Best Hospitalized Poems
Just one pack a day
she says she needs.
Years later - hospitalized with cancer. . .
Just one cigarette -
she pleads
Written 12/17/2015 by Andrea Dietrich
for the SOMETHING WITH GREAT IMPACT!Poetry Contest of nette onclaud
How melancholy I yawn then sigh
When recalling who I was 2 year's
ago just before Covid-19 struck
I was doing alright getting bye ok
But fast forward currently to today
and I now feel completely different
As luckily enough for me though I have
not nor a close family member suffered
any ill effects had to be hospitalized
or far worse die
What I got instead is a sinking feeling
in the pit of my stomach and hole in
my heart that I fear may just be terminal
It's almost as if the world I thought and
have come to know throughout this
time has slowly ebbed the joy most
certainly has its in my rear view mirror now
And with it taken any hope a vaccine
or cure will be found in order to save
my fragile sanity from shattering
So i find myself asking who can and does
a Jester call when they themselves are
feeling down and in need of cheering up
And also at this moment I find myself
contemplating not quite sure if and
where redemption resides
But if it can't rain all the time
Better get busy living or busy dying
Said the Crow to the raindrop splitting
hairs on the Reapers scythe
What's kept you
For I have been long expecting you
Can't you see I have already packed
all of my baggage
Into the bin-bag's under my eyes
I am in this for the long haul
Mirror of Memories
On my brown bedroom wall hangs an old misty mirror,
with a ghostly reflection staring vacantly back at me.
It’s taunting me and I don’t know why.
Whose melancholy face is it that I see?
That graying woman looks strangely familiar.
I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before.
It’s hard to focus…but I need to hang on to her,
for somehow I know she means much to me.
Am I losing it? Or is it just
a temporary lapse of memory?
I’m so frustrated for frequently forgetting
familiar people, places, and simple things.
A visitor came by today and I felt sad
when he got upset as I called him “Dad.”
He kept repeating that he was my son.
But what do I know? Hopefully he will never see
that I’m just living for moments of lucidity.
Nightmares and daydreams play their weird tricks,
bombarding me with memories from nineteen sixty-six.
But when I find myself in the Twilight Zone,
it’s easy to forget what I ate just minutes ago.
Like Alice in Wonderland, I’m falling down a rabbit hole,
and weary from trying to figure out nonsensical riddles,
which twist and distort what’s left of my mind.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up from this Mad Tea Party.
Yes, that frightened woman in the mirror looks familiar,
like someone I used to know. What’s her name?
Who is she? Oh, dear God, I’m not sure.
But she’s a phantom stalking me – that’s all I know.
11/14/2015
09-02-2015
Contest: Mirror of Memories Alzheimer's
Sponsor: Tammy Reams
Placement: 1st
*NOTE: Sadly,Lenora Taylor, the woman who inspired this piece, passed away one week after this poem was submitted. She fell off her bed at the Nursing Home, was hospitalized, and never recovered. May she rest in peace!
I’m in a psychology class and as part of it we filled out several, detailed, personality evaluations. They said these were helpful in forming a psychological profile of the freshmen classes each year and of particular interest were these COVID years.
The professor said she’d be available, before finals, to review them with us if we were interested - and I volunteered. So in our review we’re going over my results and she says: “Your trauma history could produce this constellation of wit, wiriness and attachment-anxiety.”
I flinch, irritably, thinking, my “trauma history?” What, “trauma history?” Wondering if - maybe the professor was looking at the wrong paper?
She read my reaction and the consternation on my face, started flipping through the papers, and said, “According to the history you submitted, your father was killed when you were seven and you were hospitalized for...”
“OMG” I thought, blanking out what she was saying, “How could I have forgotten THAT?” Even for a moment. Then I sag with this oppressive, blanket-like wave of guilt at having put the crash so far out of my mind.
“The dismissal of childhood trauma is quite normal,” she said, putting her hand on my arm, “You have to put trauma out of your everyday thoughts - to get on with your life.” She assured me. “It’s quite normal.”
How many blind sides do I have? I wondered
Courageous men and women wear scrubs,
masks, white gloves, and black net caps.
They, too, eat their meals from plastic tubs,
what's left over from supper scraps?
At night, their bones begin to break down.
In the outpatient and hospitalized wards.
On the other side of the earth, in clinics around.
across the middle of the COVID swords.
Do not remove pricey clothes or freeze.
Their newly cleaned blues made for a breeze.
They have what they need to get the job done.
If you firmly grab your hand with a striped tone,
Unfortunately, it was the start of a new day.
while fresh, sickening showers beat cruelly away.
