fear as living

I’d die a better,
poetic death
If I were afraid of it.

Yet, bounded by turbulent seas,
caging each deliberate movement,
mocks death easy.

Living does little to quell these quakes
as they morph from bright undulating morning
hums into night beats absent rhythms,

making it harder to discern between
irrational hallucinations from the
sound fear of breathing.

My daily trembles,
punctuated by lucidity,
gnaw at this compulsion to nurture.

Foiled and paralyzing.

I carry, with silent grace,
an armor of deception,
blindly free from exasperation,
and I wrap my self in Athena’s tunic.

--------------------------------------------------
i also came across this poem "Diagnosis" by terence winch that i found cute and amusing. i thought you guys might enjoy it as well: DIAGNOSIS

Brown Stone Walls

The brown stone walls invite me for a climb.
The makeshift stairs carved by war.
If only to see what lies on the other side
but, the serrated rocks may bruise
and cut away at what remains
of my unwashed, over-worn, blue jeans
but it’s still inviting.
Why else would…
lightning destroy
such an enormous castle
leaving only the façade behind?
The correct wall will lead
to the chapel with its’ candle-lit chandelier
and marble-stone dove
trying to escape St. John’s grasp.
But the walls seem insurmountable.
In another corner is an open passage way
leading to the terrace
with perfect length grass and
scattered yellow daises.
For the moment, I will just
sit and observe.

this wall of water

this wall of water

this beautiful strong

flowing movement

frightening

marveling

pounding our shell

in the darkness

as we try to maneuver home

does not faze you

 

I love you I peep

you laugh

you think I fear

 

this is nothing you say

but know one else is

venturing in this rain

 

and I your embarrassed child

wonder how many

storms you’ve seen

This Tan Leather bag

This Tan Leather bag

She was never an expensive bag,

Just modestly priced yet marvelously made.

Intricate patterns woven into the soft calf’s leather

Stitched solidly into a functional work of art.

On the outside she appears small, delicate even.

Yet her maker always told her she had the value of ten sturdy suitcases.

Today the tan leather on her front is worn,

- still beautiful and splendidly designed -

Yet etched with the lines of use and the impressions of time.

On her handles are contours of a bag that explored far off lands

That bore witness to breathtaking events and carried heavy things

As all bags must do.

She remembers carrying her first medical degree

Following that graduation ceremony

Witnessed the bell bottom pants and

Was caught up in the free love, the opportunity and the hope of that generation

She remembers serving as the diaper bag

For that beautiful brown baby boy – her first.

Whoever knew a small bag could love so much

Whoever knew a small bag could give so much.

Be hollowed out only to be filled over and over again

And when she felt she had reached her limits

Convinced that there was no space left, no more left to give

Somehow more room would appear

In her tan recesses, the leather would expand to accommodate the new addition

Holding them all securely, lovingly in her warm tender embrace

Not favoring one over the other –

Just carrying them, supporting them

As all bags should do.

Time and her load which she happily bore

Shaped her young fine tan leather to a rich brown leather adding character,

Adding strength and also adding the fine lines that etched into the calfskin.

Until one by one, her load was lightened.

First the boy, now a man, confident, strong and true

Then the girl, now a woman, beautiful, loving and wise

Then another and yet another until there are no more

Left in her safe, warm recesses.

Just the loose leather that testify to the load which she bore

And the people that she saw grow.

Now content, patient, this gentle handbag sits

Ready for the day, they will once again ask her to carry their loads

As all bags will do.

The Sun

The sun faithfully rises in the east, signaling morning

Better yet, a new beginning

It creeps in slowly and warms the earth

Oh magnificent sun

How do you manage to shine your love on the earth equally?

Even in the coldest of days, your presence gives hope

Hope that shields me from the cold breath of winter

What is the world without its Sun

It would be a cold dark place filled with pain

The end.

I like to think of myself

As a hippie with too many pairs of shoes—

You know, enlightened.

Not like a doctor—

Not an asshole.

 

I am exuberant when I

Drink too much

But I really like that about myself.

Really.

 

Sometimes I am reckless,

And I drive too fast whilst I am being exuberantly drunk,

Listening to punk rock

And endangering my future

Patients.

