My heart beats quite steady firm tightness my jaw sore as I await the infamous cardiovascular disorder to finally finish me off while the rhythm of my heart requires ongoing medication that allows my blood not to clot causing lots of bruises frightful panic attacks keeping me awake at night totally affecting my DAYTIME SLEEP APNEA how do I stay awake barely watching the echo machine carry the beat of my heart o er to the harmonic waiting area I'm only by a thread held together by medication regiment staying alive after two strokes and a heart attack I should be dead already an yet I'm here breathing by nebulizer pumps sprays I'm alive I'm here by a thread surviving just to live just to feel the echo of my Heart beating
D-aybreak has just begun
I-n the early beacon's light;
A-nother dawn has broken,
N-ew morn sets things
A-right.
P-ure delight and mirth
A-re far away from cry;
G-leam has started to shine
U-nderneath the wide sky.
I-n the slow break of day
R-ise of the sun begins;
I-n the zenith's waiting area,
G-lints make some sense.
A-n early show of day denies the lonely twilight;
N-ovember eighth morn, coal black clouds turn white.
G-ray, dark and blue
A-re nowhere in sight;
L-anes in the space above
A-re all burning bright.
N-ight cold chill disappears, while warmth carries fun;
G-loom comes to an end, daybreak has just begun.
In the waiting room …
A sea of ashen faces
Women with their partners
We were waiting, just waiting
My name is called
Heart pounding I gather by belonging
My husband gets up …
But he’s told he can’t come in with me
I feel vulnerable and alone
In the little cubicle I undress and put a hospital cape on
Now its time for my mammogram
The machine clamps me tight with a vice like grip
Yes it Shrove Tuesday and is Pancake Day for my right breast!
Thankfully it’s all over very quickly
I sit alone in the waiting area
Waiting, just waiting
Try to do a puzzle but my mind is elsewhere
A door opens and my name is called
Now for the ultrasound
A blob of cooling gel, the scan is painless
Everything looks fine
They tell me I have ‘young breasts’ whatever that means!
Shame about the rest of me I quip and we laugh
Now I need to see the specialist to be examined
So it’s back to the waiting area
Waiting, just waiting
I get called into another room
Mmmm he’s very attractive with brown eyes and greying hair
But I digress!
A quick examination and everything is fine
This time my lump is tissue and is deemed to be benign
02~28~17
Vance Plans a Vasectomy
By Elton Camp
Vance heard a vasectomy was the way to go
He didn’t know a lot about it, though
But had read all that he wanted to see:
That no more children is the guarantee
In the waiting area he had to have a seat
Since the doctor was having a bite to eat
The doc sat on a table just out of sight
Of a hot dog he was about to take a bite
But he clenched the bun a bit too tight
The wiener then shot out of his sight
In the waiting area, it dropped to the floor
From Vance there was heard a startled roar
“I didn’t understand what this was about!”
Vance said as he jumped up and ran out
The trees pace around the morning
with small steps, measured,
unconsciously wearing small circles
above my wind-tossed hair as I
warm a steel bench with the
patience of prey wrapped in undergrowth.
Sirens and taxis fight over a bone as
I huddle around a steaming paper cup.
Why must mornings announce
themselves so early in the day?
Likely because they know my
eyes will be at half mast, numb
to needling unwelcome news.
Perhaps it's the closest thing
to pity I'm meant to know.
My coffee cooled and palms warmed,
I abandon a full cup of illusions on the bench
and return to the waiting area.
With the newborn, the dying and the dead,
joyful cries, scared shouts, grief swirl about,
new lives flowing in, spent lives ebbing out.
Much to be grateful for, to be terrified about;
anxious hope, numbing pain, dread for death
with each gasping for the first or last breath.
Dried leaves whirl away, green sprouts sway;
shrouds of forgetting, vague rememberings
at the seamless rim of ends and beginnings !