A Hospital Stay - Part I

"Nothing my hide from the hidden." - Japanese Proverb 1. Gulliver's God Goes Silent Sir Johnathan's Lilliputians assumed Gulliver's watch to be his personal god, Observing how seldom he took action Without first consulting it. Time has come to be the Tyrant God of our frenzied Age; The One Who Harries The mass of us from here to there and back again Crying down to the faithful the terrible slippage The relentless loss of minutes, hours and days, Unreclaimable all, Shouting to us from our wrists, our walls and all things electric The message of incompletion, Of things undone and lost In the unstoppable flood that sweeps us along Carrying all we think we know Towards some great, invisible and communal Terminus. The acolytes' wishes are served, In serving one so like ourselves Serving those unsatisfied by any sacrifice. The call comes in late September; A doctor's voice informs me Of a tale mad cells are telling As they gather themselves deep within, An aimless tide of their lives just beginning To flourish sans form or purpose Bringing destruction to the temple they occupy Through their sheer abundance. That was when, for the first time, My part in the steady move towards the Terminus Loomed clear and certain in my sight, And joined the strong knowings of my heart. A fluid anxiety filled me, Running shapeless and invincible And I felt, somehow, like I was drowning. So it was that as another Summer gathered itself up for its death I checked into the hospital To be dropped into chemical oblivion And laid out like an offering To the spirits of Blood and Mystery Reading my organs through greengloved hands, Interpreting the language of manic cells. Skin peeled back like the pages of a book I lay captive in the sleep of Lethe As they read the script writ in red within Making decisions Correcting errata. And the god on the wall Moved his hands in passing across his face, But not for me.