A Devotion Poem, FATE
(Written for my husband, Jim)
My beloved and I, with our hearts not only
aligned in love, but also in the empathy and
compassion grown in the fruits of our years
together, in needy as well as hopeful times,
hold in sight each other. Embrace.
At many points death could have come: there
was his heart attack and then my coma.
We have moved now, side close to side,
into the downstairs living room.
We have realized and shared that when
one of us is absent (perhaps being hospitalized)
, then there comes a void in the room,
affecting every difficult breath to
feelings of a hanging emptiness
in heart and soul. The walls stand cold
...but for God’s comfort, above and near,
present through our entreaties in prayer. Clutching.
And it is Fate with Faith that keeps those days
of missing each other from yet becoming
days of grieving any final loss.
We walk our days like a pair of massive,
aging elephants with our gray trunks
entwined; so large, the ground quivers
as we journey; and the absence of either one
of us seems to strike hours and poetry
out from the equation of life. Empty.
Since our meeting 40 years ago, to
our present togetherness and alertness
to each other’s needs, I wonder
if it was God’s planned fate for us
to be staying these years
together in His gracing love, helping
us through hard times, sculpting us
with our thanksgings. Revived.
We live a melody composed
by our omnipotent Lord. It has involved
no random accidents. The lyrics are
concise and rhymed. There are
many more refrains to sound
before the final note.
——————————————————————
———————————————————————
(c) sally young Eslinger 5/12/21
Thanks be to God
Dear Poets ..
My wife is back in hospital very ill.
Please pray for her.
I do not want to lose my Sweetheart.
Thank you all.
Ron
I'm hospitalized and there was a nurse named Jane
She said I need plenty of sleep for my health attain
She took samples of my urine and then replaced the infusion
She gave me my medicine and always checked on my condition
And every time I tried to sleep, her present made me awake again!
Xylophones ping the 'Orleans' Umbrella dance
You'll soon join in with the thunderous
Zedeco music two stepping through the streets
While the rest of the nation looks on in horror
Voodoo Queens follow the Exorcist around
Unless you specify otherwise, you'll find
The tour bus will drop you at the Cemetery
Suddenly you'll hear 'Marie Laveau's Tomb come alive
Rest assured that Voodoo is not to be mocked
Queens are also present in the form of Drags
Preposterous? Come take a Bourbon St. stroll
On the left side you'll find Al Hirt's Club
Never to be out done by Pete Fountain's band
More tourist are hospitalized here than any other place
Lax atmosphere contributes to the violence
Knowing that police have little chance
Justice will always remain slim
Innocents are mostly forgotten
Holding cells runneth over
Giving way to a Saints Football game
For everyone to set aside worries
Especially the owner now quite senile
Don't however be discouraged
Come one and all to New Orleans
Be invested in the 'City that Care forgot'
Aware that Tomb 374 awaits your arrival!
=================================
Zedeco Dancers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hx9AgSWywg
We sat down at the kitchen table
Under an overhead light
And talked about my mother
My wife understood
I was the oldest, she said
Don’t wait for the others.
So I took care of mother
Paid the bills
Spoke to the landlord
Went food shopping
And did what needed to be done.
On a cold winter day
Mother was hospitalized
For the third time
I waited in the hall
Facing two red leatherette lounge chairs
The kind that are
Inexpensive and easy to clean
Vending machine just a few steps away
All designed to make someone
Feel comfortable.
Startled, I turned
T o see a nurse
Coming from nowhere
Her face a masquerade
As if she wanted to stop
And tell me something
But couldn’t
When she walked past me
I listened to her padded footsteps
As she disappeared
Down another beige corridor.
Absent mindedly
I returned to random thoughts
Odds and ends of an old woman’s life
When a heart aches
And memory fails
All is that left
Are promises
And words
Dangling somewhere
“Call us if you ever need anything.”
No one visited
Not the nieces
Not the nephews
She sent Christmas cards to
Stuffed with cash
Written in an old style of writing
Some misspellings
But always signed
“Love Grandma.”
Eager to show their concern
They call me now
And ask how she’s doing
I cradle the phone on my shoulder
And listen to their words
With a blank stare.
Mother has taken a turn for the worse
Cancer has spread
There is pain
But the medication masks it
And she sleeps most of the day
Seemingly in peace.
Occasionally she calls me
By someone’s else name
She’s forgotten a lot of things
After considering
What she’s been through
Perhaps it’s better this way.
