They put her in a hospital bed
Just for observation
She stayed much longer than they said
an estimate inflation.
Her muscles shrank, her bones got thin
Joints got bent, delirium.
We tried to stand her up, she fell
Is this what they call getting well?
The weaker she was, the harder to move
The less she moved, the sicker she proved
She got bed sores, more spinal pain
No rehab in house, Medicare's shame.
Lack of walking caused constipation
Then urinary blockage, more complication
Dehydration followed, so saline was applied
But the catheter had germs, so she got a UTI.
Her legs so still, she got a clot
A cluster of disasters, who lost the plot?
Not all countries do it this way
incentives in the U.S. contribute to decay.
Then we pay for months of rehab care
cheaper per day, once you are there
But in the big picture it makes more sense
To prevent deterioration, before its immense.
The above patient is a composite of many poor souls
Usually there are confounds, the argument has holes
However, it's true that this happens and can't always be reversed
Let's address the incentives first.
Peaked like a gambrel roof.
Gambling for dun gold.
Axion, axiom, aloof.
Red ochre, old sold.
Cairn by the roadside?
Stacked rocks, a cache prepared.
Treasure someone tried to hide?
Looks like he got scared.
Snow, cover the landscape.
O ice, freeze others out.
Mellifluous, monster? Gape.
Crowd, you saw the rout.
Wasp and hornet, stingers sharp?
Yes, and barbed as well.
Angel, do you play the harp?
Demon, dwell in hell?
Chaos, birth in me a star!
Dancing free and fine!
Gaze, through haze! From near to far!
Belladonna, wine!
Resonance, a game of chance?
Let us play to win.
Downpour, between drops we dance!
Flippers, flick thy fin!
Ichor, wicker, nicker.
Thicker than water, blood?
Well, it's in the liquor.
Get sicker, O my brood.
Xiphoid, grip and push upward.
Solar plexus, wait.
Guts of mine, thy life is hard.
Fortunate, O fate?
Serpent venomous, strike the breast.
Lay me low and leave.
Treasure found inside a chest?
Nightshade to bereave.
Sickle of the reaper grim?
Crater cauldron rim.
Pain in my heart, at the brim?
Light in my eyes, dim?
Slim thy chance, O circumstance.
Demagogue, thy rants.
Fortress mighty, stubborn stance?
Tympani, tyrants.
Destroyed, O sweet future?
You bet, and reason thus:
Stitch, support the suture?
Ornery damned, my cuss.
Poison-flower, trumpets high?
Apothecary, ply.
Deadly chemicals, make supply?
Ointment, have thy fly.
Cry of battle? Battlement.
Hope, thy sentiment.
Gears a-ground down? Where she went?
Said just what she meant?
Fluxion, thy flicker.
Axion, axe to wheel.
Sullen silence? Get sicker.
Wound, heal. Deal, sign seal.
Torn, O my tornado?
The options are but two.
Sell thy soul to vicious foe?
Be with who loves you...
Doctors like road workers
Patients treated like squatters
Nobody working, just sitting around
Waiting for people to be in the ground
Cups of tea and coffee are plentiful
Only staring at screens like we’re unacceptable
The vulnerable unable to speak
Unable to ask questions and critique
No communication or explanation
Just constant need for evasion
Buzzing around staring at the floor
Being told we have to be grateful and adore
These people who don’t care
Basic human decency is too much, not fair
Walking around like zombies
As if their job is a part time hobby
Children play doctors and nurses
They more passion and more verses
The sick get sicker while they wait
The healthcare system such a state
Too much paperwork, not enough patient time
This lack of humanity should be a crime
Treatment is inhumane
You wouldn’t leave an animal in so much pain
Ignored for hours, days
Meanwhile they get far too much praise
Nobody attempts to care
While people are in despair
Need a boss Need a jerk
Need something to make your ass
Get up and work
I can inspire you for sure
But I refuse to retire you
I refuse now dont ask me how
Dont ask me too many times
I dont wanna change my mind
But your so strong with my rhymes
Yust just 3 times sicker than the rest
Ill put on my best to go to town
I think I know you now
I think I know how it goes down
I think I know things you nowMaybe I do Maybe I dont
Maybe that just the way it goes
Maybe back in my Hay Day
Back at the party at the motel 6
Well leave the light on
Well keep up the lighter switch baby
Well ditch the relief and relive it in disbelief baby
Missbehaving, never live like a slave
Always swim on the reef baby
Causing were just finding reno,
I bet we find las vegas
No sense Begging us
We already give it all up for rap
We already see no fiucks
And give even less than that
Im like let me in the cage
I see the slave, but im up to bat
I got a few choice words for that
Ill see you at the Christmas shack
Ill Play santa and You play the bay thats got back
And Ill play the baby thats not afraid of that
You need a beat you better call dre
Im using my beats like all day
Not the bee box! Grandma would say
We heard it each time we went to stay
She had something in there precious for sure.
We knew to open it would feel impure.
Our parents would caution, “Don’t go near that box.”
I thought it held a monster with sharp teeth of a fox.
When grandma passed in twenty-twenty
We had lots to sort out, I do mean plenty.
“Let’s open the bee box,” my sister whispered to me.
I said “Let’s wait for the other siblings” – there are three.
Our brother was the last to come in the door.
It was midnight, we could not wait any more.
We ripped that box open and stared at Grandma’s stash.
That old woman was a pot smoker, and here was her hash.
We laughed ourselves silly, my cousin got sicker than sick.
We could not believe this was our grandma’s trick!
