Recalcitrant Lake - a poem

[To John and Debbie, with love. It has been an inspiration to me to see Debbie stand by my her husband day in and day out. Suffering from the complications of Lou Gehrig's disease on top of a heart attack in November, Johnny has not been able to speak. The agape love she has shown has made all the difference.]

It's not good, not at all

not at all, consuming, gnawing

away at my vitality;

IVs invade, filling an oasis

under my skin with numbing

concoctions making even

my bones tremble and grow soft.

A shaky hold I have, my life

draining its putrid effluent

over my bedpan, soaking the linens

It's not good, not at all,

not at all, as bauds of Pharma

make me sicker, make me dazed

and asinine alarms make me crazy.

I fight vile feelings of pique

My secret hope is that the world

will end tomorrow and take me with it.

For now I am speechless and rigid

I am the emergency in 372, hysterical,

I am the Code Blue!

You're still here, you're still here

I can see you across the way

It's just you and me, surrounded

by the blurry, dry-erase names

that come and go like IVs.

I have my one good eye fixed on you -

deny me not, not once nor thrice.

Don't let me die here, floating

like a starved jellyfish drowning,

depraved in this recalcitrant lake.

You're still there, you're still there;

I can see you between the scrubs,

stop crying - I am mute but not dead,

I am dying but I am far from sad

I know that there is debt but my soul

tells me it will be paid in full.

I am better, come back and stay,

hold my hand while I sleep and dream

of contours green by still waters where

we lay unoccupied, unhurried, being.

- Jim Jordan 1/26/08