For quite a while I have been considering revisiting a former pursuit–writing poetry. Nearly twenty years ago I developed an intense interest in poetry, took classes at NYU and had a few pieces published. Then abruptly I stopped. I recall that it had something to do with my upset over the first Gulf War. Then I "forgot" to return. Recently the rumblings of expressing feelings and experiences in short poems has returned so I will be bombarding the reader with some examples of past and present writing. I am not sure whether I will differentiate past from present examples.
The first was published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 1990 –
AT THE FOOT OF HER BED
I stand,
look across
the expanse of
rumpled white,
i.v. poles,
curtains half pulled back
containers of juice
unopened.
She,
sixty-five years old,
looks at me
with a calm questioning,
an innocence
before the fall.
But I've bitten the apple
and the knowledge
fills me to bursting.
I must feed her
in digestible pieces,
small gifts of terror.
Hard not to vomit
it forth in acidic rivulets.
I pause,
breathe deeply,
swallow again.