 

Fuck my patients. And fuck you.

Who are you to say

I can’t be like

Norman Mailer.

A real asshole but

Good. With nice shoes.

----------------------------------------

I couldn't remember what the assignment was for this week, so I posted this poem that I wrote recently, after Norman Mailer died, and all of a sudden I realized that going to medical school meant that I actually had to be a doctor.

Stone Giant

The wealth of green rolls and lulls for miles and miles—north, south, east, west.
The grass feels soft and cool against my toes, but sometimes pricks me.
But we do not gaze upon these peaceful eternal hills.
Our firm attention is to the fickle blue ahead.
We stand where the earth becomes the sea, myself a dwarf beside this man.
His stone-carved eyes gaze upon the rolling blue dunes,
His nose, jaw, and brow prolific but his demeanor as yielding as a flower in the breeze.
Hard features. Soft man.
How am I to know that he is stained and crumbling, child like I am.

I take his cold, weighty hand of stone
And wipe the dust and earth from that magnificent brow.

Brimham Rocks

Surrounded by sloping fields of violets
Are depositions from the ice age
Towering rocks: some solid and resolute
Others at odd angles, caught in place and time
Left in the wake of hurried icebergs

He rides life as an iceberg
Defying friction
As the underbelly of half melted ice does
Baring clean white composure to the night
He is capable of reflecting the warmth of the stars
Even as, in colder weather, he splinters below
Unaware of the dark earth he tears open in his path

And so here we are stranded,
small amongst the jagged rocks
How kind he was to have left the violets.

Good morning Son

After living on the west coast for the better part of my life, I got used to the subtleties of the Pacific weather. The temperature seems to be near the 60s every morning, with the heavy marine layer that creeps in during the night, only to be burned off during the day. Californians can predict how hot it’ll be during the day depending on how thick the marine layer is in the morning. It usually leaves around noon and in its wake, it leaves a clear, bright blue sky. The marine layer a passing memory, however there are days in winter that the layer never leaves.

When I learned I was moving to California from New York, I was around five or six, and about as confused as any kid. You spoke about Hollywood, movie stars, the palm trees, the weather, I remember most about the weather. You came out hazy with the details first mentioning that you hated to deliver mail in the cold and then you talked about school. I didn’t know you dropped out then, words like grad school meant as much as me as the pacific marine layer, and not surprisingly, cross country. I saw little of you, in the morning before you left for work and when you came back after. You went to bed following dinner, and spoke little to me. And like a ghost drifting through my life you leave before I finished breakfast. Ethereal, I suppose, would be a good way of describing our relationship. I was afraid that one day you’d burn away like the clouds covering southern California and maybe, my memories of you would go with them.The clouds creep in during the night, coming in before the sun crawls over the hills of Los Angeles. With it, a calm finally reaches the city-that-is-not-a-city, but a system of roads, like vessels, of houses, like cells and vessels.

I sleep fitfully, my window open because I liked to fall asleep to the cold and wake up to the smells of morning. You occasionally greeted me, muted and subdued by the repetitious work you did day after day.

It’s almost though you come and go like the wind, but the way you moved through my life seemed like a mystery. Covering your entrances and leavings with a hello and good bye.

Only to return, stoic as a statue and constant as waves. As constant as fathers are with their duties. To come and go as fathers do.

You blanket us with your presence, the way that we talk about you when you’re gone makes me wonder why you leave.

Sometimes, I fear that the

sun is going to

burn you away

until all of

you are

gone

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, blogs don't work as I want, however it's late and I won't be bothered with this now.

my 1995 audi cabriolet

Never mind that
deep carved X
on the side of her face,
a sign of rebellion I couldn’t
control.

Sun cracks on the hood
marks days of careless
bathing without creamed protection.

Her caps,
worn through
winter’s unkept highways
and fall's persistent mud.

Shut the engine so I can
leave through the
driver’s side door and
there’s no battery powered
remote,
I need to get close
to open up.

I’ll leave,
lock her up with
books, thoughts, shoes, old exam papers,
so I know where to find them again.

I talk it in, cry in it.
Face near misses
saved by her ABS
breaks stronger
than her year.

