The Pandemic
Twenty years of caring for individuals
From the start, I was taught endurance and perseverance
My many patients, some I knew and some strangers
Learning to be accepting and never to judge others
Caring in homes, facilities, hospitals, schools
Working shifts that were sometimes cruel
Crying as I drove home or sat in my office
Giving all of me because I am a nurse
And after all of these years, I don’t know where I begin
And where my profession comes in
I am one with it, and it is with me
Heavily, I never imagined what has come to be
Educated and intelligent, yes, we knew it was a possibility
But how do you grasp people dying in mass numbers
How do you imagine ethics committees choosing who gets the ventilators
Or your colleagues without protection wrapped in trash bags
Trying to protect themselves and their families
Death is not something another human fully ever acclimates to
It is exhausting and hard, and it takes a piece of us too
As a Hospice nurse, I strived for dignity and death to be peaceful
But in this war, as tears flow in mass, it takes our own
And as hard as we advocate and support, our patients die alone
Even this, we fight and try to use technology to connect them
One last time with grandchildren, spouses, loved ones
I can see all of my patient’s faces, every last gift of a person
This is how much we carry and care about another human
They never entirely leave us, and this current nightmare we have met
Comes with much too much human debt
A national deficit of heartache and pain
But shoulder to shoulder, your healthcare professionals stand
Serving our patient, their families, and our colleagues without hesitation
What looms?
Do you ever feel
The need
to escape inevitability
The pressures of career
The expectations of others
levied onto you like armor,
casted
wrought in
Anticipation of a battle you didn’t choose to fight in?
Sometimes
The only way I seek clarity
Is in
Familiarity.
There’s a playground I go to
As old as I am;
Memories of what was
mingle with the laughter of what is,
and the joy of what will be.
“What does it even mean to live?”
To desire
Or be desired
Despite a predestined prohibitive fate
Or
Is it simply an exchange of respiratory gases
Keeping a vessel of organic matter from complete deterioration?
I don’t know
She is climbing high up to the sky.
Seeking out the deep hue of blue,
she is wandering alone – by and by.
Wanting to stop, but oh so shy,
looking forever for not one but two.
She is climbing high up to the sky.
Continually she is asking why
she may never, ever know who she knew.
She is wandering alone – by and by.
Looking out with but one eye,
she is searching always to find that clue.
She is climbing high up to the sky.
Grieving often for those that die,
thinking of how to make it through,
she is wandering alone – by and by.
Wishing and hoping one day to fly,
She wises the color had less hue.
She is climbing high up to the sky.
She is wandering along – by and by.
A storm of sadness
I think about painting
The town oxblood
Every
Time
It comes
Shrouding
Any semblance of hope
With shameless
Anti
sentience
How do you control something
When control—
An abject
Of imaginative law
Is
Without
reach
For pins and needles
to feel
Please.
Take this one for me.
These clouds
Eclipse
My evergreen
Landscape of existentiality
displaced here
I
am
Saying nothing
About something
Because they say if you have a voice
Use it
So I’m screaming into an
Abysmal fortress
Sullenly asking:
Do you know what it’s like?
A guttural cry,
Belied by the floor that holds you?
Just like the people who say,
“I understand”:
A perpetual display
Of important disappointment
Then, Welcome.
To my everyday
Storm of Sadness
For You
We weep for you
For those that died
And all the loved ones
Who never cried
We mourn for you
For those we lost
Those whose life came
With this cost
We fight for you
For those who live
For those standing tall
For those who give
We smile for you
The ones who move on
The next generation
Remember those gone
(For 9/11)
Love is!
The love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay
Love isn’t love til you give it away
Love is beautiful when it can be found
But if its lost its damned to be bound
But if by chance it comes out alive
The love in your heart will always survive
So while you can give it a chance
And you will see that your heart can dance
The Place Where They Hide The Bones
The land is always verdant green
In the place where they hide the bones
The soil fed and nourished and renewed by the meat and mud that once hid
Its precious souvenirs.
The sky is always pallid paint
In the place where they hide the bones
A queer mix of mottled, inky blues and rolling grays,
A slashed and running bruise on the palette of the horizon.
Grim granite markers stand tall
In the place where they hide the bones
Totemic, engraved anchors locking the ley lines of the present to the past,
Silent sentinels dropped like breadcrumbs to hint
At the hoard beneath the loam.
Be aware when you walk through
The place where they hide the bones
The soil beneath your feet is spongy, springy, sucking,
As though the earth itself wants to pull you down, down, down,
And hide your bones with the others
In its growing, ever growing, collection.
Do not think to escape this woe-besotted place
For its avarice is unending,
And patience and time are in its favor.
At the end, we all surrender
To the place where they hide the bones.
Lying amongst the heather in the meadows,
Bring glorious smells of new beginnings,
The breeze gently blow across the blossoms,
Sending it's gentle aroma across the way,
Fingertips caress each blossom,
In sensual delight,
Breathing in every moment,
Lit by the pale moonlight,
How amazing is this moment,
Thus the beginning of new life.
