Dans L'Hopital

Insomniac nights

have brought me here

for a long needed rest-

Among the other invalids

put to the test

by so many troubles

that I know not where to begin.

 

A suicidal mother of two

younger than three

threw herself upon the

metro track hoping to

die from electricity.

 

Another mother

who gave birth to a

still born girl

years ago and to this day

has not recovered

mentally

from the loss of her child.

 

The first one was such

a difficult birth

that she can bear no more

and so will remain childless

all her days

unless she adopts

but the loss of her one and only child

has left her mind unwound

and she is not ready yet

to take on someone else's forgotten babe.

 

So rest with me

side by side

to recover from the losses

that we hide inside.

 

An older man too

has lost his son

at the tender age of nine

God, where would I be

if I lost mine.

 

Instead, I lay awake at night

while they are all drugged up

drawing pictures of my boy

and writing poetry

about the love I feel

for all these human beings.

 

These souls full of suffering

and pain-

one war veteran

can't even remember his name.

 

There there is that lovely

African-American girl

who has one brother in jail

and the other touched her

over and over

where he should not have tread

when she was so tiny

that is still fills her with dread.

 

And so I feel the strongest

with these lines and textures

that I place upon my pages

healing me

my sweet therapy

and share them with my neighbors

they beg for copies

and ask that I draw them too

to set them free

from these cages

that they have come

to live within their minds.

 

I tell them jokes

off the cuff perhaps

not so appropriate

some may say

but they do the trick

to see these suffereing

beings smile once again

and each and every one of them

has received a gift

from me in remembering

to tell their stories

no matter how severe

remember that these things

we do to one another

affect mother, father and

the child

so severely sometimes

that there is nothing to

do but sleep it off in

drug induced comas

brought on by the doctor's

who don't stop to think

that perhaps taking the time

to talk to them

or encourage them to take up

a craft

might heal them even more

as it has done for me

now goodnight sweet neighbors

from the streets all about my town

I can rest again

now that I know I have made

a difference

as you have said I did.

 

 

Reviews

[Alexander W. Quinn]

A bit of a bitter sweet read here. So sad, and yet, the connection underneath is so optimistic and such a strong belief in what the simple joys can bring out in people. I very much enjoyed the read, and I thought having the title in a different language (French?) was clever. It drew me to it as soon as I saw the poem itself was in English.
Thank you for sharing!

[Kara Emily Krantz]

lovely. this is great. it is a piece with a message, but it is not preached, or holier-than-thou, or any of the things that usually annoy me about pieces that attempt to do what this one did.

"So rest with me
side by side
to recover from the losses
that we hide inside."

that is fantastic. i loved how you broke up the 'reality' with little philosophical insights, or emotions. and your examples were great, and they rhyme scheme? the occasional rhyme was fantastic, cuz it worked like a punch in the gut.

very authentic. full of integrity. :) thank you so much for sharing this..

[Ken Simm.]

Stark yet true beauty extrordinarily well written.

[Gary H]

This is really sad. Incredibly well written and I'm feeling that I can't give the review that this deserves. Parts were very hard hitting. Was this based on personal experience? Drugs and Doctors can easily wipe out or cure people. I was given addictive painkillers for a couple of years and really those were wasted years of existence. I do have them permanantly for life but I'm able to recover better now through someone else providing me with hope.
You are so right when you say a smile helps as well as affection and love.