And my god! In summer,
In summer that
black broken shell
sets my hair into a mambo,
covers me with
the pungency of barbecued honeysuckles,
hot pavement,
fireworks and children’s street laughter.
And when I come home,
I’ll find a pedal tangled up
In my bobby pin,
and I’ll know I was running with the
wind,
protected by steel.

Pamela Pristine

steely curves still solid
strong
an older model
they don't make them like they used to
but you've always been a pretty kettle
i aspire to perspire like
moisture diamond studded metal
jewels that disappeared
silence
you don't ask after them
inconsequential droplets
when there is a sea within
i thought your warmth overbearing
before i understood
you were under fire
or over it
and i wonder how you withstood
isn't it unbearably warm
doesn't it get hot
over the oven
where i can always find you
making interminable cups of tea
tea and tea within you and without
but we never seem to leave you
under pressure
over high heat
boiling
and you never shriek
just a modest whistle
that you've had enough

Red Rock

Permanent
Red Rock and furrows, refined,
you recline.
You’re a flashy valley.
An indulgent scape of land.
You command
Attention.
And who would
Descend into the midst of the valley,
And dissent:
“I’m not contented
By segmented saw-tooth buttes
nor your extravagant cirrostratus,
nor your arrogant latticework sky.”
good god
Who could lie
Like that?
And opt for flat
Land?
No one leaves
Unable to stand
The haughty imbalance
of ancient denudation
and the stubborn permanence
of the towering rock.
No.
They leave impressed
And forget your pillars
Never rose
But are
Erosion.

Tree

If all the rain drops
were lemon drops and gum drops,
The thick green leaves
would have nothing to shelter.
Infinity would not suffocate,
free breath easy to come by.

Oh what a world it would be…

I’d stand outside with my mouth
speechless, eyes tearful, heart rejoicing.
The thick brown trunk of your existence
would shield me and roots ground me
Like a child punished for bad behavior,
but gleeful and in no mood for a lullaby.

If all the rain drops
were tear drops and hope drops,
You would stand testimony that suffering builds character
and strength lies in wrinkles and faith.
You’d courage against all our wind blows and snows
As seasons threaten to take away what one can’t buy.

…It would not be the same.

PARKINSON'S DISEASE, by Galway Kinnell

Read Parkinson's Disease, by Galway Kinnell, and help me figure out why I love this poem!

EVENING, by Gail Mazur

What is the purpose of the couplets and line breaks in the poem Evening, by Gail Mazur?

HIS STILLNESS, by Sharon Olds

Read His Stillness, by Sharon Olds. How does what we understand about our parents teach us about ourselves?

National Poetry Month

APRIL is National Poetry Month! Difficult to say which is easier, getting people amp'd for National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (March), or for Poetry Month. The Academy of American Poets is planning a Poem in Your Pocket Day, and has even formatted over 2,000 poems so that you can access them on your cellphone or PDA. There is a map on the site -- lots of local events listed by city in the month ahead. The Knopf Poetry Center can send you a Poem a Day by e-mail for the month of April. Locally, there is an event at the Emma S. Clark Library in East Setauket: On April 4, at 7 pm the Euterpe Poetry Group is hosting a reading by Suffolk County and Nassau County Poets Laureate. I will be there and all are invited.

Hope you all have a relaxing spring break. I know you have been working hard. Thank you for your excellent participation in class.

Here is a newspaper/newsletter column I saw today that reminded me of you.

American Life in Poetry: Column 155
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

The American poet Elizabeth Bishop often wrote of how places--both familiar and foreign--looked, how they seemed. Here Marianne Boruch of Indiana begins her poem in this way, too, in a space familiar to us all but made new--made strange--by close observation.

Hospital

It seems so--
I don't know. It seems
as if the end of the world
has never happened in here.
No smoke, no
dizzy flaring except
those candles you can light
in the chapel for a quarter.
They last maybe an hour
before burning out. And in this room
where we wait, I see
them pass, the surgical folk--
nurses, doctors, the guy who hangs up
the blood drop--ready for lunch,
their scrubs still starched into wrinkles,
a cheerful green or pale blue,
and the end of a joke, something
about a man who thought he could be--
what? I lose it
in their brief laughter.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Marianne Boruch, whose most recent book of poetry is "Grace, Fallen from," Wesleyan University Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from "TriQuarterly," Issue 126, by permission of Marianne Boruch. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Placate me

Please Filmmaker Sir, do placate me,

For I have paid ten dollars for the privilege

And my popcorn and soda are nestled within arms reach

Ready and waiting for the programming to begin.

