Best Brink Poems
Our Felicity knows no rest and was
Often admonished by her Head Nurse.
It happened one day she was out for an errand
When a small boy was admitted to emergency.
With little thought she hurried to help,
forgetting she had no gloves on, nor a face mask.
The boy was very sick and required great care.
The Head Nurse realized something was going to happen.
Both were put in isolation separately. Felicity's
First symptom was a high fever. Blood samples were taken
And examined with urgency. A deadly bug had attacked them.
Immediately she was put on two drips, one for dehydration
And one to combat the bugs. It would be a slow recovery.
No one was allowed near her and she became weak.
In Malta, we say illness enters in tonnes and leaves in pounds.
So was it with Felicity. Gone was her smile, her singing,
And she became quite thin. Her father became a wreck.
But God has His ways, and slowly she began to recover.
Finally, she was discharged but with orders from the Head Nurse.
You are not to come to work before my consent,
You will not lose your job. But you must eat and rest.
Her parents were at her beck and call.
He bought her a comfy sofa, a large television,
And a blue comfortable Outdoor Hammock Chair Hang Swing
Erected under a large oak tree that was blessed with a breeze.
Soon but slowly she regained her smile, her good-looking figure
And even ventured for short walks along the winding river.
She learned to appreciate her birds’ singing and the lovely blooms.
She began to frequent gardens and admire the various flowers.
Finally, after some months she was allowed to resume her work.
The Head nurse was adamant. Morning shifts only for a while,
With fixed hours. No extra work and no emergency visits.
She still attended church but changed her tune to
God will find a way. Blessed be God.
This poem is fiction but taken from my experience with life in a hospital.
This subject is too fraught for eloquent poetry
So please indulge me in a straightforward thought or three
For the first time in its modern history
Israel is on the brink of internal catastrophe
True, there's been bleeding before, sometimes severe
But to the rescue rode a Menachem Begin or a Golda Meir
Yet never before has the military been disaffected
And without it, the specter of an Israel unprotected ...
Morphing into invasions by Syria, Jordan, Hezbollah and Iran
Israeli captives marched to their doom in Tyre and Amman
Leaving Russia and China free to move in for the kill
Every holy site in Jerusalem ~ oceans of blood spilled
The world thrown into chaotic darkness, its center destroyed
All thanks to cowardly Bibi, who, fearing jail-time, turned paranoid
May his senses return immediately ~
Or may he vanish mysteriously
The anorexia is not conspicuous,
being half-submerged, just
breaking through.
She’s a powdered mirage.
Her skin a hyaline shear
drawn over a necklace
of clavicle bones.
She knows her chest
is returning to childhood,
she wants to shelter there,
to be her own child.
Small breasts bob under
burgundy nipples,
buds made more prominent,
anchored as they are
to shipwrecked ribs.
Designer bling distracts.
Cameras whir, she poses,
one hand on a denuded hip,
not resting there,
but stealthily carrying
an ounce of flesh,
toward a spotlight.
We collude with her,
applaud the way
she decorates a condition.
We all know her emaciated beauty
is a mutual hoodwink.
We know that the closer to death
sexuality becomes,
the more rapacious our appetite,
the more we will wail,
as she slips
through our hungry hands.
As my fingers trace your silhouette mind
And the strength returns straight from your love’s heart,
Those your shoulders that held me safe I find
No more to dwell in life’s shadowy part.
Everyday a stepping stone across strife
Each tender touch and words spoken ring out,
Eyes that see the same yet different life
Your love grows in me in you there’s no doubt.
To take the wrong road the right path a choice
Alone there was only one direction,
When in dispute one opinion one voice
You did instigate life’s resurrection.
In pursuit of those the headiest days
Found an alternative with wondrous ways.
© Harry J Horsman 2014
Misbegotten pair,
two-faced aggravation,
the seduction of sweet solace
or the inarticulation of despair.
Uneasy 'neath the spell of peerless rapture,
false respite from the ravages of fear,
or defenseless and imperilled
by a sadness that is too extreme to bear.
********
...for all bi-polar sufferers.
