Juvenility meets senility
Childlike to childish formality
Nursing home abnormality
Inmates extend hospitality
I run as if they have a malady
Old men
sit in wheelchair
drool
that call, a face
porcelain
pressed against glass
and dead eyes wrought
from an attic room
watching us
her name badge was
irrelevant
“No, those top rooms
are not used, full
of junk and all locked up”
yet the face watched us
leave; into
the further ghosts
of night
I await sweet Annabelle
as I rest in this lonely bower.
I yearn to hear her angel voice
and feel her healing power.
Others come and others go
in times I'm given to folly,
like buxom Jenny Ramsbottom
and then there's fulsome Molly.
Sometime I forget their names,
it's so hard to keep a tally.
Some bore with their chitter-chat,
especially one named Sally.
I sometime wish for solitude
How long will this persist?
My age is catching up on me
and I doubt they all exist.
But one there is who is for sure
and she's s my favourite nurse.
Begone ye mad romantic dreams.
Sister Jane is down to earth.
"How hard can it be?" she may ask
Before she warms up to the task
"It isn't a toy,"
Sighs the patient boy,
"Think of it as an handy flask!"
Naomi has seen this sight many times before
She knows Mrs. Bee will be gone in two days
If not before
She makes her as comfortable as she can
The doctor comes in; he takes the lady’s hand
Attempts to speak with her
Naomi busies herself cleaning up the room
What do you think? The doctor asks the nurse
Her name is Paula, she is not empathic.
No idea says Paula. It could be two months or two minutes.
Paula spends much of her day playing video games.
Not paying any attention to her patients.
As a certified nursing assistant, Naomi is invisible.
No one asks her thoughts
Or realizes she is there
I am sorry, honey, she says.
I think you will be gone before your relatives get here.
Should we call the relatives? Paula asks.
No idea about the time line, he replies.
Naomi, the certified nursing assistant is correct.
The woman is gone before morning.
Once there was a nursing home man called Fred,
at night he was found in an old gals bed;
with a great big happy smile,
his pajamas in a pile;
when questioned- "THIS is my dead wife" he said !
________________________________
August 27, 2020 (Repost from 2019)
Poetry/Limerick/nursing home FRED
Copyright Protected, ID 20-1281-737-03
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
Submitted into the contest, Living It Up For Laughter New/Old
sponsor, Chantelle Anne Cooke
First Place
Old men
sit in wheelchairs, drool
warehouses for people
A meritorious student, half way to her study of medicine
She took up the Nursing Course,
Dorothea, a beautiful young nun with a mother’s heart
Used to take minute care of all the sisters
She met on her way specially the sick ones
As member of a nunnery in sub-urban America.
Let’s not mention the name of the institution or the place,
Suffice it to say that she had a perfect job satisfaction
As it suited to her nature and aim of her life to serve.
All in the nunnery and the neighborhood considered her
A precious gift of God to the humans;
Once during the wee hours of the morning
When everything waits for change
She was alone in a lonely room changing her dress
Preparing to go to her room at the end of the night shift;
But suddenly she swooned bent on a chair,
Without a warning, without their notice died.
As if she changed her soul’s cover
Like a garment of the mortal body
At the end of the night toil.
And the God took care of the soul
At the end of its journey;
A gift of God
Went back to its source.
Apple blossom boogie
Whoopee Whoop Whoop
Double time and triple time
Have some vegetable soup
Fats Dominoes in the hallway
Shuffleboard too
Twist with Chubby Checkers
Add morphine to my stew
I’m catching glimpses
Dancing round my nursing room bed
The nurse starts screaming loudly
I guess I’ve fallen on my head
Give her extra pills someone whispers.
Dancing with Elvis’ blue suede shoes
I shut my eyes and pretend
I don’t hear these nuts and cuckoos
Prancing around the hallway
The alarms go off so loud
I’ve lost a lot of dignity
In this weird old people crowd
Nursing is to restoring peace,
restorative win/win justice,
as surgical judging is to punishing injustice,
retributive win/lose justice.
Nursing ecosystems
and nurturing egocenters
can often be used synonymously,
as nursing is to nurturing.
To nurse a baby
ecosystem
is first to nurture a cherished developing infant
non-zero zone egocenter.
We, nurses and nurturers,
share a nutritional history
of healthcare giving safety
and receiving, in return, wellbeing significance
Delivered best
and most durably,
resiliently,
when care works in coincidental resonant ways
Nurturing all win/win
multilateral directions
ecosystemic
metaphoric,
All polypathic nursing selections
seductions
egocentering healthiest wealth,
analogic
Ecological nursing
felt empowerment
and needed co-investment
in ego/theo-logical nurture.
Do stop your moaning, for Heaven's Sake!
You're not the first to bellyache!
You can scowl, growl, or howl
Or throw in the towel
But no one can go to your Wake!
They sit and stare
Some not aware
Sit lay bed alone
Lights turn on
Under
Nursing Home Care
Once there was a nursing home man called Fred,
at night he was found in an old gals bed;
with a great big happy smile,
his pajamas in a pile;
when questioned- "THIS is my dead wife" he said !
_____________________________
May 19, 2019
Added after contest judged, June 11, 2019-
Poetry/Limerick/Nursing Home Fred
Copyright Protected, ID 19-1145-321-02
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
(Syllable Count 10,10,7,7,10)
Written for the contest, Bawdy Limericks
sponsor, Tania Kitchin
First Place
During lunch I announced when I retire I am going to go to jail.
What?
Jail, I repeated. I will rob a bank or something.
The three others laughed.
Think about it, I told them. How much do nursing homes cost?
They started to think about it and discussed how much they
Were already paying for their own mothers
$4,500 a month $8,000 a month, $10,000 a month.
Jail is free right? To the prisoner anyway, not to the rest of us.
I could play cards, make lots of new friends, and maybe write poetry
New story ideas I’ll bet, maybe some really juicy new story ideas!
My family would save thousands of dollars, maybe even tens of thousands
Of dollars.
How would you get in? I would rob a bank, I told them. No one laughed.
They were thinking…..
Then all three burst out laughing.
I could! I insisted, convincing no one, not even myself.
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