This reality is so much more than I can bear

So take from me the grittiness of this fallen world and

Replace it with a sanitized one,

A bite-sized, family-friendly world.

A world that is easy to swallow,

A world that I can understand,

A world that I can control.

So please Mr. Director, you have my full permission

To plug me into this alternate reality.

The decision between the red or blue pill was an easy one

For the events which loom ahead are beginning to frighten me

And are more than I ever predicted

Could take place in this sheltered life.

Kind Sir, why the long pause?

For my signature has since dried on the purchase receipt.

Events are beginning to unfold around me

And I am still conscious and aware of them.

I am not built to withstand such trauma

So do hurry along and placate me.

Placate me with your TV shows

Intended to replace my relationships.

For by developing an attachment to this innocuous black box

And a detachment to my own flesh and blood

I shall not feel too much pain

If the unthinkable occurs

And I am faced with their loss.

Educate me with your news broadcasts

For I need a refresher course in our value system

To fully comprehend the (in)equality of life

To understand how dozens can die daily in the Middle East and go unmentioned

Yet one blond girl's death can occupy the news for over a year.

Are they not human too? With families and Game Boy advances and --

- And I digress ...

Please educate me because this thinking has become too much of a burden.

Inoculate me with your consumer goods

Because Lord knows the last thing I need is less stuff.

Convince me that this handbag will make me more desirable

And make me smart and make me loved.

Convince me that it holds the key to all that has been missing

In my existence up until the moment the credit card is swiped

And the decimals are summed and

I receive my temporary high, walking away feeling like someone

Because I have someone else's name hanging on my arm.

Finally Sir, consummate our agreement with your foods

An intimate contract involving all our five senses.

A tasty heady mix like an orgasm made solid.

Where for those precious fleeting seconds,

The sensations on my taste buds lift me out of my body and into a dream-like state

Making me forget everything but the taste and the textures

Until I realize that I cannot stop eating and I have been somehow entangled in a vicious cycle

Where I am fattened up like a sacrificial lamb

Then sold drugs to make me thin again.

Nonetheless the deal has been made

And it is too late to back out.

(I don’t know how to back out.)

I will live this comfortable life

With its watered-down religion intended to hedge my bets against death.

I will toss a few crumpled dollars at the homeless with their beseeching faces

As it silences my conscience - until it begins to scream again.

And I will do all I can to ignore the tell-tale signs of decay.

As our nation hangs at the precipice of yet another war,

As the divorce rates and oil prices climb even higher.

Steadfastly I ignore these alarming hints of a society in disarray

Which imply that all I know may not be here forever.

"----------------------------- THE END --------------------------------------"

The end credits roll and finally placated I smile up at my single-serving friends

As though looking through rose-tinted glasses.

Like a morphine drip the movie has numbed all my worries and clouded my judgment.

While walking to our cars we laugh recounting scenes from the film

Paying no attention to the homeless man with the cardboard sign

Except to subconsciously clutch our branded purses closer to our bodies.

Confidently we stride on leaving him behind in his world

And effortlessly moving into ours:

Our world that is easy to swallow,

Our world that we can understand,

Our world that we can control.

the bad news.

Speak, speak, just speak
And don’t speak
of sculpture
Oh, doc, we both know…
I’m no Michelangelo.
These lines are just lines.
My shadows are indelicate evidence,
Time’s thumbprint,
Left behind as that crook
Stole from the scene.
We both know what they mean.

Speak with decision,
With crafted precision,
You artist physician. You’d
Coax this stone unto dust,
Rather than set upon it like Laszlo Toth.
But you must…

Speak,
To shatter this softly-sculpted,
illusory vision.
To chisel down,
Deep down
To marble’s pith,
The sheer face at the
Heart of the matter
Where there is no artifice, no chatter.
Just truth, that truth, your hammer.

And your hammer must strike,
As hammers do.

