AUTHOR'S NOTE
This poem is inspired by the true story of poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Bedridden and isolated, Elizabeth received a letter from Robert that began, "I love your verses with all my heart." Over 20 months they exchanged 574 letters that mended her fear and gave her life back.
574 LETTERS
Elizabeth lay bedridden in a lonely room,
A wounded bird behind walls of gloom.
Then came a letter, soft as a spell,
_"I love your verses with all my heart" Robert would tell.
A crack of light filled her cage of fear,
Whispers of love drove the mist from here.
574 letters crossed the night,
Mending her wings with gold and light.
Like lilies that grew in abandoned ground,
Her broken life to heaven was bound.
He didn’t burn the past or the pain,
He wrote her hope till she lived again.
So mend, don’t burn. Write, don’t run.
Love can heal anyone, anyone.
Familiar things force me to remember-
Memories so far,
Memories that flicker,
Blurs and fragments of moments I savour.
I walk the same path, but everything’s different
No matter what’s done, those times-
Forever bedridden.
I wished to forget them, knowing once is too many.
Even if I were to relive them-
Memory would continue to get me,
Memories that now instill fear,
Those which keep me here-
Remembrance, the thing I call-
Homesickness.
The joy which once filled me then,
Creates a new fear of times that end.
Those moments in which we shared,
That now, I realize, will forever be-
“There”
The owls are back, they talk in the night
I try to discern their language of flight
There's much there to learn if I could interpret
But my mind is earthbound, much as I might work it
Some feathers sing and some cry out loud
But the owls are selective, they don't like a crowd
They talk to each other in a voice I would capture
If I could but learn the language of raptor
Still my mind is earthbound and lacking insight
I admire and ponder this language of flight
I've never seen them, my vision is dim
They leave me, believe me, out on a limb
The dogs complain, they don't like them much
But their visit is short and then back to their clutch
There's a rabbit that lives here, under the shed
But he's keeping quiet, and keeping his head
The black cat is blending somewhere in the night
He knows his survival depends on his sight
And I lie bedridden, depending on sleep
My flight not so fancy as that of the sweep
118.
Seedling on Earth
Then it has fallen
Now it was sunken
Unmoved like bedridden
Enchained and sullen
During its loneliness
In this somber place
Life found a space
The seed experienced solace
Downwards creep the roots
Upwards grow the shoots
Alongside carabao boots
Hope not to be crushed by coots.
-04/23/2012
(Dumarao)
*for Agri. poem in Salingsing Issue of 1st Sem., AY 2011-12
A Nasty Germ*
A nasty germ is what I am,
a curse to every man and woman.
I lie in wait with strategy
to bring you down to misery.
I’m at my nastiest on the weekend
when I land you bedridden
with round the clock medication
which you take with detestation.
But take courage, hope’s dawning –
I’m gone by Monday morning.
*(Based on my rendering of Christian Morgenstern’s
poem Der Schnupfen (The Sniffle)
frost on winter roses
mother’s adult bibs arrive
in time for supper
she is bedridden
ninety first birthday today
both joy and sorrow
Mom remains stoic
from greatest generation
to funeral plans
Thirty years a nurse
hospice nurses now caring
for her ~ life cycles
Cyberspace, my blue astral projector
I'm not seeking new friends to entertain
I dwell in a big celestial sector
Cradled in great cool mists and northern rain.
Yet, from funny dark galaxies above
Comes bright celestial advice, kind and wise.
The Oak Grove beckons those whom nature loves
To stretch their wings where faery nature flies.
A faery soars through Cosmos, fierce and free.
No longer bound by bedridden routine.
I journeyed back through past pink memories
And glimpsed my magic future, wide and keen.
A verdant woman, celestial and high,
Candle visions that light the morning sky.
I’ve sold winter coldness to those who’re huge in their chests oncorners of these abandoned streets, where bars aren’t happy with myfootprints in front of every door. Where I hit myself at close range. Where I pay a price to win no game. However, she’s worked all her lifeto bring up all her children within this magical world of theatre & music.She’s convinced that these children won’t fail to understand & accept opera& early rehearsals. I'm bedridden waiting. Welcome to a pigheaded house. Welcometo your fate that befalls many emigrants you plant like beets beside the beetleto see new growth. Welcome to where you don’t fancy a beer before bier afterthe funeral. Something is bedraggled from the hedgerow & that’s your ex’sspecial brand. However, the twigs are dry & brittle, & cracked beneaththeir feet from the beginning. Her children are looking for more spaciouspremises after that premeditated murder in a blighted area where I prescribe hera daily diet chart.
