The earliest poem I have, 1972

Woman Lying on Floor, Martha Sawyers (1902-1988)

When I woke up this morning,

turning out from my soul,

on my left lay some half-finished,

half-understood philosophy,

leadership potentiality,

an acceptance like the vague 

nodding on a head,

and on my right 

an ashtray lay overturned

I picked my bones up off the wood,

returned the book to its shelf

and swept the floor.

Silently the room turned with the earth,

and I followed suit––

There was nothing more I could do.

Cold Wars (a very old poem)

Cold Wars

I pick up the child with scorched hands,
My head all bundled like a Russian woman,
My mouth unpainted and white like Siberia.

Inside the cataclysm, the warstorm.
I'm feeling like a Bolshevik,
Rather martyred, rather burned by the Party,

Rather like this wounded child.
She's got my eyes and pale lips, her
Swollen breast equals my cry, restrained

Only out of necessity. Maybe she is me.
Maybe I never made it past the age of three.
Maybe I never made it to heaven.

She's beautiful. Her warm blood
Touches my frigid skin and as I kiss her,
My lips turn red with her life,

Ending in a tremor I shall never forget.
Wrong! I scream in between the cold wars,
I was mistaken. I was mistaken. I was mistaken.

~laura tattoo
5/26/77

 

not with the crows but with the sparrows

the world is falling apart
and i can't keep my damned eyes open
baby crows the size of dogs
flood the overhead wires
and remind me of the war on terror
war without end greedy selfish
war for oil for ownership of the future
for who will control what we do
what we have what we know
the same old media tug of war
upside down to get the blood flowing
back into the feet the legs the head
a deep breath before going under
to scan the mud bottom of the
lake to escape the underbelly 
of the beast one peek and
it's back to bed and sheet
for the hopeless like me who
can't breathe in the slaughterhouses
no i must withdraw and die elsewhere
not with the bellicose crows
but with the silent sparrows
with the rest of what's left 
of what were once humans
not warriors but healers
not death angels but geese
flying southward in harmony

i saw that today 
and it changed everything

pain, a discrete branch of medicine

A few days before Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida".

This time i'm not rushing to get there

we've given it three hours and i'm plenty early

it's a hot 85º outside so i hole up with a

book i've been trying to read for

a month in spite of motion sickness
a french book nonetheless just to

make it harder on myself

roll eyes, cue exhaustion, 

drop the book on the floor

jerk awake, hear my name called

Standing in line at the

prescription counter (main pharmacy)

i take a number - #0013
it gives me time to decide

if i'm actually going to buy this poison

the new doc has just prescribed

or if i'm going to stand by my guns

and tell her to go fuck herself

A year ago out of the blue my pain swelled

so hot and white that all i thought about

was getting out out out of here

the bottle of pain pills was full at the time

it would have been so easy, so

righteous, so in or out of your face

depending on our relationship

all without a shred of salvaging guilt

instead i got an increased dose

then decided to titrate off all narcotics

i got to half my usual dose and stopped

before the pain punched a wallop

Six months later in her office, I tell the doc
that i need extra 10s to break the pain cycle

breakthrough meds like i used to get

before i titrated down to almost nothing
"our little experiment didn't work 'cause

i hit a pain wall and it was a knockout

my shoulders are up to my earlobes

and i'm carrying a second body around
there's a burning fire i can't put out

in my arms, in my breasts, in my lymph

i've been surviving like this for 12+ years

and i think i know what i need to control it"

"well, it's still more of the drug, dear,"

smiling with a sardonic glint

as if she's already read my script

and disapproved of my editing

"besides," she suddenly announces

"this pain med is going off our formulary"

and she offers me another neuroleptic

the one another doc had recently said to avoid

at all costs: "the side effects are awful"

but that doc had another one to try

because each new doc has a favorite kind

"prescribers" i think and i sigh, resigned

At home on the web I read pages of comments

by patients transitioning from one pain

med to the other, to the one my new doc

suddenly remembered to discuss with me

after 40 minutes of useless arguing

"oxymorphone is 2x stronger than the one

you're on", when all I really want is not

to be knocked out, to be able to sit up

and take nourishment without an overwhelming

desire to throw up and maybe write some poems

is it permissable to still want to write poems

with a 24/7 pain condition?

When the pharmacy tech arrives

i still haven't decided

so i plop down 60 bucks

and take all of it

topa topa topa max

maximum security prison

i'd rather be fat and free than

under the twinkling eye

of lousy prescribers

topa max, i think when i get home

no thanks!

been there, done that!