And so we slip into summer’s season
With questions that does not fit the reason
And as we talk in deepening dusk
An elephant dies with a broken tusk
A great shadow by cloud eclipsed
A man who with a brilliant twist
Could weave the words that changed my heart
Of living together not dying apart
Rumours of rain in a dry white season
You answered my questions that gave me reason
To turn my back on my own brotherhood
To turn towards a future that’s good
Andre P Brink you will live on
As my children’s faces have smiles upon
The freedom you saw and wrote about
So Andre, in honour your name I shout!
You unsung hero of liberation’s fight
As you walk away into that dark night.
Do you guys detect a pattern emerging
About to O.D... on the precipice I'm verging
Too much damn happy
On the brink of sappy
Must reverse this trend, with danger I'm flirting
Bone-drained, there is no respite, no split second of peace. The “sundowner”, a hyper-active toddler in a man’s vehicle, never sleeps nor sits.
When I succumb to that one precious moment of rest; I am awakened to a furnace running full blast in a freezing cold house and on a nineteen degree night. A butter knife has removed a window; the culprit and dementia-mind panics; he’s terrified of being trapped in a fire. There’s no arguing with dementia-mind; it’s best to play along with the his ideas.
Another day of madness and I awake to a frantically screeching doorbell; it’s his nurse. I've revived in the floor. A migraine faint pulled me down; I’ve had no sleep for eight nights, you see. Sweet respite…she says she’ll, “sit with him”, so I can lie down a bit; a pleasant miracle; such happenstance is a rarity.
Dementia-mind has no solutions, only hallucinations, delusions; absence of mind and aggression for the “sundowners”. I watch at breakfast, as he pours his milk upon the floor; he has no clue of what he is doing or why;
he stares, mindless. When the eyes go blank it’s obvious; he’s not in there. A robot gone haywire, used to be my Father. The last thing to go, were his mathematical skills. Dementia-mind has forgotten so many people; how to swallow, but recalls numbers…
“Who is that man?” he demands, pointing at himself in the mirror. My exhausted mind briefly forgets and I mistakenly reply, “You dad.” The firestorm is initiated; he calls me a, “liar”. Self recognition has failed him now; the flame of his mind is burning low; soon to extinguish.
He’s fed and dressed, but I’ve no time to eat; if he should sleep an hour today; I must cook for the week. It’s the only opportunity I have…when and if he sleeps. I must not go to the bathroom; he’ll break something or fall. I must hold myself until my sister arrives.
The “passives” are painful to watch, as they deteriorate, but the “sundowners” are constant exhaustion. I was in the ER, almost as much as, he. You see, there’s no one to care for the caregiver, but themselves and when they can’t, exhaustion and malnutrition escalate. Dementia-mind is round-the-clock work and two doing the work of six people, takes its’ toll. The disease never discriminates; it destroys everyone.
(My Father died with dementia, a form of Alzheimer's in 2003, after a 15 year battle.)
Alcohol’s a drug that deludes the brain,
especially in vulnerable youth.
For it numbs hurts and emotional pain,
trading reality for a false truth.
Beer is the gateway to misery's domain,
replacing self-hate with synthesized love.
And if you're addicted and can't abstain,
confide in your friends or the Lord above.
Liquor fuels anguish, distilled from tears,
and yet, you'll pay its toll despite the price.
And when you reawaken sleeping fears,
occasional use morphs into a vice.
Many are blind to the pitfalls of drink,
unaware, they're teetering on the brink.
(Sonnet)
3/4/2017
Starry night
Something bright
Guide me to the answer tonight
Bring me to reason
Give me something good
Give me something worth while
There is nothing but shame and confusion
Broken bottle
You’ve only made a fool of yourself
Jealousy, obsession, whatever you want to call it
Lay with me, lay with me
Say you love me
I have nothing to say, but goodbye
I knew that you would just hurt me like everyone else has
There was a time in life when second chances existed
When love was nothing close to infatuation
You’ve gone too far this time, you’re tripping over your own feet
You’re wandering on a thin rope between happiness and obsession
You’re losing your balance
You’re losing your strength
You’re falling, you’re falling
Lay with me, lay with me
Say you love me
Say it
A change of thought is in order
A change of heart has already been processed
You wanted demons, now you’ve got them
My rage and your stupidity feed off of each other
Shattered bottle
You’re such a fool
Slam the door
You hold such negativity
I refuse to live with it anymore
Starry night
Something bright
What is wrong, what is right?
