wounded

Gleaming metal in hand
chills course through each nerve ending
as a Christmas eve birth unfolds;
sanguine sadness with each contraction.

She lays silent in the glow
of hospital sheets and fluorescent lights,
slow tears in the dark corners of her olive eyes
where whimpers replace words.

A drop of blood falls to the floor
a sparkling contrast on the sterile linoleum-
'deck the halls with bows of holly'
plays on from the nurses station .

Peering into the birth canal
the life blood ends
in dark clots, as the miscarriage continues
into the holiday eve.

We do not speak the same language
our origins far from similar
yet I reach forward and stroke the sweat soaked
wisps of hair from your face
and whisper "bless you child"
into the night.

wrathful

Assume the fetal position
sullen under the starched sheets
hiding from your mind
as it betrays your sight.

Blood pours forth
spilling urine
discarded to the porcelain
goddesses of these hallways.

You speak only of death today
perseverating on time;
driving home the point
in incoherent diatribes.

Beads of sweat accumulate
on your brow
the only sign of the fever
boiling within your mind.

Lucidity comes in small blasts
verbal ejaculations
of coherent thought
only momentary and without context
making the diagnosis difficult.

The surgeons and psychiatrists
now at odds and wits ends
about the future
of a malignant diagnosis.

Slowly the tincture
crawls into the recesses
of a diseased brain
giving freedom to speech.

I now hold the fluid
of your backbone
sealed in sterile plastic
and bless holy
the waters of your mind.

Pray with me now
over a cup of warm
chocolate milk
on the strength
and resolve of your
cellular interdigitations
keeping viral wrath at bay.

the dictum of duty

I was once told
that my mind was a "gift"
not to be wasted
on the banalities of modernity.

I was honored
as a young man
to soar to new sights
an eagle above boys;
an enigma in this age.

I dreamed of a day
when cast in a cloak
of white cloth
healing powers
would transcend
through my touch.

Yet, now as a son
of the alpha and the omega
a foot soldier
amidst marines,
I toil in hallways
under the shadow of "time."

I once calculated the anion gaps,
the alveolar-arterial gradients,
and corrected calciums,
of patients and people,
with a hope to heal.

Now my elementary arithmetic,
is spent adding 24 + 6,
subtracting one day in 7
equaling a total of hours (80);
in the hopes of not violating
the dictum of "duty."

Merely a distraction,
from the true reality
of the broken system
of fractured care,
within the sanitary wards
coined "modern medicine."

suffering

May I ask you brother,
soldier of foreign wars:
a battle now raging
in the catacombs of your marrow,
if you suffer,
as you lay at my feet
cloaked in white linens?

I inquire
about your pain
as a measure in digits
of your suffering,
as if that integer
can convey your daily agony.

I attempt not to stare
at the sinew of your tendons
tearing forth through your forearms,
to peel my eyes from the image
of your emaciated breast,
as ribs thrust forth
asking heaven to grab hold
like the handle of a bucket
and carry you home.

Thankfully today
the must of falling rain cloaks
my nasal passages
from the odor of dying;
because yes doctor,
their are things in this hell on earth
that are far worse than death.

Behold the agony before me,
the cognoscente dying man!

In the past I could take solace,
in seeing the dying escape into delirium
that wondrous somnolent confusion
as death marches near,
yet today my friend,
as you speak,
it is painfully evident that your mind,
has fought away the waxing and waining sleep,
of peaceful passage.

Take a tincture of relief,
so that I may be relieved of my own suffering,
as you lay dying under my care;
drink of this cup and sleep,
if for a moment beyond the horror of nausea,
and a step ahead of suffering,
for I know this will not last.

As I leave your living tomb,
and break into the sterile hall
once again,
I breath again of that rain scented air
and thank the Lord,
as I scrub and scour
your suffering
from my hands.

four-thousand souls

Piece by piece my brother,
the children have fallen
to the ground;
searing the earth with their blood and bile.

Does your nose grasp that odor?
The fetid chemical aroma
of cutaneous cautery
at the hands of a suicidal man.

Tears shed by mothers and fathers
to absolve their son's
of their heavenly wickedness.

Do you realize that one day
everyone you know will die?
Memories of your time
on this swirling ball of gas
and organic existence
will for eternity be erased.

isolation

Missing you again
tonight
counting the minutes to midnight
that transition of days
when our bodies can meet again
between the warmth of cotton sheets.

You do not know
that most of my nights,
during fits of insomnia
I breath you in,
slowly,
in an attempt to intoxicate myself
back into the forbidden realm of sleep.

abbreviation

I stand in front of your door,
once again,
in the sterile hallway
burdened by the knowledge
of your disease.

I hold in my mind
the malignant meaning of your mortality;
the very thought of which rots my soul,
quickens my pulse, and sours my bowels.

Sleeping there, oblivious
to the verbal damage I will convey
of the inanimate death
cursing through your veins.

The three letters that I utter
at your bedside:
a word once a whisper in darkness
now an atomic blast articulated in loquacious detail.

I am the minion of the reaper
cloaked in white
a facsimile of a healer
for I bring disease to your heart
with my forked tongue of diagnosis.

I speak the alphabetic characters
mortal men have assigned to Beelzebub
in a Biblical attempt
to obliterate the trinity.

My visage in this moment
seared
into your hippocampal files:
a horrid image
napalmed into your myocardium
for eternity.

Please forgive me brother,
in name and spirit,
for bequeathing unto you
the scarlet letters of my generation.

memoriam

So much to say

my friend…

Of what you have taught me,

in this life,

and what I will carry beyond your days.

You will always be B-I-G, BIG,

larger then life,

my friend,

in heart, in family, and especially in friendship.

You raised two fine sons

brothers to the end.

Men now in life

and now a grand-father to be!

You garnered my respect

not because of your size,

But because every man who met you

felt in your presence a warmth and love

which you emanated.

You took a couple of skinny white boys

taught them to be better fishermen;

Skilled them with a rifle and a square-knot,

led them into the wild

by foot and by sea.

Please know

that you inspired me to be a stronger man

pushed me beyond myself

and were a model of what it meant to be a father, husband, and friend.

I will think of you always,

when I set foot on a trailhead,

when I cast my line into the depths of lakes and seas,

when I fix my gaze on a target in the distance,

and when I attempt to heal one of your brethren of war;

You will be with me.

Thank you for

being BIG,

for helping this tenderfoot, this cub,

become an Eagle,

for helping this boy

become a man, a husband,

and a healer.

God now knows your warmth.

Knows your smile and the comfort

drawn from your spoken word.

And, for this, I am thankful.

It was my honor to have known you!

To carry you on in my heart and mind,

to have learned from your wisdom and experience.

For this, I am blessed!