I walk from work a smile upon my face
a busy shift, 'Emergency' the place.
Where sick and injured come in through the door
and we are always ready to care for.
Alarms are sounding, monitors beep, beep,
all beds are full, and to their needs we leap.
Check vital signs, the temp, pulse, and BP
take blood, a urine test, an ECG.
Put in an I.V. Cannula I will
if veins are difficult, it takes some skill.
Next, take them to Xray to have a scan
or, if their bladder's full offer a pan.
For pain, give medication, reassess?
but if they vomit, I'll clean up their mess.
For patient comfort always tops the list,
and to ensure this happens I'll assist.
When cold, a nice warm blanket brings a smile
sometimes I'll hold their hand a little while.
With reassuring voice allay their fears,
if they're upset then wipe away their tears.
Write up my notes including all I've done,
hand over to the next nurse one by one.
The hours seem to quickly run away
and soon my shift is finished for the day.
I'll say goodbye to patients in my care
be glad, that on this day I have been there.
I walk from work a smile upon my face
A busy shift, Emergency the place.
Ten after four in the AM. I wait for
my daughter’s death with a cup of coffee
at the kitchen table, thinking maybe
tonight’s the night.
She hasn’t been breathing well at all,
all day and tonight I fear just might be
her time.
Her oxygen concentrator is set at ten liters
the highest it’ll go.
Bringing oxygen up the staircase to her bedroom
through a tube to a nasal cannula in her nose.
Now and then it makes a funny squeaking sound
sort-of like a mouse crying out stuck on a glue trap.
I’d much rather write one more poem about those tattoos
she came home with all those years ago that pissed me off
to no end, but.
This is my life now, and like a true democrat, this poet
embraces.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, so I write this poem.
Parad(em)ise
Dangling from a stolid chandelier of empty shadows
Her threadbare strings attached to vacant promises
Jemima has tried every angle of escape and refuge
Her make up faded and the jester’s façade burrowed
Deep into macabre deluded weather worn charades
She tries to gloss her lips but all she draws is blood
The empty bottle of juniper spirits by her naked thigh
A cannula of channelled happiness on desiccated skin
She powders her limp face in the vapour of a light bulb
Wired on Tungsten filament’s flushed out enlightenment
Beyond reproach and one line closer to a final curtain
She smells the fetid dungeon’s stench within and gags
Draped in the puke’s perfume and sickly acid bilious scent
She walks no further than the seedy river’s edge’s contempt
Offers herself free to the highest bidder and bids farewell
Just as the fairy tale fails to fall on prowling taste’s demise
One lonely taker strikes her bust in one fell swoop at last
Takes her dearest ink pumped skin that spelt ‘Only For You’
06th February 2019
Eyes That Cry
I am the eyes that cry
While an inconsiderate chef
Cuts his onions.
I am the buttocks that brave the pain
When an unskilled nurse
Passes an injection.
I am the superficial vein that bleeds
When a nurse, old as a dinosaur
Passes an intravenous cannula.
I am the urethra that burns
When a reckless juvenile
Contracts gonorrhea,
and wants to pass urine.
I am the eyes that cry
When a schoolteacher
Batters sense into a pupil
I am the broom that is used
And disposed of
Together with the rubbish it swept
I am the condom
Used en route to ecstasy
Dumped into an incinerator
I am the money that is lavished
At a rich man's funeral
I don't matter
© The Kakuru
#MugOfPorridge
The holding of his joyful trembling arms
will clasp no more pink feeble fingers
for even blood betrayed its passing.
The most beautiful cry
vanished without a single tune
unheard by the looking grandparents.
No unfamiliar friends in white
giving genuine smiles
and congratulations to the dad
but the unacceptable shaking of heads
and unwanted tap at their backs.
Suppressed get-the-hell-out-of-heres.
And the mother?
Nothing is more hurting than to never touch
a thing that she sheltered all her life
To holler in pain of delivering would have been divine
to scream, wonderful
to roar, magnificent
to rip bed sheets
and curse the father while letting it out into world
are mostly gratifying
than to remain silent while the cannula
forces its entry to the abandoned world of unborn.
No stupid peek-a-boos will ever echo in this
haunted crib.
No tingling of rattles
will ever irritate ears in smelly midnights
No nursery rhyme will hum.
School bus will never blow its horn
To call upon the school child.
No stars on a hand.
No you’re-the-best-mom-in-the-worlds.
Entrant into Scribe Marlon Linton's UNBORN BABIES DREAM Contest
© October 8, 2012