Lay with me, lay with me
Say you love me
SAY IT!
There is no possible way that you could ever understand
Is there even anything?
There are no second chances
All is done, all is said
If your heart was really broken
You’d be dead
Lay with me, lay with me
Say you love me
Say it
We know this was only forced infatuation
Broken bottle, you’re such a fool
On your way to happiness
Ended up with obsession
skater on black ice sheds a ghostly light
This life is a silhouette of dancing flames,
A jelly of a million billion shapes, a fathomless illusion, a plotless sequel.
There is more to see for the blind and less to say for the wise.
This life is a carpet freckled with splinters,
A sofa of countless stingings, a flameless subway;
There is a floorless due for every seen sun,
A tear rolling with every dawn and a smile ebbing with every dusk;
But these bonfire eyes see the world for what it could be.
This life is a soulless sea of mindless malice,
A banjo of a broken taut, a loveless disco;
There is no blue in the skies of reason
But pangs native to the heart, and a haplessness relative to the soul;
But this bubble-gum heart holds no resentment.
Every tongue is a needle living in a scabbard of flesh and bone
And these staggering legs walk the sass of nameless faces,
For my elephant ears choose what to hear
And the fount of this mouth speaks only what the heart feels.
Every turn of this screw, every moment of this gear
Every shade of this my buoyant life is written in crayon.
03/12/16
My wife and I stroll hand in hand
As evening drops its lilac veil
When, off the river, stirs a chill,
Which sends her cuddling to my arms
With face upturned to taste my lips—
The gloaming brightens as we kiss.
For quite a while, that pose we hold:
Two lovers on the brink of night
‘Neath wisps of salmon cirrus clouds
‘Til twilight’s purple, darker hue
Impels us to return back home,
Arriving on the cusp of love.
On the brink of crying,
on the brink of dying,
what are you gonna do?On the brink of cryin‘,
On the brink of dyin‘,
You’ve gotta listen to your soul now, too.
Now think of this situation,
This is a poem, but also a conversation
If you don’t want to hurt those around you
You’ve gotta help yourself first then the other few
On the brink of cryin‘,
On the brink of dyin‘,
What are you gonna do?
On the brink of cryin‘,
On the brink of dyin‘,
If you don’t wanna hear the truth
Then you better not do something stupid, but instead new
On the brink of cryin‘,
On the brink of dyin‘,
What are you gonna do?
On the brink,
On the brink,
I’m on the brink of cryin’
‘Cause inside I’m
‘Cause inside I’m
‘Cause inside I’m dyin’
I’m on the,
I’m on the, I’m on the brink.
On the Brink
Many do reach this point,
Death’s an option . . .
Not the only one though,
As illusion is here too . . .
Just wondering what this is all about:
Life, Death, Heaven, Hell, Glory, Sorrow?
Half-Empty . . . Half-Full . . . And . . .
Leprechauns with Big Buckets of Gold.
Seeking God’s solace,
Whilst finding Lucifer’s smirk and smile.
One’s soul—
The sticking point always,
And tonight is the night of
The Full Moon.
Why should I be surprised?
Maybe the Moon might know?
Looks like everyone knows anyway . . .
Looks like everyone is onboard with this event.
The Cat’s got your tongue?
Ah . . . now you’re not so sure are you?
They do say that blood drips and flows,
And that it dries cake-hard over time.
You can’t really explain and justify this one:
The blood, the stench, and death are too much.
A plea and fervent prayer are the truest options,
And remember that God is waiting and watching.
The bright-white, full moon no longer speaks . . .
And now . . . neither do you . . . but God understands.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
November 12, 2020 (Lyric)