No one had seen Rudolf for weeks
He was wanted via loudspeakers and flyers
"This is the moment where everything changes", Santa Claus said
Christmas Eve was approaching, there was nothing more to do
It came news from the University Hospital of Northern Norway
Poor Rudolf, lay for three weeks with a broken leg
Swelling and loss of movement - it was just hopeless
The plaster cast was heavy - he couldn't fly home
Rudolf was sent home by air ambulance, in a comfortable bed
On Christmas Eve he sat in the sleigh together with Santa Claus
Even with a broken leg he was able to overcome the obstacle
Rudolf's red nose has become a symbol of Christmas for everyone
First Part: All I see are my toes!
A constant burning and stinging sensation under this weighted plaster cast has got me bedridden. The cast is made out of plaster and is white in color that is stuffed with gauze layered tightly with a bandage. This cast covers the severe damage from a fall a week ago that snapped my ankle bone into two like a bitter cold cucumber. I’m staring at this soft but firm cast that is unmoved and unshaken because I’m lying perfectly still waiting for it to heal. The gauze slowly is unraveling from the inside of the cast. And my toes!
Second Part: Leg Live Life to the Fullest!
Only three living toes peek out
From beneath the plaster my leg screams to be let out!
“Let me go!” wails my injured leg.
Sweat slithers out; whilst my leg struggles to stay afoot.
Waken thee leg and don’t succumb
Don’t be downtrodden, deaf, and dumb
And leg keep dancing to a new tune
And keep blessing yourself underneath the midnight moon!
Light stutters and slacks
slips under an ancient nightgown.
Gore and ghast rise to pin back eyes.
Plaster cast crawlers
take over the wards of dreamers.
The nurse is buried in her 'Peoples' magazine
she does not see the shadows
reaching to seal her coffin.
Tunnels arrive like mouths;
enter the breath bereft pyramid robbers,
moth-eaten eyes pined to their extinct skulls.
They want to steal your darkness
weave it into nightmares,
ride you like a seahorse in an oily turgid ocean
until you sink all your wish-bones
too deep for any hope.
I love to go dancing each week,
alas, a new partner I now urgently seek
No conversation, Joe was such a bore,
as we shuffled around the dance floor
We’d mastered a waltz and the tango.
but he didn’t quite ‘get’ the fandango
He’d say let’s try that dance move again -
crushing my tootsies, till I cry out in pain
I couldn’t walk when he broke my left toe
I said I'm sorry Joe, but you’ve just got to go
My plaster cast gets removed on Monday
In time a new partner will come my way
If you’re wondering where Joe dances now ...
he’s at the rear end of a pantomime cow!
Couplet- any theme, any length Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Dear Heart
05/02/20/
I gasped, as asp clasped fast
around my head like a plaster cast cap.
It was coiled round and round
like a ringlet of hair wrapped
around a curler, with head reared up
poised like spitting cobra.
What spell can I cast to uncoil, unclasp the asp?
For I'm too scared to grasp the asp
and cast the serpent skyward.
Perhaps wearing the Uraeus asp cap
means I'm a Pharaoh!
Racism 1952
A man had been working on a flat garage roof
jumped into the yard, not a long jump but
landed badly and hurt his ankle.
He picked up a plank and used it to get out
and to the bus stop.
The bus driver wouldn`t let him on because
of the plank, and he lost his balance and fell,
People stepped over him, this black drunk.
The pavement was cobble stoned, so he walked
to the hospital using the road, where he was hit
by a car, an ambulance arrived, the man had hurt
his ankle, but it was not broken, a plaster cast,
they gave him a crutch so he could get home.
The driver of the car which hit him,
picked up the plank it was just the size needed
repairing his house.
We have come to a long way racism is no longer
so ugly but skulk in corners and the judicial system.
The heart off sanatorium
Broke a little in a winter time
cause it went alone
and this is how that ends
fixed with cement
too late for a plaster cast
now weighing a bit more
and colder too
but
matter of practice
This plaster cast is
By far the hardest thing you'll
Ever have to wear
Zooming, zooming, zooming fast,
I'm racing by in my billy cart,
Had to swerve to miss my dog,
Smashing into a fallen log,
Now I have to wear a plaster cast.
He was born perfect in every way
Until that fateful day
When from a height was dropped
His knee joint fractured, out it had popped
Was just two weeks old a boxer pup
Went to the vets to have it bandaged up
Had a plaster cast, yet he still wanted to play
When cast came off, he limped from that day
Named him Cassidy cos he hopped along
Never a growl or bite though big and strong
Was a perfect pet in every way until cancer struck
Just eight years old he said goodbye with a lick.
He won a rosette in an Obedience Contest
Which shows you don't have to be perfect to be the best.
Penned 6 November 2014
The modern mattress
is what makes possible
modern sleep;
soft so I
model myself in it
like I'm to become
a plaster cast.
What's wrong? she asks
there's something bothering you.
The modern mattress
can hide the mite
that eats my skin
slough, lives small
excretes itch and sneezes.
Just anomie, I answer
nearness to old age,
a reminder of waste.
I will
sheath the modern mattress
in cotton terry
with warp and weft
like the wall of China.
It will keep out
the poop of mites.