This is not Miami, the real site
of the sea grape. This is a wannabe--
a biker town, a speedway town. Not
the fabled city of Dream Whip clouds
expressed into a flawless sky. Not
the cool Technicolor dawn when an aging
chick like me could still do her morning
run on Collins, come back home
to the high rise on the Intercoastal,
where in the mirrored lobby,
retirees lined up in their wheelchairs
along a wall to socialize, see
who comes and goes.
Here, in this faux paradise on a Friday,
morning mass is celebrated in anything but
Ordinary Time by a Bahamian priest in
a chasuble the color of winter rye. There are
no flowers anywhere, only trailing tropicals;
a graceful spider plant with its dangling
tentacles. An acolyte brings sacramental vessels
on a tray, as if to dinner in his own home
to an altar covered with a simple tablecloth.
Simplicity...in the elaborate setting of
the Saint John Basilica, Daytona Beach.
The real home of the sea grape
with its leaves like tennis table paddles
is where a husband hospitalized in Mia
with a failing heart valve lay in
the pre-surgery ICU fighting for breath
as an insensitive nurse brought food
on a tray no way he could eat.
The sea grape is a hardy tree
that reaches for the heights. My son
in Halifax Hospital is like that: a survivor
of surgery for a metal hip to replace
the one that failed. Bones---
nemesis of our family, meant to last
but do not. Unlike the sea grape
whose limbs grown longer,
stronger. Fail not.
I had a little friend who left too soon.
Acute leukemia struck at age five.
His mind was so blindingly bright.
This earth could not give it room.
He had questions in endless supply.
Every answer quickened another query
About stars, earthworms, seasons.
Even some adults struggled to reply.
In that era nothing could be done.
He was hospitalized for passive care.
I visited him one bleak, broken day.
His mother was sobbing for her son.
Losing a child—name a thing as bad.
I cannot conceive the anguish of it.
I cannot harbor a hurt so severe.
Years later grief drove the father mad.
And if perchance I meet the mother
A decade beyond her child’s death.
Seeing me opens an unhealed wound
And she tries fresh tears to smother.
His name was Brent, I see him yet
Dressed in all white in his casket.
I wonder at the why of his passing.
I wonder if God should a child forget.
you never lose by loving, if loving gets you learning,
affection filled with attraction, for the quest of satisfaction,
at first touch it's dripping, it's full of nutrients and red glowing,
forming bit by bit like lime water dripping from cave roof for a sharp construction.
you are scared to loose, don't be, that is love rule,
you're in irresistible desire zone, to be irresistibly desired;
looking in the same direction is another you were taught as rule,
its' heavy to hold itself, therefore its has to be admired,
you stood the bitterness trying, and there brilliantly you fall for something, call it a treasure in hide, sure of no invasion,
bitterness shoots up in sense of intrusion, fights back in defending, ready for anything, in the name of love protection.
now you're shaped and fashioned, thanks to our helper love,
before you were mad, agreed! there's always some madness in love,
you made it holy, that which is beautiful that you loved,
now you're hospitalized, for the serious mental damage of love.
Late at night
They were all alone
Getting in their car
Ready to go home
One rifle, two cries
One dead, one hospitalized
Little girl on a gurney, trembling knees
Prays to God, begging please
"I love my mom don't take her, no!"
"If you take her, with her please let me go."
Angel girl lost her wings
Through her troubled years
Beautiful kid, lost her soul
Where did that sweet little girl go?
Boys and drugs corrupted her heart
What was bright and innocent, now turned dark
Many attempts in her short time
Still wishing that shot had took her life
Drunk and unsteady
Angel girl was all alone
She got in her car
Heading for "home"
Faster and faster
High from any dreams
When she crashed, late that night
No one heard her screams
Welcoming arms embraced her
She finally made it back to her home
God gave back the wings to his little girl
The one he's loved and always known
You called to share you miss your family.
Crying, you choked that you wanna come home,
want home to be more than just fantasy
and wish to end your long bi-polar roam.
I know you’ve no address or even comb,
so, say, are your words styrofoam or chrome?
Brother, you’ve pressed my sibling love button,
so well-worn from emotional pressing.
I am not a dysfunction scene glutton,
but how I now hope your call’s a blessing!
Ten years have my bro-miss feel progressing.
God help me, I want what you’re expressing.
Many are the miles separating us,
but no state-count can break our sibling chain.
You talk of making can cash for a bus,
then share problems with liver, heart and brain,
say you’re hospitalized and termed insane.
My own tears swell with new hope and old pain.
Hold tight Bro, I will drive straight on to you,
cherish you, share all we knew and loved thru.
... CayCay Jennings
January 26, 2018