Poem 469

If madness could be spread by conversation then no doubt a hospital would be the locus of the pandemic … imagine the speaker here punctures your bubble and starts chatting to you and you only gradually realise that what seemed eccentricity actually goes deeper …

( The surgical furnace covering the roof in fat is an arresting image … I like the way the cigarettes come back in the final line … )

Waiting Room Conversation

I hate hospitals
the sensation of being on wheels
of hanging in line with the rest
of the carcasses
the furnace keeps me awake
eating up bits and pieces of us
covering the roof in fat

I came in here yesterday
or another day
you've been here forever
you're blind or you shake
or spend all day trying to look backwards
tests they told me
just tests for you
first they broke my wrist open
and the tendons popped out like cigarettes
in a pack
the second test I had to fit plasticine
into all the holes in a board

listen
            this morning more tests
they've already sewed something to my back
in preparation
tonight a different ward
they're cunning
they never bring me back to the same place
twice
you might not see me again
smoke?