Last Time

It would be OK to die

Here, In Boston,

The hottest city in the world.

 

Anything would be better

Than this egg crate

Cat closet dorm room;

 

The caustic piss wafting

Like chlorine tablets

In a hot pine box.

 

No one sees how sick

I am; they’ve been sucking

On ‘em all night long.

 

The ecstasy makes you sweat, too.

How can anyone really

Tell the difference

 

Between us anyway?

No one saw me slip away

In here, shaking.

 

I guess I shouldn’t really blame

These kids; its summer, and

Their sweating is envious;

 

Passionate. This happened the

Last time we came to town;

The cold shakes…

 

God, I can’t believe I drove us

Down here, knowing full well

How hot it always is. 

Scarlet Begonias (not Grateful Dead)

This is a sestina I wrote a while back. A sestina is supposed to be a structured poem in which the last word of each line is the same but in a different pattern. I like structured things.


There are landscapers planting flowers in the front yard,
scarlet begonias all along the cobblestone walkway
and beneath the cracking white paint of the fence.
A red lawnmower trims the cool, summer grass as the sun beats
upon the Spanish tile roof, and the two freshly imported Floridian palm trees
dig their roots into the hard, Northeastern soil—a pompous sight.

The golden retriever barks at the door, echoes in the foyer, fright-
ened by the tillers and mowers. Mrs. Anderson reclines in the backyard,
Gucci sunglasses rendered useless by the shade of the Maple trees.
Her make-up is reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn’s, the way
she looks in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Her magazine is open to “How to Beat
Bedroom Boredom,” an article recommended by a friend in her self-defense

class. She has been waiting an hour for him, and finally, the fence-
door to the backyard creaks open. The handsome young man’s eyes are bright
and he apologizes for his delay: “I could not manage to leave in time to beat
the morning traffic.” “No matter,” she says, as she leads him from the yard
and into the house. Inside, lips tangle passionately as they begin to make their way
to the bedroom. He carries her up the stairs, balancing the weight on his tree-

like legs, strong, unyielding. The sun casts the shadows of trees
onto the bedroom wall, lone spectators of sensual offenses.
Yearning bodies tangle and heave as layers of clothing fall away.
Desire engulfs the lovers like a fog, legs and knees quiver like a fright-
ened fawn on a cold November night. The noises of machinery in the yard
are muffled by the sounds of lust: panting, moaning, heartbeats

growing stronger, faster until ecstasy floods their veins, faces beet-
red and mouths agape in bliss. They dance upon the sheets, like trees
swaying in the winds of a rainstorm that sweeps across the yard.
Sweaty bodies intertwined as they lie naked in one another’s arms, defense-
less on a white cotton bedcloth. Where other lovers left her slight-
ed, she finds affection in his burly arms; here, she could cast away

her fears and find security. His body renders her invincible, the way
a junkie feels when she takes that morning hit, and between his heartbeats
rings the sound of happiness. Suddenly, she hears a joyful cry from the dog. “Who might
it be?” she thinks, as she looks from the window and scans between the trees:
her husband, pointing out to the child the new flowers beneath the fence.
“Quick, get dressed and take the rear door; jump into the neighbor’s backyard.”

As he makes his way out of the house, the husband and child move through the trees;
footsteps now beat on the front porch. She watches him gracefully leap the fence,
quickly fading from sight. “Mommy?” she hears, as the lover scurries across the neighbor’s yard.

Hospital Sounds

Hospital Sounds

The lights flickered on and off
Rushed voices heard from behind the curtain door
With the sound of water flowing through pipes above
I lay silent until I heard nothing more

Rest, rest, echoed the baritone from before
IV morphine or something obscene
Pain is my claim, what a chore
Only with nurses, wiped clean

Something private, with maternal patience
Wiped away, fluid and dignity in the same stroke
No light or eternal candescence
Nothing more to do, listening as he spoke

No visitors, as day gives way to day
Unrecognized by sunlight, or a familiar sight
Farewell to an unwelcome stay
Never mind my plight



NB: This was written in 40 mins. No revision or proof reading.