And then my eyes fall

upon unforgettable words
"when they changed the formulation

of oxycontin a year ago..."

pumped it full of polymers and fill

to keep addicts from crushing it 

and sticking it in a needle

and how all the pain patients got sick

how it lost 20-30% of its efficacy

with burning guts, face rashes, oozing

orange gel from rectums... oh my god!
yes yes and yes, plus tachycardia!

and when the pain ganged up on me

and i suffered alone for three solid months

enough to contemplate suicide

and leave my family to grieve what

they should have done to save me
(but never could)

no one had told me about the bait

and switch of one pill named OC

for another, same color, named OP

not purdue pharmaceuticals 

or my stupid doctors

"so if it's not on our formulary," said the doc

"you're going to be the one paying for it
out of pocket, so i think we had better

consider trying oxymorphone

go home and look, you're a good researcher"

and i feel a pain slither through my gut

the first alarm that my constipation is

coming to its bitter end along with

my appointment, my heart racing to 120

as I rise from the cushy chair with loads

of new options dangling from my hand
and a sick feeling like i'm sooo done

and i hit the bathroom, still unaware that

a now uncrushable polymer-laden pill

that used to work well for me before

has made me so much sicker

and that is why i have had to come

100-plus miles to meet my

great - new - prescriber

"the mind is a terrible thing"

fun in the night with Tattoo and Walker

she is taking back her breath today

out of her cloud bank of busy work

intoxicating words, phantom music

all the things she does to distract

herself from pain and boredom:

"the mind is a terrible thing"

we laughed about that when we

first met until we cried on the floor

but it turned out to be a metaphor

for the way we live

pushing the envelope into the night

until sunlight cracks the darkness

and we have to admit defeat again

that sleep is overtaking our bodies

and turning our brains to pale jelly

you in your room, me in mine

the electronic switching of mass

media 24/7 until two days later

I twirl a spinning yarn and you

write ten haiku for a massacre

why bother, you say, when no one

will read it and you chalk it up

to another process experiment

in which the two of us light each

other up like glittering bonfires

spitting out romantic-era music

and volumes of epic poems on death

we, the sole loners on a sinking ship

holding hands as we go under

my pain singing with your tinnitus

in the past few days I have chosen

to retract, refract the sparks that

come at me in light years 'til

i'm that blazing bush talking to

moses and you know it frightens me

brother, i've got to calm down the

neurons, drink plenty of water

and stop these dangerous floes

because the mind is a terrible thing

it can take you in the wrong direction

i'm going away for a spell to

that now unfathomable hinterland
taking with me a thing resembling

clockworks, discipline and sleep

re-integrating my action with inaction

i should have done this long ago

but it's not too late to give it a go

while you sit at your new hammond

walking bass notes with the left hand

chords with the right for the fun of it

Day in D minor

for my friends

drifting
disconnected
dystonic
dreamlike

drowning in a sea
of recovered 
memory

dorment
floating in

amniotic fluid 

dehydrated
dissonant
dreadful
depressed

drugged
diseased
slowly dying

nothing
i can do
about it

but regard your art
listen to your music
read your poems
and be grateful for you

Med Time

I wake up from that
last dream I can't remember
and the tv's still on
I want it to be five hours
but it is only three
and my eyes and neck
are aching
Did I take my 4 ams
or did I forget?
My body says forgotten
but the med box is empty...

Then I remember Ron
holding out his hand
like a bronzed buddha
until I was awake enough
to sit up and swallow
I've seen him sit there
for an hour until
his patience is spent
and he says
"Honey, I'm tired!"
I always feel like a lump
and apologize...

So the pills are swallowed
and the tv's still on
but it isn't time
for "Democracy Now"
and it isn't even time
for "Washington Journal"
It's hours hours hours
'til a timer sounds
the half-life ends
and I turn off the tv
and start it all again:
the insidious waiting
for the end of pain

śamatha

o silent witness

behind softened eyes

on curled tongue

in gently held palms

silent witness
listening to the heart

the flow of breath

rising and falling

a relaxing sweep of peace

along nerve networks

one could almost call it sleep

but for consciousness

o silent witness

each time my mind engages

i hear a whisper of your name

and everything falls away

silent witness

when prana embarks

like a rocking boat

or a rising sun

all at once you are sky

and ocean and earth and fire

yet in the sweet moment

you are unchangeable

when i open my still soft eyes

and brightness fills them

i feel you seated in

my heart of hearts