The pains of those ailments that grab us at will
Once better, like stalkers, can linger on still
But it’s patently true that life’s bitterest pill
Is the pain when it’s someone you love that is ill
When struck down, bedridden, we try to be brave
Though we feel our survival might be a close shave
But we’d gladly accept our God’s beckoning wave
If that keeps our loved one away from their grave
*
And so when I hear that slight tremor of fear
No hug and no words for the one I hold dear
Can bring forth a smile full of genuine cheer
And that forehead kiss… conceals my own tear
At night, to the God in whom I don’t believe
I sheepishly say, “I don’t want her to leave.”
I snuggle up close, I’m not ready to grieve
And I smile in the morning as I hear her breathe
The doctors I’ve trusted I must trust in still
For they’ll mend her again; I’m sure that they will
But it’s patently true that life’s bitterest pill
Is the pain when it’s someone you love that is ill
Song of Eve
Oh! This shutters of tears flowing
Listen to my unconsolable song
When everything begin to wither
And every guile in me begin to batter
With life starting at a dead end
Come, sing with me my dearest...
Oh! My bedridden utterance
I drown in this earthquake of choice
Torment to my feeble spirit
A day to dice, die while I breath
Embrace a new home, earth
For this shame, blinds my light...
Oh! This mortal being, Adam
On this day, I rain a curse
To die with grief a thousand times
But, this heart so delicate
Will brew my peace till it dies
And leave me weaken to my bones...
Oh! My king, immortal one
I cried, longed to bath in your mercy
For this flesh took away my sanity
Behold this detail in your hands
Save me! From this hell of flame
And put a stop to this Eve's song...
A Skilled Care Unit
Faces racked with pain,
no medicine can cure.
Sad and alone, no one
comes to visit.
Bedridden, confined to
wheelchairs, nowhere to go.
Pacing the halls, doors locked,
prisoners at the end of life.
Memories of laughter, family
outings, salt, sea air, cookouts.
All slowly fading now, freedom
lost to old age and infirmities.
Life condensed to a single room
with death the only escape.
Above is the place
I wish to race
Above is the face
I wish to grace
Where people dreams age
And where thunderstorms rage
The wildest dreams take courage
And where you feel the stars stage
Above is the Term
That we use when success has arms
The word that manifest richness alarm
Reminder of bellow and its germ
Reminder of the bare minimum firm
That has been bestowed on human farm
To the Darest point of life
To the darest point of achievements
Above is the habitat
That reminds us of climate change and stats
The human effects on what protects us from start
The deepest conversation and debate that doesn't need a flirt
Its effect grave on living organism on earth
And the word is deep in the heart
That indeed human should be reminded in an art
Of the beautiful nature we destroy without the guts
Of the ugliness it leaves and lives it hurts
Above is the pace
Where Motivation is driven and ridden
Word that keeps a vision not bedridden
The pace that reminds one to wake talents hidden
To betterment and change venture den
A world of production and not purely consumers.
#Khocxschool
(When got bedridden for months with a debilitating disease in 2007,
to escape from depression, I turned to poetry)
in pits of despair
I lay, finding all doors shut.
a sad impaired bird~
with broken wings wished to fly
into sky, breaking all chains.
a feat so daring
my mind urged me to just try
I started scribbling~
took off on fancy’s light wings.
found words dancing on paper.
gloom gave way to hope
rhyme and sweet rhythm came in pair
thoughts turned poetic~
they took the form of clean verse
thus, my first poem was born
Eyes upon another for I did not know your name
Though what purest love rest still within me
Dorminant, triggered in the looks of thy eye
Sparks like matter, irrodescent in thy sight
The magic mustered to my very plight
For I did not know your name
Yet ye inthrawled me
Took me up to heavens starling sights
Left me alone bedridden In the night
No I did not know your name
Though the red threads aligned us
Entangled with you before I could explain our truth
First Part: All I see are my toes!
A constant burning and stinging sensation under this weighted plaster cast has got me bedridden. The cast is made out of plaster and is white in color that is stuffed with gauze layered tightly with a bandage. This cast covers the severe damage from a fall a week ago that snapped my ankle bone into two like a bitter cold cucumber. I’m staring at this soft but firm cast that is unmoved and unshaken because I’m lying perfectly still waiting for it to heal. The gauze slowly is unraveling from the inside of the cast. And my toes!
Second Part: Leg Live Life to the Fullest!
Only three living toes peek out
From beneath the plaster my leg screams to be let out!
“Let me go!” wails my injured leg.
Sweat slithers out; whilst my leg struggles to stay afoot.
Waken thee leg and don’t succumb
Don’t be downtrodden, deaf, and dumb
And leg keep dancing to a new tune
And keep blessing yourself underneath the midnight moon!
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