The Operation

A poem about a near-death experience (NDE) when I lost a part of my left leg due to a suicide attempt in 1998.

the surgeon japes coarsely about death

as if he were taunting an old cocotte

the patient keeps silent bottling up inside

waking up below

accepting in extremis to reenter his placenta

under bright lamps and blades

like a premature baby

 

his eyelids are beating from heart to heart

he’s set free among valves

looking around him

bloody defeated fighting  with cut off flesh

taken out from the place where the spirit

closes up like handcuffs on a virgin’s hand

 

the  lights are whirling and stinging under retina

in the recovery room for a long time

the same day staff replaces the night staff

it’s like a white dream with hidden thorns

the patient is still sleeping

perfusion serum drips in his blood

as if it were a silent hailstorm

 

he wakes up again without any thought

without looking to himself

floating like fresh egg yolk in the glair

wrapped in stamped crumpled bed sheets

 

he will wear the same name

shedding his old snake skin

crawling brand-new in a new world

biting deeper with his front teeth

even the moon as big as she is

doesn’t stay always in her sky

Reviews

[Dayran]

The experience of death tends to be quiet and unknowing. A reference to a near death is filled with descriptions of events but is not death. To come away from the jaws of such an experience may leave a mark but in total it is an imposter.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Thanks for your comment, but I did not understand where the imposture lies :) It was a truly heartfelt poem from a true experience, maybe not quite lyrical, only narrative with a few metaphors.

[Dayran]

The reference to imposter is the one who claims the experience of death. We are not without the experience of something similar. It may refer to a need to overcome it, as some of us have. Such is the comment made.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Oh, no, you misunderstood me, I had been through that near-death experience myself, not death itself, I don't claim it, it is the naked truth and then I read about NDE in wikipedia and found things similar to what I experienced. Parapsychology and psychiatry are studying this. Why not to write a poem about it if there are poems about illusory and darker things appreciated? My poem has hope in it and recovery.

[Dayran]

In that case, I can't see why you say I misunderstood. Can you explain?

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

I don't argue with you, I respect your opinions. I have been through that, I saw myself on the operation table when I lost a part of my leg, waking up in a sort of trance from above the table, it could have been a dream transmitted by telepathic means or what is called a hallucination, which can be understood considering the heavy stress near death over my body then. Of course I said it was not death, this is why I said you misunderstood me, I never claimed something, I always said the truth, even in my poems. These experiences are well known and others wrote about them. I met others who experienced the same thing and then wrote poetry, really !

[Dayran]

Its my impression that you do not relate to people who agree with you. That you may have become too accustomed to disagreement. That doesn't help you in a social environment such as this.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Maybe you are wrong :)

[Dayran]

How would you know? You have been talking and not responding to my questions where I have reponded to you.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

This time I don't agree with you, what questions? Ask me and I will answer. You asked only one question - if I can explain why I said misunderstood and I explained that I was not claiming death like an imposter, I explained exactly what it was all about. Now I think that maybe I misunderstood your comment, I apologize if it is so.

[Dayran]

Art creates a wonderful platform for exchange of views. Don't you think?

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Of course ! Exchange of views and critiques and different opinions. Art is born only where there is another perception and idea, not only soliloquies.

[Dayran]

I'm glad we agree.