I am a sickroom diva
cough, cough, cough, cough, cough
I love my pills and sweat baths
I live for liver drops
I order my whole family
to tread so carefully
they bring me towels and blankets
my heart might stop you see
I love to see them running
I make them bow and plead
I rule the house with sickness
they listen to my needs
The only time I'll stop it
is when I finally die
even then I'll reach my hand out
from the hoary grave
"we didn't really do enough."
I'll laugh when they do say
until then I'm just waiting
for another round
I'm saving up to rush them
and run them to the ground.
Categories:
sickroom, humorous, sick,
Form: Rhyme
Nebula is paltering with
his bucket of water
banging it against
the buckets of other children.
And soon the clamour
of their noisy gang
beats the rhythm
for the tripping water.
I’m reaching out for you,
I harvest a few drops
I come to sprinkle their infant dew
— foolishly scattered
by those not old enough to know
it’s later to be sought out —
upon your face.
Your eyes are looking through the eyelids,
indulging in the fresh juice
of heaven
heedless of the azure curtains drawn
around you,
heedless of the windows, the walls, the wails.
You’re running faster
than any seabird
You’re playing jollier
than any child
You’re seeing farther
than any eye
sleeping, dreaming, motionless
Categories:
sickroom, dad, father, father daughter,
Form: Free verse
Sophie's sweat
landscapes
the claret red horizon
thick serum
trickles
from a Sickroom -
a death ward
where cracked knuckles
spatter the fjords
moistening the planks;
bathing the laths of anxiety
‘neath
marquis de sade stumps
Norwegian expressions of death -
agoraphobia
murdering actuality;
the Dance of Life
rapidly burns
as a funeral pyre of Ashes are
seized from
your tribe’s headstone
the stench of brother’s legacy
replaces
a protected breath
and a Dead Mother can
descry muted
caterwauls
between
the Clock and the Bed
the two guardians of quietus
merely exit
this clotted bridge
contemptuously -
in soured and
staled
delight
Categories:
sickroom, dedicationdeath, death,
Form: Dramatic Monologue
A dying sun, sucking the last dregs
From a blood drenched sky.
Rays shatter like sun baked glass
On humble waves, which lift their crests
Then dive down deep.
A muted roar of anguish,
Fades to sickroom whispers,
Murmuring sea voices hide secret fears.
Salt laced tears crash carelessly
On an empty seaweed plain.
Ritual movements of the funeral procession
Each player engaged in their own grief
Long after stains of death are cleansed away,
The watery waltz continues,
In homage to doomed splendour.
Categories:
sickroom, imagination, nature, sea, time,
Form: Free verse