Ten poems

 Stroke Poems 

Tumour

That knot that tightens as it travels with you; 

the bug or wire that informs against you. 

Four years you almost cough-out its name. 

It speaks in vomit and deafening migraines 

(until you’re whittled down to a bone ladder)

(until there’s no space left for the both of you).

Tonight, when your eyes can’t shoulder the ceiling, 

it will speak and lightning your body in two. 

We’ll see who survives from there. 

What Happened 

Here’s what I remember: 

lights and the heavy bell 

of the ceiling; odours 

flung across a room. 

The head-pain eclipsing 

every other detail 

so slow voices had to shout 

to get in. 

And then, the dark room riding away…

your hand an anchor 

a tangible reason. 

Then burnt breath. Then nothing. 

P.E.G.* 

Food is next for survival…

I must swallow this straw-thick tube. 

I fail four times in gagging sobs. 

I yank it out three nights before they shoot me 

in the stomach. 

My food comes now by thick syringe. 

My mouth a hangar: 

vacant, dry;

unknown even to the sweetness of water. 

*Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy Tube

Bad Day 

Because the procedure cut

a nerve, Wednesday was vagued 

in the sweet slide of morphine; so – guilty 

for lost hours – I exercise through morning, 

knowing a stroke-body has just 

a little time before it freezes into victim. 

Leana arrives and the nurses unplug me 

for her to wheel me round outside

but the weather is sour and shadow-blown 

and soon my stomach calls me in. 

I am clutching a bucket that evening, 

when a visitor says (or perhaps asks): 

If you haven’t got your health, what do you have?

The Advertiser 

With my left hand I pick up the paper, 

bully it flat.

I begin to read: familiar words. 

They come off the page at 

different speeds.

I catch and fumble, 

drop.

As they enter 

the head’s static, they switch-

dissolve…

I begin again, 

slower, more concentratedly.  

Path 

I wake to legs:

to a message getting through. 

I raise both knees and slide down my feet. 

Joltily-smooth on their magic-tracks, this dream 

the other side of waking. 

If each knee-cap were a mouth, it would be singing. 

I raise both knees and slide down my feet: 

together, apart, together, apart. 

The way they speak their tender language: 

I can’t stop doing it.

And when they steady me to the window, 

to see the morning, from the height of standing. And what then?  

Days and night

First, I step 

in and out of days: 

mute, baffled, sleep-depraved. 

The ghosts of nurses 

check and go, their names 

as bland as hurricanes. 

My shoulder hangs 

an elephant’s trunk, 

a weight I’ve never 

known. Speech returns: 

an off-on whisper. 

The hurt-mouth gone awry

in the mirror, 

words shuffle out one corner. 

From the sprung-trap 

of the written-off body, 

I wish for a car crash

or something heroic.

When there’s time, 

the nurses get me up 

and walk me round. 

New days are 

business and noise:

people visit  

with books and cards, 

like a broken leg 

or tonsils. 

It’s when they leave 

with night approaching 

that everything 

burns down 

to this single 

thought.   

The Visitors’ Room 

Despite being chalk and left-behind, 

the room is closest to outside. 

Condom-coloured mesh inflates with the breeze, 

allowing a trickle of dirty sun. 

Beyond the spilt milk of the window: 

the world of possible

escapes: a street and brawling traffic. 

On one wall a blood-clot like a bung-eye 

stares gigantically.

Good Day

Because the night was crammed

with light and panic

(the bed opposite lost

and saved – to my furious prayers –

and then rushed away)

I don’t sleep but wait up

for the dawn-nurses; then

shower, watched but mostly

unaided, before they plug me back

into food and the post arrives

with Leana: more encouragement

and disbelief. For exercise

we wheel my machine

around the beige and rindy corridors.

I stand again on the stilt

of one leg, and work my arm

in the gym of my mind,

like telepathy or well wishes sent.

Because the weather is good,

and my distances getting better,

the nurse lets Leana

walk me to Rundle.

Outside the air is chill and alive,

winter had sharpened

and mellowed its colours.

As people head home and signs

and shop windows light,

I sit and watch, 

as Leana drinks coffee,

and this is nearly enough.

 

Astrocytoma

like the worst thing you ever did at school

the news comes steep and ashen

brisk mind to hurt mind 

face to broken face 

the pea 

uncancelled by forty mattresses 

clicks the past into place

leaves the future (whatever that was)…

Enemy 

The arm is looking like an arm as it gathers muscle-shape. I’ve been raising the bulk of it, five to ten reps, and this morning pegged my towel like a skirt. I showed it to my enemy, on his daily rounds, and he said: Ah, Yes. I’ve seen this before. You’ll never be able to use it properly. 

And then (his good work done) disappeared, into the beaming weekend. 

M.R.I.

Lie dead and head-locked 

as they roll you in 

before the noisy work of eyes 

Drills & a tapping of what must be birds – 

greedy for brain-meat

They read your mind 

a white square 

You expect no surprises