Monday, May 3, 2010

Doing The Best I Can

Here is a heart attack poem. Sober as a heart attack is kind of an odd phrase. The first thing they give you is enough morphine to feel it, really feel it. I don’t know how sober I was. Later, after the angioplasty and stent placement, they gave me a generous dose of dilaudid. Hoo boy! I can take or leave morphine alone, actually don’t really like it. Back in the day, I really really liked smoking tar opium. Not only does it work just fine, it tastes oh so good. That’s what that slug of dilaudid in my IV felt like. Yes indeedy. Oh well. I am

Doing The Best I Can

As I lie here all
tubed up, all wired, feeling drugs
swelling my old veins
I remember you,
how you said the real wisdom
is joy, happiness.
You called me to stand
upright in grief's gray light then
and now in the sour
red light of my pain.
I am not happy, not wise
but I'm mild mannered.

May 13, 2009 9:08 AM

6 comments:

  1. Thank God you survived this. Not happy, not wise, but alive!

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  2. A sobering heart attack indeed. I marvel at your words: 'the sour
    red light of my pain.' Exquisite.

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  3. Oh yes..I've had that...during the birth of my kidney stone. My my my...good thing I can't get my hands on any more of that, because I would love to just check out today and wake up in tomorrow. La la la...

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  4. There are attitudes I ape sometimes. I don't know until I get to the actual experiences whether I mean them or not but I talk a good game. My attitude on death and dying was one such until this experience. I would say and believe I was telling the truth about my own death that it was no big thing.

    Then I went through this and discovered it was no big thing.

    I have always said that it is not dying that worries me but the pain that might be involved. I didn't hurt during my heart attack anywhere near as bad as I did, for example, when I had my recent abscess and tooth extraction. Everyone was running around and taking things so seriously. For me, it didn't even matter that I had no one I loved or even knew around. I was as I have written, mild mannered.

    I am hugely gratified to discover that my attitude on death and dying is precisely as I have been announcing it is over the years. I have been saying this:

    When It's Time

    Death, you're not my foe
    nor shall I run to some far
    place to dodge my bill
    when I sense it's due.
    I will not snarl and struggle
    as if caught in snares
    hidden on my trail.
    Instead I shall turn, embrace
    your chilly long limbs
    and kiss your sweet cheek.
    In return I've asked, do not
    come early to me,
    and this you have not.

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  5. As it sounds you are living your serenity prayer. This mild manneredness.
    Is that the secret to live? or eventually die, hey, we are not there yet obviously.
    I am glad.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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