A snip, snip, here
And a snip, snip, there
They're cuttin' and carvin'
After shavin' my hair
A slip, slip, here
Brain salad on legs
A slip, slip, there
As they scramble my eggs
These doctors of doom
Will I soon depart
One slip of the knife
Just another brain fart
A skip, skip, here
No Aflac my boy
As they skip, skip there
Just another new toy
The hospital machine beeps,
My knees weak, the walls are bleak.
I'm bitting my cheek whilst the ward doors creak
I can hear the children shriek, they look weak through a sneak peak.
Explanations are oblique,
These children will be me in a week.
There's critique of technique for hell week;
which is not for the weak.
Streaks of blood, dizzy from drugs
Staring at the paintings of ladybugs
Trying to sleep with ear plugs
I want to smash a mug, the frustration builds inside, stuck in bed
Feeling like led, can't even eat bread, knee held together with thread, throbbing red, Feeling half dead.
I suddenly woke up in bed with dread for next week when I become,
the children who shriek.
Goldilocks and the three bears,
The story is a classic.
But one idea came to mind,
What if she was made of plastic?
With lips so swollen
And cheeks so bloated
She was red and shiny
And was very coated.
The bears that came saw the porridge,
They searched and found Goldilocks.
Screaming and fearful, they ran away
Because she had a very scary Botox.
After the surgery
I was flat on my back and not
allowed to move, an assistant nurse came to feed me
A stern-looking woman older than the others
soup she fed me; open your mouth wide, she said
I did her, eyes softened, and she became motherly
scolded me gently when spilling soup on the nib
When I didn`t want any more soup, she said I had to
to eat it all
I felt drawn to her as a baby to his mother
it was a beautiful moment; she tucked me in
I fell asleep.
Then it was morning, I was allowed to sit up and
later stood up. looked out the window, a football pitch
the players’ red and yellow shirts, it looked like mating
ritual, the one who scored the most goals
gets the sexiest girl, that`s ok, but I got to be a baby
and remember it.
Darkness.
Drip.
Not absence,
but a rarified vastness
thick with hush,
like a cavern
carved behind my eyes.
Drip.
Drip.
Somewhere, water—
not seen,
just heard,
each drop a soft footstep
in the void behind me.
Concentric rings of silence.
And then—
a pulsating dot of light.
Drip.
It grows—
breathes—
radiates outward in color—
rings blooming
from the dark
like ripples in a pond
no stone ever touched.
Drip.
And then
there was no difference
between the rings and me—
no watcher—
no watched—
only light,
arriving
from within
and without.
No fear.
No body.
Only
the warmth
of being,
the ease
of breath,
and wonder—
vast
and unasked for.
I become the light.
Gladys was not so glad today, kind of a surprise
She had cornea surgery and saw better than ever
The old lady in the mirror stared at her with dull eyes
There were wrinkles that seemed to go on forever
When did I get old? She asked. How did this happen here?
You did not die yet, the mirror said. It was a mean mirror.
Glady did not feel aged, decrepit or ill, but she felt sad.
Thinking about the surgery she wished she’d never had.
Eyes fixated on a clock with no hands.
Waiting for the grim reaper to pay me an expected visit.
Trying in vain to bargain my freedom, but to no avail. My bounty worth more than my bribe could ever hope to be.
As I accepted my exit from this mortal coil a calmness came over me.
It was not the afterlife I was entering, but the after effects of anesthesia.
My surgery had been a success.
you where
what you not
till LA diplomacy
became my habit
toxic offender
Britain's detainee
fleeing grey's
a runt in sign
ab stains in Russian
stoic without the light
nightmare i warred app
next bus to nowhere
findings inside papers i hide
can't re-cut the record
the cloths plain spent
too much filthy Irish ink to blink
i am a journalist
i am caring
there was a young surgeon named Bob
who learned his craft on the job
on a post op exam
with stethoscope in hand
realized where he left his Swiss watch and fob
pre-surgery
I have growth on my lower leg
which I bravely ignored till my wife
said I was smelling
It offended me, who showers every morning
I went to see my doctor, a woman in her
the sixties, she insisted on kissing me when I visit
as a result, I love her
Yes, it was a tumor surgery, the ninth of
Dismember
My doctor's name is Teresa, I knew a woman
in Curacao, she was lovely too, named Teresa
When I left her office, I noticed she
didn't kiss me, but said something about
iodine, changing the wound, putting on
a new clean bandage
the second hand ticks to the beat of my heart
Waiting for the surgeon to come and make a start.
Nerves all on edge fear creeping in
Taken to the theatre for the surgery to begin.
Theatre lights shining they are so very bright
Trying to control my breathing chest is getting tight.
Let me off this thing I have made a mistake.
What do you mean that with this surgery I have to be
AWAKE.
He weeps, assigned to mourn for others who
Had none to mourn them, none to say goodbye,
Those whose harm medicine can’t undo,
Whose bodies he takes apart each passing night.
He scrubs, a cleansing ritual, to keep
Away the microscopic things unseen
The rite distracts from tears he wants to weep,
The tears a spell for spirits in between.
The spirits who pass on under his knife,
Though now are still and silent, him remind
Of another who once left this life,
Whose spirit longed for, tried for, peace to find.
But now is not the time to cry and mourn,
For there’s a job, as reason is to rhyme
For some, still from this life, who, not yet torn,
Without these gifts, would soon run out of time.
The necromancer’s tears are never shown,
But what he does has ripples far and wide.
Now for his former acts he can atone,
His magic helping those on either side.
1
this surgery is never guaranteed
some come away looking terrific
they don’t publicize those left dead
buried in a foreign grave
my friends will take the risk
dreams of being thin
not me this time
I shall stay
alive
fat
I fell asleep,
beneath the trees,
their leaves wept,
as I slept.
I now know,
I will go,
someday it's true,
beneath the moon.
Stars will cry,
I'll say goodnight,
close my eyes,
to a rooftop lullaby.
Perry's Disinclination for Mushrooms
A mushroom is not something new
Inside some pasta or a stew.
But, when it comes to feeding Perry,
A mushroom is extraordinary!
John's Surgery
An eyeball must be a perfect sphere.
If an imperfection should appear,
A handy doctor, not ham-handed,
Will use his head and have it sanded.
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