The woman next door is howling with pain.
It is 3 in the morning.
Clearly she is doing it harder than me.
I went in ten days ago
with a high fever
and within 24 hours my frail craft
had sailed off into the South Pole
where I was hit with pneumonia
and racked with pain.
It was Scott of the Antarctic meets ‘The Thing’.
I’m in calmer waters now.
Five days with minor ailments.
They’ve brought me into dock.
Going home today.
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Golden Staph, Such a sweet, mellifluous name.
Its Latin counterpart, staphylococcus aureus,
just as euphonious, a name fit for a new species
of wildflower, an exotic dessert, or a freshly discovered
galaxy, glowing golden. at the edge of the universe;
even the bacilli under the eyes of an electron microscope
look like jolly mauve mushrooms clustered in a field
not the toxic toadstools they are.
*photo courtesy of CDC
Stranded.
I don’t want to be stranded
like Robinson Crusoe
on an island
of pain
with no rescue in sight
another weekend;
so, doc,
can you fill out
the prescription again
that one with real bite?
I barfed off and on last night
but my heart wasn’t in it.
If you are going to barf —
‘barf’ is a much nicer word than ‘vomit’ –
you’ve got to be committed,
not lackadaisical
like the time I went to the doctor
for anti-depressants and was refused
because ‘you are not depressed enough’.
I can’t give myself wholeheartedly
to anything, it seems.
‘Except your writing’,
my ex told me.
‘Except your writing’.
Iron Man isn’t up to it today.
You can tell by the way he slopes around
in his baggy shorts and tee
dazed like he’s been smoking weed.
He dawdles a lot between reps.
Guzzles the urine coloured liquid to replace the energy he hasn’t used.
Plays with the machines like a cat with a mouse.
Jabbers at Stella how she isn’t doing it right,
to anyone really with a loose ear.
Truly he is more motor-mouth than Iron Man.
The rash on my back
has dimmed:
angry red
to demure blush.
I wish I never
had thrush
in my left nostril —
in that cramped cave
hard for the air
to get through
but the meds kept
the wolf at bay,
subdued.
Almost out of the woods
like Red Riding Hood.
I’m really looking forward to today.
Today’s the day I don’t exercise.
Oh, I may lift a finger to pen a poem
or two,
stretch a limb to reach for the remote
or break into a walk to put out the bins
but that’s it.
Today the body gets its chance
to plonk itself down in the armchair of life
and not feel guilty.
Have a glass or two. Eat some chocolates.
Read ‘The New Yorker’.
A day of indolence and roses.
Penny has a new pet.
A Labrador called Lucky.
It’s what she always wanted.
Well, almost.
He sits, jumps and spins around
and chases after frisbees.
Penny takes him for long walks
on the screen.
When he’s tired Penny puts him to bed.
His kennel is a black microchip.
When Penny slips it in the game console
each morning
Lucky comes out to play.
He woofs with delight and rubs
his snowy head against the screen.
Penny would love to cuddle him.
There’s a cartoon of a couple in a car
tearing down a roller coaster
and the woman says to the man, “With you screaming all the time,
I can’t hear myself scream.”
Men are so much noisier than women, my partner says.
When I began barfing in the bushes at a country fair
She implored
, “Can’t you barf quietly? Everybody is watching.”
Barfing has no volume control,
I wanted to say
but I was too busy being sick.
John Malone 