Post by job on Apr 7, 2009 13:57:16 GMT -5
I wasn't sure whether to put this in firefolk's thread about Eleanor's essay, but here it is for what it's worth....
JOB
Admission
The old leaden glass droops, an eye distorted
And distorting time and place into small
Blurry blooms of light, like some aborted
Work of art that hangs in awful vision
From its frame, detailed without precision.
But I can make it, I admit, a school
Of last things, cerebral and funereal.
And so outside my window, wilder things call
In whispers through the brick hospital wall.
Oh honey, but that’s all the view you need…
When my parents visit, I try to stall
With old complaints. Remember what you said?
You promised no more noise to wake the dead -
Who wants to be strapped to a hospital bed?
And could be worse…But you’re alive instead.
Otherwise they give the nurses a call
To straiten my life with amps or barbital.
We’ll be back for Christmas if you’ve been good.
As doctors advise, consent and make progress,
Mother threatens with schizophrenic voice:
Admittedly, not much room or much view,
But you will see, it’ll do. Yes, you’ll do.
Father mumbles, half-agreeing: Yes,
You’ll get used to it soon as it gets to you.
He studies air. His eyes begin to close –
He’d rather not such meetings face to face.
So mother signed off for my admission
On the dotted line that she drew across
My body like a vivisectionist’s
Diagram. And there was no contrition,
Just facts: the Napoleons, the Christs,
And mirrors hiding their psychiatrists….
They cry at me with snarling soliloquies,
Decapitated teddy-bear obsequies,
Elocutions full of electro-therapy
And tirades to the intravenous tree.
These, my bundled cellmates, a critical mass
Behind the pent emotions of unbreakable glass.
Then, smothering their mothering cries, each case
Absorbs his shock or pill with perfect grace.
But I, relieved of such consolations,
Have only truth’s mental reservations.
Today, I know, and knowing it sedates:
I who was born was bound to no clear choice
(Admittedly, as mother indicates)
In this matter: We want that you should know
This is it. No one else will take you. It’s true,
The doctors once botched it – so I bore you.
But no more! God knows, you reap what you sow…
JOB
Admission
The old leaden glass droops, an eye distorted
And distorting time and place into small
Blurry blooms of light, like some aborted
Work of art that hangs in awful vision
From its frame, detailed without precision.
But I can make it, I admit, a school
Of last things, cerebral and funereal.
And so outside my window, wilder things call
In whispers through the brick hospital wall.
Oh honey, but that’s all the view you need…
When my parents visit, I try to stall
With old complaints. Remember what you said?
You promised no more noise to wake the dead -
Who wants to be strapped to a hospital bed?
And could be worse…But you’re alive instead.
Otherwise they give the nurses a call
To straiten my life with amps or barbital.
We’ll be back for Christmas if you’ve been good.
As doctors advise, consent and make progress,
Mother threatens with schizophrenic voice:
Admittedly, not much room or much view,
But you will see, it’ll do. Yes, you’ll do.
Father mumbles, half-agreeing: Yes,
You’ll get used to it soon as it gets to you.
He studies air. His eyes begin to close –
He’d rather not such meetings face to face.
So mother signed off for my admission
On the dotted line that she drew across
My body like a vivisectionist’s
Diagram. And there was no contrition,
Just facts: the Napoleons, the Christs,
And mirrors hiding their psychiatrists….
They cry at me with snarling soliloquies,
Decapitated teddy-bear obsequies,
Elocutions full of electro-therapy
And tirades to the intravenous tree.
These, my bundled cellmates, a critical mass
Behind the pent emotions of unbreakable glass.
Then, smothering their mothering cries, each case
Absorbs his shock or pill with perfect grace.
But I, relieved of such consolations,
Have only truth’s mental reservations.
Today, I know, and knowing it sedates:
I who was born was bound to no clear choice
(Admittedly, as mother indicates)
In this matter: We want that you should know
This is it. No one else will take you. It’s true,
The doctors once botched it – so I bore you.
But no more! God knows, you reap what you sow…