BODY AILS … YET SPIRIT SOARS
You’d think I’d rattle when I walk,
I’ve pills of this and that.
Some make me feel even sicker,
others warned … make me fat.
Take “Viagra” for rare PH,
Lung-Heart rare illness pill.
Several for other organs, fact
one-third kidney’s … no thrill.
If, drink more water for kidney,
Heart Failure might affect.
Most minds tell folks, “breath”, with “Central
Apnea “ … mine forgets.
When stand, high-blood pressure drops low,
ninety-five / fifty five.
Body ails, yet spirit still soars,
grateful … I’m still alive!
Fact take twenty pills is is not bad,
gotta take to stay well.
But wonder, if Doc’s took these, they'd
feel better … or like -ell?
Won’t fuss about number of pills,
for this, and this, and that.
Thankful have all these, or I might,
just fall down dead … splat!
A letter to whom
it may concern
That Cancer, aids, corona failure of kidney and heart etc
Incurable and deadly diseases are not the way of punishment.
Mistakes make both
Educate and sinner man
But selfish man can't judge
What he had done.
Then punish him
Such the cruel way
Looks injustice and cruelty
And against your divinity.
For Challengers or breakers
Of Your Golden rules
Almighty impose power
To punish them in You.
The victims is poor and innocent
He doesn't know the way,
How to live in your world
So he is not worthy to get punish that way.
I shall pray and beg
Ten thousand times and more
To pleased You
So injustice remains no more.
Please bless and gift me
If I bow my head in your honor
By stopping and replacing
Deadly diseases very sooner.
It is depand on You
Make people sicker and mighty
So once more consider
The rules of panel code Almighty.
Even Then
He’s not lost his smile
Had it since he was a child
His heart still longs to hear
The words that some will fear,
“I love you”… three little words
Who reach beyond the hurt,
Sing gentle to the heart,
Bring music to the thoughts
His soul – it is not lost, because
Above all, love has brought him through
The dark, the storms, the doubts –
Jesus settles every skeptical breath
He’s not gone without this feeling,
Hues of hope, coloring him brilliantly,
A vibrating sense of peace and promise,
Arriving on the stone cold silence,
Bidding joy to his aching – grief born
With the final word, his doctor’s diagnosis
Cancer, he’s heard…
Still, he’s not lost his smile
He’ll continue for another mile
Hoping for healing, yet the verdict
Revealing that he is sicker than the words
Stage four, will he make it past the month?
Cancer, he’s heard…
Can silence his nerve, stir up discomfort
Throbbing in the bones, stinging
Aching anguish, failing to reconcile
Restore his smile for that last, lonely mile
If you drink old Han's elixir
You won't live much longer.
Only get sicker and sicker.
Punch your ticket, a goner.
More potent than still liquor
and something a bit stronger.
Ancient Aliens have a new witness.
Claims its space fuel, for a Saucer.
Not the bee box! Grandma would say
We heard it each time we went to stay
She had something in there precious for sure.
We knew to open it would feel impure.
Our parents would caution, “Don’t go near that box.”
I thought it held a monster with sharp teeth of a fox.
When grandma passed in twenty-twenty
We had lots to sort out, I do mean plenty.
“Let’s open the bee box,” my sister whispered to me.
I said “Let’s wait for the other siblings” – there are three.
Our brother was the last to come in the door.
It was midnight, we could not wait any more.
We ripped that box open and stared at Grandma’s stash.
That old woman was a pot smoker, and here was her hash.
We laughed ourselves silly, my cousin got sicker than sick.
We could not believe this was our grandma’s trick!
Sensing impending doom
might be happening soon
a tidal wave comes crashin
straight up typhoon.
urgency upon us
calling out to father
need a savior, he's the one
he runs to help and guide us.
The air gets thicker
time ticking quicker
lights seems to flicker
doctor i feel sicker.
Throat clogging up
grip gets tighter
feeling caught in the crosshairs
yet im still a fighter
You think that she’d have learned by now, to hide it
But no, and those around her must abide it
Sometimes, we'd like to knock her off her fanny
‘Cause we all know, she’s just a Gin Soaked Granny
She stumbles in out and out of bed all morning
and never will she heed our sober warning
before she drinks, she’d better read that label
the bottle she left somewhere on a table
For Gin Soaked Grannies always need their glasses
and sometimes they forget with time that passes
that yesterday, the rats she killed with liquor
should she drink, would only make her sicker
Silly Billy went and ate
all the cookies his mom baked.
Getting too sick was his fate
for his tummy ached and ached.
You might think this silly guy
would have learned his lesson, right?
When his mother made a pie,
it then disappeared from sight.
Billy, like a big fat hog -
He had gobbled it all down!
He got sicker than a dog.
Mention pies, and still he’ll frown.
April 11, 2021
for Eve Roper's Nursery Rhyme 4 Poetry Contest
May any friendly wind with nature’s magic breeze
And rescue his soul from this ogre of flicker,
Sensuous liquor, insatiable sexual freeze…
A pricker that smothers soul and makes him sicker.
Satiation of sensuous pleasure does drown
Him, in flood of desire as luscious as a drug;
His fingers tiptoe his prey, an enticing crown,
And now he wallows in this wild flood of mud.
Virtues ones see mud born lotus rising sky high,
And how its leaves roll swiftly down the dirt we throw,
And they season their minds so that their souls can fly
Freely with wide open wings; in sky high they glow.
Jan. 26, 2021 (originally posted on Dec. 28, 2020)
ALL YOURS (Jan 26) Poetry Contest
Contest sponsor: Brian Strand
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