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A 'Couple' of Poets
Peter and Kathy Earsman
Dermanities February 8, 2004; 2(1)
...seeking the bubble reputation, even in the cannons mouth...
Wm Shakespeare
Bubble Reputation
By Peter Earsman
A hero's act that takes his life implies
a selflessness, that by this gallant deed
he's willing, almost anxious to concede
his own life and so happily he dies.
How clear is thought when conscience tells one lies
in situations dazzling in their speed,
with friends dependent on perceptions need
to take an action common sense decries?
So what is left to say when he is dead?
His will-to-live was for that moment shed?
The sadder ones perhaps are men who chose
to balk at rash acts - and of course there's those
who'd say they'd welcome dying's fleeting fame;
but I suspect they'd sooner live with shame.
A RESPONSE
From a Soldiers Wife.
By Kathy Earsman
However noble selfless thoughts may lend
you courage in the glory of the day,
however strong the impulse to defend,
before you give your life, my love I pray
remember I depend on you to live;
I wait in anguish while you are at war;
more than my own, I love the life you'd give;
my heart is with you now and evermore.
Though greater love hath no man than to die
in sacrifice to principle and fame
tis nobler far to live, than rotting lie
in foreign field beneath a her's name.
Without you I am beaten , broken, torn;
come home to me and children yet unborn.
Preserving dignity.
by Kathy Earsmen
We find her crumpled on the floor at 2am,
appalled, we do a quick assessment there, and then
I kneel and hold her, Patty goes to get a chair
and Tilly says, Oh when you two have finished there
Ill have a bed-pan.
We gently lift up Maisy working as a team
and wheel her to the loo where Pat elects to stay,
I run a pan to Tilly Brown, who says, Oh, you
will never ever guess what I have done today,
I ate an ice-cream!
Maisy's dying, Maisy has a fistula,
a vaginal track that seeps her blood and waste.
It breaks our hearts to find her fallen on the floor,
she tries so hard . And Tilly calls, Id like a taste
of a Milky bar.
I bend to smile and look in Maisy's eyes,
And I tell her don't you ever try that trick again,
you gave as such a scare, and you are much too weak
to walk alone. She reaches out to touch my cheek
with a filthy hand!
I must not flinch away, I kiss her brow instead,
but cannot wait to scrub my face, out at the sink,
then Pat comes out and puts her arm around me, there
are tears in her eyes, and Tilly says, I think
I wet the bed.
Nil By Mouth
by Peter Earsman
Across the ward is an old wisp,
lying tiny in the bed like the last match in the box..
When somebody comes in,
her eyes open and roll about in their sockets
like little blue marbles as they follow the visitor around the room.
But her body stays quite still, thin-pole-arms straight on the sheet.
When I woke up this morning,
the ward still dim,
her eyes were on me, blue fire in her pale, still face.
Good morning I said.
She closed her eyes and I disappeared.