Long Scalpels Poems
Long Scalpels Poems. Below are the most popular long Scalpels by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Scalpels poems by poem length and keyword.
A ticket pinned to the thigh reserves it,
the whole cadaver is parceled off - of course.
Legs are a late harvest, these often-indigent parts
carry a visual poverty long after the body is plucked.
Under watchful eyes the young medics
separate muscle groups, filter large blood vessels
from fibrous runnels, hesitant scalpels
seek out fascial planes.
The leg is devolving to scraps,
yet, ingrained in the tissue
I sense residual shades of a former life,
seaside postcards, old photographs,
perhaps campaign ribbons, odd tokens
amongst yellowed newspaper clippings,
all briefly surface as conjectured images
beneath a probing knife.
The gray flesh retains its personal history,
I imagine that behind the knee
there is a wife, children, and a separation
all spectrally etched between femur and tibia.
Much of the ensuing bone-whittling years
are demonstratively scored
across a formaldehyde and jelled narration.
The students suppose they dissect a limb,
while I notion that I turn over bloodless pages,
of an unwritten story,
and now the last few attached ligaments
remain as threads that speak at last
of a long journey’s end.
They with masks and scalpels
rewatch
the seconds I was given without consent.
My breath hitches
as warnings stillborn in my throat.
At this moment,
I am but
a body
opened
for overdue answers no one asked for.
A poet’s gift lies in the voice of Truth.
No—
A poet's gift is to lie,
constantly,
in lavender-gray syllables
threaded through with near-Truth—
The answer to unvoiced questions,
clipped out with tweezers,
a scorched coil—
my vocal cord.
I, a third-party haze—
rewatch
the moments I lived through like
faint breaths
fogging an oxygen mask.
My lies will be forgiven,
when they split open my sternum,
and find Truth still beating—
They’ll know,
late Truth cuts deeper than scalpel.
Lately, I've cut away hectares of tumors.
That engulfed confidence, happiness, self-worth, and well-being.
With surgery, a bit of the good stuff was sacrificed:
A few shallow laughs, some adventure, and mostly harmless mischief.
The mirror is filled with scars of the heart, excoriations of spirit.
Along with other, yet-to-be-discovered damage.
Though somewhat deformed, I like my new look.
I feel tiredly refreshed.
The scalpels are dull and quiet for now.
There's work to be done.
Some of the newly homeless tumors are mentoring new ones.
I'm no fool and fully aware that I'm also a tumor to others.
Consequence
by Michael R. Burch
They are fresh-faced,
not innocent, but perhaps not yet jaded,
oblivious to time and death,
of each counted breath
in the pendulum’s sway
falling unheeded.
They are bright, undissuaded
by foreign tongues,
by sepulchers empty and waiting,
by sarcophagi of ancient kings,
by proclamations,
by rituals of scalpels and rings.
They are sworn, they are fated
to misadventure and grief;
but they revel in life
till the sun falls, receding
into silent halls
to torrents of inconsequential tears . . .
. . . to brief tragedies of tears
when they consider this: No one else sees.
But I know.
We all know.
We all know the consequence
of being so young.
Keywords/Tags: youth, youths, youth day, innocence, innocent, time, life and death, young, childhood, child, children
I try not to think about it, my friend.
It's so horrible, and yet,
I'm on beer ten, and I won't see you again -
So, I'll tell you a secret.
No, it's not what happened in Vietnam.
I still see it in stop-action -
If you measured it in inches and seconds,
That moment was a fraction.
A youth soccer game, my dad in the crowd,
It was nineteen sixty-two
When we lost the championship game
As I let the winning goal go through.
As a boy, I never hurt anyone,
Was a friend when needed.
I always helped my mother with her chores.
Mom and Dad, I heeded.
I studied hard, did all my homework,
Followed every rule.
Upon college graduation, I was rewarded,
Accepted to med school.
Today, I am a successful surgeon
Using scalpels and knives.
I make so many people feel better -
Sometimes, I even save lives.
Yet, deep down, I don't have what it takes.
I let everybody down.
What you see before you is a failure.
I should be buried in the ground.
I see it as we speak. My dad was in the crowd.
It was nineteen sixty-two.
We lost the championship game.
I let the winning goal go through.
You see, there's nothing now that I can do -
But wait, I have a little son.
He plays goalie on his youth soccer team,
A great boy who likes to have fun.
When the rival striker takes his final shot,
There's one thing my son won't do.
Well, I hope he doesn't, no, he better not,
Let the winning goal go through.
Deep in London's back street lanes,
Jack's spirit angered still remains,
In shadows as he lies in wait, for the prostitute, his object of hate,
He sharpens scalpels, surgeon's blades, precision tools, to slice and mame,
His intention to acquire his thrill,
through blood, with ritualistic Kills.
He lies in wait his victim nears, feeding off her inner fears,
Beneath his cape he draws his knife, in preparation to take this life,
Blade to blade the knife so sharp,
Clean incisions cut out her heart,
Not content he cuts in more, her organs laid beside her on the floor,
Ripped and torn her body ravaged, by this animal depraved and savage.
He dips his fingers in her blood, and turns to face the wall,
He writes a message shocking red, a warning to them all,
"Whilst you walk these streets and sell yourself, your soul is turning
black, come to me for I await, Jack has just come back"
GIVE FEEDBACK
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." - Abraham Lincoln
They say the environment is so essential,
The rivers, the trees and the woods…
Yes, the environment does have potential
But the babies, oh the babies, their childhoods!
