‘The moment you tell someone you are sick,
an element of doubt enters the conversation.” Source?
KEEP THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Nowhere does it say, “He almost died.” Let me
fill that in for you.”I nearly died.”Ask anyone in ICU
at 4 in the morning on Pandosy Street, and hour privileged
by poets most famously by Canadian Leonard Cohen.
I did not go clear, I survived being
tied to my bed to limit
my chances of choking to death
on my vomit like many a rock star.
Now I know how easy it is I’m afraid to sleep
on my back for the first time since my first hip surgery in 1969.
Sputter was a word invented for the struggle for air more needy than a baby’s once the huge rubber tube has been removed
from your throat.
No where does it say “He almost died.” Let me
fill that in for you. “At four in the morning,
we filled a Shop Vac with undigested food
lumpy with vegtables.”
The ER Nurse stopped for this teachable moment,
“If your husband makes it through this, tell him
tell him from me to CHEW YOUR FOOD!! Disgusting
he was full up to the back of his throat!”
You see I sleep flat because my disks
are all such a mess, and keeping my spine
as flat as a prairie railway track
manages my pain, manages my pain.
Did you hear, “He almost died.”
Jim Maclean could use my name
in his shout “Dead You Say?!
Dead! Almost, what, Almost?
So did he die or not. Is he
buried, so dead and gone
he will not drawth breath again
Not much of a story if he made it out
Alive! You say?! See what I mean,
DEAD Y0U SAY, has a much stronger
punch to it, This is how rumours get started
too many people just staying alive!
THIS IS a piece of work I found “prospecting” as I start ensuring anything worth saving can be saved. Ephemera anyone?