodged behind
ribs and bone
each restoration births knowing
part excavation part genesis
claimed by no century
reshaping me in return
moth-wings brushing my cheek
We become the archaeology of ourselves
hands cupping reverberations
charting the contours of our hearts
hearing again in the filamented dark
the pulse of neurons stretching
filaments of light
spelling the names
we thought
we'd lost
I see her sitting in her chair
The wheels are locked in place
My gaze is met by hollow eyes
No expression on her face
It's clear she does not know me
Nor does she recognize
The life that swirls around her chair
She cannot visualize
In her lap there rests a doll
Cupped within her arm
With the instincts of a mother
She shelters it from harm.
I wonder what still lies within
What thoughts run through her head
When her whole life consists of
Her wheelchair and her bed
How much of life does she retain
What treasures does she hide
How much does she really know
That she keeps locked inside
Does in her heart a love still glow
Do cherished memories play
Or like her withered body
Have they too gone away
I wish that I could reach her
And visit for a while
But I can offer nothing
But compassion and a smile
11/25/2011
voices, this tapestry sewn of broken threads
murmured words that now spell confusion
attempt to smile, a troubled mask we see instead
voices, this tapestry sewn of broken threads
all those chapters that will now go unread
the way it was now only our sad illusion
voices, this tapestry sewn of broken threads
murmured words that now spell confusion
My dear children don’t bother coming to pray or mourn
Whether it’s the hottest sunset or frosted dawn
You were supposed to be my kids and help my struggle
Living with dementia made life a puzzle
Throughout all my senior life you were never there
When inheritance was involved you seemed to care
You couldn’t shed a tear, not one to spare
For your own mother who raised you with love and care
What selfish sons you were
Knowing my condition it didn’t occur
You just left me in a rocking chair
To writher away and die in despair
Although you are still my only love
I’m a blessed angel who watches from above
I’m the milky clouds that blow
I’m the diamond glints in the snow
I’m in each drop of rain
And in every ounce of pain
Sperm Whale Dementia.
Here I am an old Sperm whale,
A swimming in the deep,
Sucking on the Crill, inhale,
As fearless I do leap.
And then I come to surface,
And clarity does seep,
Dementia nursing home this place,
Me poor old bones do creak.
Back beneath the water,
A swimming in the deep,
Happy as a tadpole,
More Crill to maybe eat.
Back up to the surface,
Who is that woman here,
She says she is Molly Brown,
A rellie so sincere.
So come visit sweet Molly Brown,
I may be far away,
Or surfaced with a puzzled frown,
A sperm whale here today…
Don Johnson 22-aug-11
Note: Sundowning – Most commonly in Alzheimer and Dementia patients, Sundowning, is changes in behavior that get worse in late afternoon, evening and can even last all night. Patients may be agitated, confused, unable to sleep; it may appear in other forms of disruptive behavior.
Eight sleepless nights, pacing non-stop;
legs, knee-bent, dragging toes are scraping carpet.
Enduring a painful back; each breath drawn
makes it throb and exhaustion’s in control.
I can’t sleep until he sleeps;
must stay awake in case he falls.
I hold my breath to stand;
it dulls the sharp stabbing pain in my back.
I swallow another migraine pill and
pray for him to fall asleep; he does not.
Respite eludes me; caregiver to a dementia-mind,
I collapse into a chair, dizzy and call myself an ambulance.
I’m drained, hungry and he’ll Sundown several nights.
I pass out and am brought around by an EMT;
my patient's oblivious to the fact that
anyone’s come into the house…
he paces…and paces…
She sits by herself in the dayroom
absent-mindedly taking her med,
her head is a blank, she knows nothing,
braceleted, brought to her bed.
Sedation has settled her nightmares
and delivered her safe from her fears,
but who are these strangers with clipboards,
where'd she come from, and why is she here?
She's showing no signs of aggression,
as a matter of fact she's serene,
no tantrums, no throwing or spitting,
picture-perfect, a story-book queen.
By day she's the doctors' conundrum,
every measure is tried for a clue,
but the secret is buried inside her,
closed for business, not out for review.
As night falls she's back in her bedroom,
left alone in confusion and tears,
frightened, with nothing to contemplate
but the blood, and the screams in her ears.
In the avalanche, I lost track of my guiding light.
I fled my fireside. I had to evacuate my homestead.
Driven far astray by frenetic frozen fright,
I was just a cowardly racing rescuing airhead.
The wounded wooden face of my brother
lugged away by paramedics in a wheelchair.
My tomb of sleep was my 3 am druthers.
But I called 911, puzzling at my sibling’s stare.
Living and dying from underworld to mountaintop,
the EMTs raised him off the floor like a bag of potatoes.
Everything was breathing pollen and allergen nonstop.
All my raw instincts lacked right or wrong thought flows.
It’s true; I lost poetry. I abandoned my paintings, my pottery,
as though the subverting season of AI sophistry reigned supreme,
as though all creativity was randomized in a human lottery,
as though all consciousness is reduced to a particle beam.
Vacant, these weary eyes roll up in my head.
Vacant, how much long-term despondency to endure?
My brother lives and dies each day in his bed,
defenseless, like a never healing wound with no cure.
My days are distractions, a mad confusing deflection.
I vacated my poetic home, my fireside muse.
I raft the unfamiliar caregiver currents without reflection.
I can’t live forever homeless, maintaining the caregiver ruse.
Sleep now, my brother, knowing life offers you another aim.
Tap resilience from your broken body. This will clear your mind.
My pallet for tending, nourishing, and wiping deserves no acclaim.
Nobody asks for these duties. No one can ever put them behind.
"You will have bad times but I will always wake you up to the good times that you weren't paying attention to" ~~Robin Williams~~
When all seems lost, and he is in his darkest hour,
I am his power.
When pain takes over his demented twisted mind,
I am the love he will find.
When he feels alone and confusion drapes a morbid veil,
I am his caregiver that will pave a healing trail.
When sadness torments him beyond belief,
I am his relief.
When dementia strikes its ugly blows,
I am his rock, the one that never goes.
When voices fill his mind with terror,
I am his clarity his sanity bearer.
When his wounded soul cant take any more,
I am the one that can help his peace to restore.
That's all that I am, I am his wife,
I will be with him for the rest of his life.
Who am I
I often ask.
I have no future
I see no past.
A long forgotten book
resides upon the shelf.
An unfinished story
crying out for help.
Family become strangers
as the world bids goodbye.
Memories start to fade
as the past breathes a sigh.
Dementias unforgiving
a cruel slow lingering death.
feeling lost and all alone
in life's dark wilderness.
Blank pages in a book
yet thumbed and coffee stained.
Stared at in bemusement
long lost fairy tales.
No beginning, No end
the story stays untold.
To turn the page is pointless
as the next page is just the same.
Oh how you loved the author
their work from younger days.
The love, the laughter , the tragedy
of long lost fun filled days.
Chapter after chapter
the pages are just the same.
I crave an happy ending
to stare into your eyes and see
a reflection of us from years gone by.
for you to then speak my name .
so I can close the book
on this love filled tale.