When they seek those who weep for trees,
Do they remember the wombs that conceive
Wombs that are raped by scalpels with ease
Remember the babies, oh how my soul does grieve!
They say that our land deserves respect
The forest, the water, the oceans and fish
Yes, I agree that none of this is perfect
But what of the child who never gets a wish?
When they stare at the sunset with such awe,
Can they forget the miracle that created each child,
The miracle of birth before abortion, the flaw
Comes from forgetting conception is where he first smiled
They forget, yes forget, despite all the regret
That the first fingers and toes are molded
In the womb, where there should be no threat
This womb should be the safest home, a babe enfolded…
There in the womb, in a mommy’s belly
Where love is first known, where hope is felt
You can see it all by using ultrasound and jelly
Knowing that when you see, the hardest heart shall melt
Never forget, the womb is home to a human
Not just a fetus or cell, but a babe who can feel
To take away this life is nothing but inhuman
Before taking a life, humble your heart and kneel.
I have no doubt inside, that God would say “don’t kill”
That little one is meant to live a life, a story
Don’t allow their blood to be on your hands, don’t spill
This blood of a child that is more than a clinic’s inventory!
moribund she wondered what
the postmortem would leave
other than a dead body and wounds
made by the many scalpels of life
operations gone wrong and stitch-ups
with sutures festering at the seams
as a mere mortal she had not chosen
the coffin head stone and grave
as one should not mess with writings
on the wall of reputation and fame
a quick eulogy and lies about her being
heavily edited script and funeral banquet
roses near the pit how she hated the thorns
would have preferred a blackberry hedge
dandelion and nettles for butterflies to feed
a cardboard box instead of marble and wood
for a worm feast of mortal impermanence
better to close the shutters than holding on
to a story she had narrated in full view of
short lived longevity in transit of past merit
and yet she lived on in memories and
the grace that she deserved for always
sticking to the belief and sturdy conviction
embraced by compassion and kindness
captured in a hole in the grounds of demise
entangled in truths conjecture and refutation
she watched on as they just would not let go
of remembrance and the dance of the dead
until they read a poem she had written
as she shuddered at the misplaced apostrophe
‘live and let; die as you please’
26th July 2021
Kill the Silent One
(Silent Killer)
He has invaded, unseen
Lurking and silent
Evil destroying one and all
From cell to cell
Crawling underneath
Leaching blood and soul
Smiles are murdered
Futures destroyed
Families ruined
The silent one is a killer
Who must be killed
The order has been given
Command centre now on full alert
Maps perused and studied
Strategies contemplated
The invasion...........
Will be at early dawn
Men prepare their battle gear
The landing party both excited and nervous
Life depends on them
Ones death also looms
They have no guilt
No fear
For whom shall be killed
The silent one's days are numbered
Victory is their only option and concern
War has been declared
And
We shall overcome
The silent one
The dawn is approaching
The men kit up in their uniforms
Preparing equipment, double checking their instruments
They march forth ready to do to battle
At dawn, as the brightness above shines down upon them
They enter the theater of operations
Weapons ready
Doctors in full dress
Scrub nurses ready for action
Technicians monitoring vital signs
The battle has begun
More saline, clamps, increase IV, Scalpels
Blood stains the heroes of the moment
The end, a silence, a satisfaction, a tear
This patient can be declared
Cancer free
The silent one was murdered
Cancer removed
Life restored
Family rejoices
Tears and kisses
This battle won
One man
Stands
Beneath his white helmet
And demands,
Silence.
Throughout Aleppo.
His stethoscope,
He attaches
To the dust
And listens
From his knees.
The man has
Ten fingers,
A dry brush
And a pair of pliers
To dig like an archeologist.
He does not have years,
But minutes
To search the ruins
For toes
That wiggle
Or mouths
That suckle
Or bleeding hearts
That still beat
Like tremors
In puddles of plaster.
When an apartment building
Of ten stories
Is bombed
By planes
Flown by strangers
And its hallways and closets
And bedrooms
And kitchens
And stairwells
Are pancaked
Into a single floor
Of wreckage
In seconds,
There can be tiny
Zigzagged
Crevices
With, but inches of space
And pockets of air
Left
Where
Former residents
May fill these places
With their slippery bodies
Poured like liquid
Into molds
That harden
While they wait
For a miraculous tap
From Above
Or Below
Or from the Sideways.
Sometimes,
The plaster and gravel
Molds
Blink
Back
With the brown eyes
Of a three year old
Or the trickle of blood
Can faintly be heard
Still flowing
Under
A mother’s skin
In
And through her veins.
To the rubble surgeon,
That is like seeing fireworks
Or hearing tubas,
So, he probes further.
Using his fingernails
Like scalpels,
He unearths
An elbow,
A shoulder,
A chest,
The belly,
Ankle bones
And then, the whole
Of the lightning-shaped body
Releases in one dusty swoop,
Scooped
Into both his hands
And raised above his head
As if on scales
And lifted to the emerald sky,
The weight of the world
Presented to the gods,
A broken body
And a scarred soul
But, yes,
Yes,
Pried
Alive
With the first cry of a second birth
From a saved person
Who’s
On
No one’s side
But for God's.