Reckoning
I have words
That mean
Nothing
Like the lies
I consumed,
Feeding my
Delulu
I don’t understand
What there was to be gained
As if My
Metaphorical bleeds weren’t enough.
Tough.
I guess I was played;
Fiddled like the strands
That band
Together
My connective tissue—
Hold.
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There’s something to be said about humans who use you,
Reveling in their
Playerhood
Waiting for payday
Like a loan shark
On Friday
preying on
Your high stakes
Vulnerability:
The only people they’re actually playing
Are
Themselves
Spring Lifts Spirits
After a drive on familiar roads home,
Traffic or no traffic,
Your mind looks to lose the day’s cares slowly,
The worries gently,
Closing the work satchel for another day.
And today I saw the leaves budding,
The early redbud yawning and stretching
in the cool sunshine as you round the corner home.
Spring arriving. Wait.
As I pulled into the drive,
I hesitated.
The wind was lifting the leaves,
swaying in the afternoon light.
I must remember this.
I could feel the cares of the day disappear.
Daylight fading on the worn fence,
Shadows playing on the slats.
Sweet Spring weather,
The salvias already blooming so early,
The rose stems flush and ready.
My spirits were lifted at twilight as Spring arrived singing.
Red White and Blue
Red, White, and Blue,
Forever standing true
As people go by
I stand and I wave
Representing the vets
And all that they gave
Red, White, and Blue
Forever standing true
The children pass by
They used to wave back
The respect once shown
From my people grows slack
Red, White, and Blue
Forever standing true
One day soon, I just know
I’ll stand so proud
And be saluted with pride
By those in the crowd
Red, White, and Blue,
Forever Standing true
(In honor of the US Flag)
The Rainbow
Money is not worth gold.
Gold is not hilarious or humorous.
Having someone die is not
A failing thing for a person.
Rainbows are not admirable.
You aren't the gold
At the end of the rainbow.
Finally you have to see your
Grandparents
And Parents die.
Death is not everything.
It is actually
Nothing.
Purple Butterflies
Beneath the foliage where dreams take flight
A golden hue of dynamite
Within fate’s tapestry a new surprise
The diamond shadows across the skies
The echoes lie against the wind
And shade the creatures that dwell within
But even as life cascades to new
I’m reminded of the things, I still hold true
I believe in fairytales,
That true love never dies
The wind will surely guide our sails
And purple butterflies
From ancient, long told stories
And captive dreams
From riches and powers, and all the glories
With fate bursting at the seams
From shadows dancing on the waters’ crest
And the sun’s last breath before the rest
As the planet makes its final spin
I’m reminded of life’s truths, once again
I believe that ice-cream is a must
But the scale often lies
Relationships require honesty and trust
And purple butterflies
Life spins in such a way
That darkness catches the light of day
It’s whirlpool of glory can best be defined
As the legacy of elegance and quite refined
With divine interventions from up above
There’s not much else I’m certain of
But I still believe victors fail before they succeed
Cars run better at top speed
Kindness matters more than you realize
And most importantly, purple butterflies
Eternity is meaningless without you by my side. I walk in faceless shadows in the darkness of night. Gently blows a breeze of forgotten love, whilst soft whispers of memories fly by as if they were never there. All that’s left is the haunting moonlight and the taste of your smile that once was.
lol
All I ask
Is
For
Cessation
Tomorrow is tomorrow
And what’s new
Is
Uninteresting
‘Cause
I wake up to leviathan
Waiting to feast
On my febrile,
Malnourished
Soul
Remember the saying,
“Laughter is the best medicine?”
Well,
What happens
When your enemy is the one
Who
Is
Laughing?
My soul is bruised,
My heart is weary,
Words like daggers ring in my ears,
And now, now
My world is empty.
Supporting the Called
We stand up today
Supporting them all
Those so very brave
Who answered the call
They might wear black,
Or Green, tan or blue,
The people on the streets,
Walk by without a clue
They put on a badge
A belt, a gun, and a vest,
They don’t do it for the pay,
Or to receive a medal on their chest
They do it for their community
For family and love,
They do it because
They alone can rise above
They are willing to give
No matter the cost
They honor the fallen
Never forgetting the lost
We stand here today
Supporting them all
Police, Deputies, and troopers
Who answered the call.
Untitled
Singing
Alone with my thoughts
Either destructive
Or
Supplemental
Neither one lending
Credence
To what actually happened:
An eternity of anger
so it feels
Emptying my already
broken spirit
A theft of joy,
My vulnerability—
destroyed
If I had only known
Even the slightest bit
That you’d take the side of lies and blind me with it
Like corrosive iron fists
En route to a face whose 32 years of life
Couldn’t have prepared him for something like this
Then I wouldn’t have asked you to get coffee with me that day
