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Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA

0 posted 2000-07-07 12:48 PM


Completing The Cycle

Twenty two years of diabetes,
kidneys refuse to function.
A million microscopic nephrons
unable to eliminate or regulate,
fluid and chemical imbalances,
threatening to kill the heart
that it loves.
Your choices dialysis or death.
I'm sorry this is non-negotiable.

An eighty eight year old woman
cries for her dead mother.
In the chair next to her
blood spurts from the arm(graft)
of a sixty six year old man,
splattering patterns like a
Rorschach ink blot test
on the floor. The interpretation
so depressingly discernible.
Someone mops it up.

Dialysis machines they keep you from death.
This does not guarantee you live.
Like benevolent vampires they drink your blood.
Removing poisons and excess fluids,
adding a pinch of this and a dab of that.
Bloodletting the one constant in your life.
Three times a week you bleed to live.
End stage renal disease, a wasting process.
At times the dialysis unit smells of
bowel movements and gangrenous odors.
A one legged man smiles as they remove
the needles from his arm. He's scheduled
to have his other leg amputated next week.

Your agonies unremarked, your courage unapplauded.
Scars on scars mar your tortured bodies and souls.
Nurses we know,we despair, we scream,
we come apart at the seams and disintegrate.
We can't feel that that you feel  
We haven't words or medicine or magic enough,
to heal or alleviate the processess
that hold you captive.
We follow the cycles, seeing you die,
the day that we meet, we have no illusions.
We know the inevitable,
probable outcomes.  
We feel empty inside,
your pain consumes us.
This unit your prison,
a renal colony.
More like a concentration camp,
I should say.
Serving a life sentence,
few escape.

Your faces at times like holocaust victims.
Pictures I've seen in magazines.
We grieve you all, we anticipate your passing
and suffer. Death is not the enemy rather a surcease,
a release,from your misery and anguish.
You demand an end to dialyse, a closure.
You refuse to accept life on these terms.
You choose the inevitable, with dignity and courage
your right to decide what's endurable.
We look at your family album,
wedding pictures, you were
so beautiful. So happy.
Your family come together.
Your husband stroking your cheek.
You look up with a smile.
Your grand-daughter holds
your hand. You look around the room
with a smile, nod your head just once,
and peacefully close your eyes.

I awake from a dream as
something crawls  from
a burning fire.
Faces of a thousand dead patients.
Staring beyond, far past me.
Brilliant, shining, shimmering
in the twi-light.
Like butterflies unfurling wings, stroking
upward drafts,taking flight past the edge
of the world.
A single butterfly lands on my
left index finger and I can still feel
the downward thrust of her wings
as she lifts off.
Rising up she joins the swarms of butterflies
weaving intricate patterns of motion and color,
poetry without words.
Perfectly synchronized the music inaudible,
but still the most beautiful thing I've
ever heard.

forrest cain
nephrology nurse specialist
July 2000
  




[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 07-09-2000).]

© Copyright 2000 O. Forrest Cain - All Rights Reserved
Elyse
Member
since 2000-04-16
Posts 414
Apex (think raleigh) NC
1 posted 2000-07-07 03:22 AM


wow forrest.  there's just something about that poetry based on real events.  your first two stanzas are wonderful (except, i would change the last line of the 2nd to "someone wipes it up".  goes better with the unemotionaliy of the rest of the stanza).  your next stanzas are a little less tight, some words could be shaved off.  to be specific...

no "they" in the first line 3rd stanza.  not needed.
2nd line - can you say the same thing with less words?  i definitely think you can at least drop "necessarily".  i think "guarantee" is enough.
nix the "The" before "bloodletting"

Primal scars mar your perfect bodies and souls.

ok, i know you love these people, but i still cant beleive they have perfect bodies, much less souls.  the rest of your poem is so true, you know perfection is unattainable.

death the day that we meet you, knowing the cycles of life and death will have their own.

i would shorten this line.  but then, i do have this thing about long lines.  

that "i awake from a dream" line confuses me, considering you go on to describe what happened in your dream, rather than what happened upon waking.  i think if you just tack on a "where" or something like that to the end of that line, you'll be good.

you have some killer lines in here, i think you said what you wanted very well in most places.  interesting that you put the holocaust and butterflies together.  there was this play our school took us to about the holocaust called "As Butterflies".  just reminded me of it.  
luv Elyse

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
2 posted 2000-07-07 06:07 AM


Elyse you are so wonderful to give me such
good advice. I think I followed all your suggestions. Perfect bodies what was I
thinking. Glad you were, that was so opposite
of the reality. All the scars from grafts in their arms(plastic tubes under the skin used to dialyse with)multiple surgeries from the primary disease process usually diabetes or hypertension. And pain and suffering doesn'tgenerally bring out the miss manners in us. I've just done it for so long I see with different eyes. I can see the 80 year old women as the blushing bride and the 52 year old retarted lady that has an adult body shimmering around a 7 year old. I will color pictures with her but draw the line at paper dolls. Thank God for Sharon my fellow nurse in crime she'll play anything. Good grief I'm rambling again. I was going to change my pen name to the village idiot but my brother didn't want to sign his brother of village idiot. He's writing a series of
poems about episodes I felt were psychotic
in nature but were very real and maybe wasn't
I forgot the name of the first (easy enough to find) the second is Janus the two faced demon. Thanks so much for your help.

Your friend
forrest

[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 07-09-2000).]

eldridgejackson
Member
since 2000-04-30
Posts 91

3 posted 2000-07-07 07:26 AM


When soldiers who have seen to much battle time go home. They recognize stress syndome
Yet Nurses see that and even more. The deaths and suffering they see lasts for years. The poem is wonderful. I am even thinking of quitting my nurse job. Well at least for people due to the stress. I wonder do they need nurses at the Monkey Island at Zoo Atlanta?

