Footsteps

Silent I stand
No one asks me to speak
I ponder the paths that will be taken

Anxious feet surround me
Eyes darting across pages
Worry furrowing deeper in the valleys of their faces

Backs aching, twisting with the weight of life
Crisp rustling of tomes
Tight whispered conversations

Little air between words

The man down the hall they cannot fix
Their tools have all been tried and failed
Strained hands rake taut scalps

More than resolution, a craftsman's satisfaction has been lost

They briskly move into other rooms
Knowledge setting their gaze low
Tomes heavy in their hands

A grim scraping heard with their steps
Irons dragging with their gait

life
death
life
death
life
death


Inspired by:

Dürer, Albrecht
Christ Among the Doctors

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/

Morphinomaniac

Inspired by Eugene-Samuel Grasset, Morphinomaniac

Look at her wide-open and bright eyes
Trying to talk and tell a story.
A story that the present denies,
And the past claims as a mystery.

Deep thoughts weigh heavily on her mind,
Her body bears the scars of a lifetime.
Lonely in this place of unhappy peace she is longing
For a quick fix, for a fleeting moment of prime.

That young beautiful woman with the long dark hair
is our friend, our sister, our daughter, our mother.
Too many of them walk our streets to nowhere
Trapped in a cycle of dependence and peur.

The needle in her vein, her finger on the plunger,
Her eyes stare at the pain, and she goes under.

                                                                 

Reflections from a modern mentor

Reflections from a modern mentor
Inspired by Francisco de Goya's "De Que Mal Morira? (Of What Will He Die?)"

I teach, research, and see patients:

The Holy Trinity

To Paris, Prague, and Amsterdam

I’ve traveled far and wide.

At conferences, I present work

That’s students’ and not mine.

I save the forest for the trees

To focus lens behind

The Third World folks I fly to heal

After it’s photo time.

My anecdotes, I intersperse

With names of famous men

Whose laboratories I’ve traversed

Since tender age of ten.

“TMP/SMX Tx:

IVDU B.E.”

My pearls of wisdom train the new

With slides of PowerPoint.

With just one test, on June 18th

You’ll become just like me.

Unlike that schlub that I once met

In OR #3.

La Fée Verte

Inspired by: Edgar Degas' "Absinthe" 

Silence, sweet silence

Seconds counted retrograde

All day spent

Finally reaching cipher

Even He rested

Sodden, wind burned flesh

I trudge below deck

Squall evaded

Such is object permanence

I enjoy these moments

As I consign to oblivion

All knowledge of impending flood

No one to guide the helm

Torpid mind

I am finally safe

I am finally free

Impervious in my chitin abyss

The Garden

There exists in this world a garden where death walks,

Not one death, but many.  

Slowly plodding past row after row of pustulant posy, pot after pot of lying lily,

They water their loved ones, their facsimile of forgotten joy

Clothed in darkness beneath the blistering sun, they

Toil.

And they toil, clutching their treasured, withering stems and petals

For that which is dead brings life counterfeit.

Inspired by the painting by Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death

He can no longer at the age of 98

Inspired by Francisco Goya, He can no longer at the age of 98

He’s 98 now

A man that used to be another

For many years when there was beauty and color

When the hands that now rely on canes to stand

Held children or hands of lovers

Softly brushing hair from her eyes

His own eyes don’t see much of anything anymore

Just the space an inch before his toes

He can’t look back to places he’s been

Or forward to those he will go to next

The world around might as well be empty

Except the space an inch before his toes

His toes move but an inch at a time

His knees don’t extend or spine straighten

The spine that used to support a man

That supported those who used to be around

But who is around now?

Just a man and his shadow

A shadow of a shell

That was taller and stronger

Contained memories of the days before

A life that is no longer his

Now the memories are seen in the wear of his skin

And in the cloak that he wears

His cloak, a gradient of time

Covering a body that has seen too much of that

Down to nothing, like his mind

Empty around and empty within

Because he doesn’t remember

He can no longer at the age of 98

Motive

Spoken word, inspired by Francisco Goya, "Deaf Man"

You have been turning tricks longer than they actually knew it

Scraping each warm soul for a piece of yourself

Being whatever they want you to be, whenever you want to be it

A hypocrite

Backstabbing, disgrace-having, bigot, fraud, backsliding, 

phony, miscreant, delinquent, liar...

and a fake

You trap your words with the tip of your tongue every time you stay quiet

But Lord knows that plans for undertaking lie, as you remain silent

All talk but no action… 

thoughts of hate, anger, and insincerity soothe your soul

How you put words into idleness and idleness into words

Your every memory of perception contains no verbs

And everybody goes around acting like they can play the game right with you

Little do they know that the game ain’t over until they see the back of your head

Rolling and turning in the dirt as you leave them for dead

Discovered –

After putting water to the kettle, they find that you boil violently

A hypocrite

The injury caused by your existence, creates more distance

Your recall seems very small

So you fantasize, and cover it with lies

Dying to be loved,

– to your neck is your hand, to a knife, and its cold, and it’s hard –

cause there is no where to run

...I am not falling victim to your game

You

nothing but dust 

carried by wind when you come into my space

Unstable, fragile, wishing your pieces would be gathered

I hear nothing from you

I speak nothing of you

I care nothing for you

Expecting your trespasses to be forgiven, you lay with no fate

Your lies bring light to your desperation

Your obsession demands some sort of investigation

Sharing any pity would be disastrous for me

Being deaf only saves me from your idiocy

A hypocrite

Because that is what you are

                        what you are is all a part of who you are

With a true ...Motive

Alien

Inspired by Nisei Babies in Concentration Camp

The sky asunder

Tears innocence

Into tattered shreds

Of youth and warmth

When mother made

The day seem bright

But under the night,

Under the black banner

Under the billowing smoke

Of the self righteous snake

All you are

Is nothing more

Than dispensable

A statistic, an anomaly

To be banished

From the face of the earth

And thrown back

To the sky

To drown

In a river of injustice

To know nothing more

Of the sorrows you suffer

To be a glossed over page

In a text book, full of names

Of proud, ambitious men

That buried their enemies

Under the corpses of their children

And hung their heads

Under the mantle

As trophies of valour

A solemn, pitiful example

Of the fact

That mass media

Is fodder

For genocide

Caos

Inspired by: Guernica, Pablo Picasso

What separates man from beast

But the depth of his soul

Los sentimientos? his knowledge?

Su destino? The gol?

Dime todo, and say nothing

There was no warning, just light

And the days and the seasons

Turned into nada, dark nights

Un explosion! Then nothing

Then came lágrimas, no eyes

Y los cuerpos y los disfraces

Were turned to pieces and lies!

Que poder!?! No such power

That man claims to own

Could not stop this from happening

Flowing sangre, broken bones

Such caos! Such carnage

Una bomba y dolor

Slowed the beating of the heartbeats

Hear los toques de tambor