The Color and Shape

Green carpeted rooms
Circles, encircling circles
There’s a metaphor here

Purple walls of hemispheres
Where words are spoken from the mouths
Of gods, to the ears of babes

Brown cubes and shiny tubes
Perch precariously upon the shoulders
Of an island long and narrow

Taught to heal, taught to care
Who really understands all the things
We will bear

One day, we will wear our coats
Long and white. Cure disease, help people
Live, thrive through their lives

And walk through new cubes and
Squares, find ourselves in circles and
Spheres - see things from different angles

For now, we will sit and stare
Engaged in our amorphous learning
Trapped in our desk and chair

sicky

Tasteless vulnerability seeped in sweat and mucus,
Chains of numbers,
a tissue forte
Traps my otherwise desirable form.

Not this heat
Not this smell (or lack there of)
Makes me cry…
Mahhh mmeeeeeee

Struck by the green Egyptian angel,
Overpassing the innocent,
The guiltless.

Knocking in my ears,
Drums of Sousa.
A place to spend 5 to 7 days
(depending on the antibiotic)

Me, a hospitable host for such a
Unwanted visitor
Trembles me in my grounded bed.

Pop. Pop. Pop.- shake and stir.

Put my palm under the other pillow,
Cold clean.
Does little except make it hot again.

Fever, a Friend

I would rather you had a fever. A fever winks and cringes and wanes.
There are medications and cold packs and iced drinks for calming of ravenous fires.

I would know your spectrum of yellow to red, limbs loose and hair wet.
I would read at your side with occasional hopes and worries of contamination but continue aloud as you dose closed and blink open. I’d like your bug and your red and your will.

Fevers break but they don’t often break people.
You suffer from slither and insidiousness. A cold tumorous infiltration with an empty face and unreactive pupils. Or reactive but not accommodative, with resolute disregard for health and purity and potential in its path.

Enemy is kamikaze but you are not. It will go all the way to kill you and it and all and hope. And all you will do with fever, is fight and live. Passion is not in pills and surgeries. It’s in clear and thunderous weather. In friends and dogs and talks and walks. Fever lies in your soul, present and forever future.

If you had a fever, I would be writing a poem of recovery and you would proof read it and hate it. And I would love that.

Measure

Uncomfortable haze has warranted

The mercury reader under my arm

How long do I hold it

How long do I sit

Sleep

Lie

Stuck at 39

Waiting for clarity

Piles on my desk

Towers in the sink

The burden of this heat

Twirling on my brow

Rush hour

Its 7am and my alarm clock is ringing

Oh how hard it is to leave my cozy bed

It is time to face the day

The people rushing to get to their destinations

How easy it is to get lost in the crowd

One becomes a little speck that goes unnoticed

Whether it be the pedestrian that steps on your foot without an apology

Or the car that hurries by spilling dirty rain water all over your newly dry-cleaned coat

So much for being one in a million

One in a million alright

Can be easily forgotten since you are just one of a million

To Love A Surgeon

To Love a Surgeon

How methodically you touch me.
I breathe and wonder,
Does your mind whiz with,
Anatomy?
Do you consciously silence,
The terminology,
In the midst of battle with animal inclinations,
As just any man would?
Your eyes undress me in the evening.
I sigh and wonder,
In your haste do you,
Accidentally,
Take the flesh off too,
With top and tight jeans-
Seeing all the way through,
To hardness I hide from you,
Encased in soft curves and feminine wiles?
I tease you mercilessly,
When we’re out for sushi.
(Your way with chopsticks leaves much,
To be desired.)
Knowing quite well enough,
That your hands- skillful,
Gentle and tough,
Manipulate and heal,
So many things, not the least of which is me,
And admittedly, with grave humility,
It is I, who drop and break the water glass,
And you, with dignity and deep concern,
Clutch my hand and ask,
“Are you bleeding?”

Delerium

The fan above my head spins
relentlessly, dizzily
it's gills cutting into the air with each turn
I am pinned to my bed
The fan threatening to cut me to pieces
the fan which refuses to cut
the stagnant air which envelops my naked body

The cleaning lady took me for dead.
My pale motionless body frightening her
frightening me
Did she see my consciousness floating outside my body?
Did she see that it had left me
swirling between heavy dreams and weightless delerium

beau sia

Something with a little less cussing