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
4 posted 2000-07-07 08:38 AM


I don't know if you could get a job as a nurse monkey, but I bet you could find a girlfriend. But I doubt it even monkeys have their standards. Thanks for the encouraging
feedback.

love butch
don't forget dolly on spiritual journies

ANonnyMouse
New Member
since 2000-06-24
Posts 6
St. Louis MO USA
5 posted 2000-07-07 08:46 AM


Forrest--imagine my surprise to discover that kidneys unite us--I work in a Renal research laboratory affiliated with a major medical school.  I loved the line 'renal colony'!  We are trying our darndest to put you out of business--which I am sure doesn't break your heart!

Over all, this was wordy for my tastes, and it disturbed me to have the stanzas with long lines between the shorter lines, they seemed less cohesive than the rest.  I would be doing major surgery on them, if they were mine, which they aren't, of course, but I'm thinking that tightening, trimming and restructuring would have the middle working as hard as the beginning and end.

Another personal preference is to illustrate the words like 'dignity' and 'courage' with pictures like the ones you have used to show us their 'suffering'.  I try to avoid that type of word in poems (she sez, who has written at most eight of them!) because it seems to me to be so much more powerful to make the reader see them instead of telling us that is what we are supposed to be seeing.  But that is personal, as I said.

And now, how do I get my diabetic husband, who hates poetry, to read this?  I'd sure like to get his attention enough to get him to quit smoking!  This is a killer piece you got started, Forrest.

(drat!  hit 'submit now' when i meant to hit 'preview' -- wanted to put my signature in too! *L*)

Ruth

[This message has been edited by ANonnyMouse (edited 07-07-2000).]

pasqually
Junior Member
since 2000-06-12
Posts 23
West Virginia
6 posted 2000-07-07 11:14 AM


WARNING!! WARNING!!
If you like to keep the heads on your paper dolls don't let Forrest play paper dolls with you.
As for Eldridge getting the job as a nurse monkey I think it just might work, but only if he wears the little mini skirts the nurse monkey's wear so their hairy legs can be seen. I think I still have your favorite dress hanging in my attic. Just let me know and I'll wash it up for ya.
Then again, I can see Eldridge getting the job as a nurse monkey as being as highly likely as Forrest getting a job as spell checker.

pasqually
Junior Member
since 2000-06-12
Posts 23
West Virginia
7 posted 2000-07-07 11:24 AM


WARNING!! WARNING!!
If you like to keep the heads on your paper dolls don't let Forrest play paper dolls with you.
As for Eldridge getting the job as a nurse monkey I think it just might work, but only if he wears the little mini skirts the nurse monkey's wear so their hairy legs can be seen. I think I still have your favorite dress hanging in my attic. Just let me know and I'll wash it up for ya.
Then again, I can see Eldridge getting the job as a nurse monkey as being as highly likely as Forrest getting a job as spell checker.

pasqually
Junior Member
since 2000-06-12
Posts 23
West Virginia
8 posted 2000-07-07 11:25 AM


OOPS!!!!!! Forrest's duplicating gremlins got in my computer.
Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
9 posted 2000-07-07 05:36 PM


Ruth Ihave pared and trimmed as much as I can. I hate falling in love with words
that don't reciprocate. Excellent suggestion for using acts of dignity instead of the word. My problem dialysis patients that
determine quality of life no longer exists
(by their standards) just suffer an anesthetic type death in a coma and our role is to provide comfort, cleanliness and ultrafiltration if needed. I think maybe the dignity picture will have to originate at the point of decision. Whether by family or patient. By the time your end stage renal disease and at the end point of dialysis
your also an end stage diabetic, blind, peripheral neuropathies/retinopathies
gastroparesis and multi infarct dementia.
So nice to have someone who knows the problems of renal failure. Hey how about cloning kidneys from good cells from the native kidneys. Thanks again and keep in
touch two things I know and know well daylilies and kidneys.

your friend forrest

addendum: given the 24 hour time limit for revisions
I have tried to add some life to death. Best I can do in the few moments I have and will probablly have to give this poem a bath and brush it's teeth later.
Please do put us out of business. Then we can
set around and do the thing we love-write.

forrest
419 Canterbury Drive
Elkview, W.V.
             25071  1-304-965-6890
this is my address I want to be the first
to know.

[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 07-07-2000).]

Lighthousebob
Member Elite
since 2000-06-14
Posts 4725
California
10 posted 2000-07-08 12:43 PM


Forrest,

Just a word of good news... I was a diabetic for 30 years who developed ESRD.  I had a kidney and a pancreas transplant this year and I am doing Great.  I have been given a new life.  Hit the icon above and read my poem titled NINE LONG. I do appreciate my family at the Dialysis Center though most of my dialysis treatments were Peritoneal... Thank you again for another poem dedicated to me. (Anyway, I take it personal)

Bob <><

Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
11 posted 2000-07-08 02:01 AM


Bob what a small world. We do 50-75 kidney
transplants a year. But send most of our kidney/pancrease transplants to Cleavland.
More freedom than PD still has it's own set of problems because of the immunosuppressives. Congratulations though,may your amalase/creatine never rise.

your friend forrest

[This message has been edited by Forrest Cain (edited 07-08-2000).]

eldridgejackson
Member
since 2000-04-30
Posts 91

12 posted 2000-07-09 08:58 PM


I read this poem to a patient I have who is on Dialysis and he cried.

That says it all.

James

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