Powerlifting Champions
A thousand people talking loudly
coaches screaming
lifter athletes
grunt and groan.
It’s breathtaking.
Look both ways because sometimes tragedy strikes at the last minute.
Mind the gaps for faulty judgements.
Today is day one of the 30-day National Poetry Writing Month challenge to write a poem each day of the month. I plan to write to the prompts which are posted early every day. There are few rules to this and the prompts are optional.
Today I am to write a prose poem that is a story about the body. My poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image (could be more, could be other senses).
Her Superpower
Big at inception, his cesarean birth was through her swollen uterus and abdomen. Long tearful battles with Narcissus followed. Ripped apart for years, she eventually won her prince who grew into a tall, bulky, powerful, erupting, ever-growing, mountain of a lad. A strapping, kind chap, but like her, blemished by wee fits of fury over wounded honor.
Together they camped where broken was typical. Where hurt hurled tearless acrimony and demons encircled souls. At home but not a home of their own, west of the living and the dead, where spirits danced quietly like running shadows.
“Powerful in body, be strong, kind of heart and mind, my son.” He looked at her and spoke, “I think I can, but I cannot see my way. What mystery is my future? Will you always be with me?” She replied, “I cannot carry your cross, but you can see it there. By your mastery alone shall you lift and bear all burdens. Your will shall overcome.”
Her voice sang in his ears as he stepped onto the platform of his agony. His powerful hands tightly clutched his cross, his face burned red, he lifted as his hands and legs shook, his eyes bulged as he cried out. Every cell of his being bellowed in triumphant pain, he stood holding it still until white lights allowed his release. “I’ll be back.” He smiled, turned in triumph, then he proudly stomped and crowed toward her.
Look both ways.
Make the party yours.
Carry your own cross but mind the gaps for fearful traps.
Today Yolonda declined
a rejoin invite from ladies of the day,
because the absurd notice said,
“and no damn masks” is as close
to a dis as she is willing to concede.
My writer’s guild also discussed
timing and protocols for safe rejoins
at face-to-face meetings after
we’ve all had our shots. It’s complicated.
But no one even mentioned wearing masks.
Look both ways for both wise choices and illogical tropes.
Mind the gaps as the CDC warns of yet to come.
Small Heart; Big Deal
Sometimes, size matters. It seems sensible,
big things are to do big jobs. But not always.
Our most important parts are brains, hearts, lungs, livers, and stomachs.
In that order. Everything matters but size.
The most impressive of these is the heart.
Small, weighing less than a pound, it does gargantuan work.
Pounding up to 25 quarts of blood each minute every day at 70 beats a minute,
one-hundred thousand times per day. Three billion in a lifetime.
The size of my fist, our hearts, yours, and mine,
have been heralded through history, physically and emotionally.
Look both ways in chambers and valves.
Feel and hear as the beat goes on. Mind the gaps on the EKG.
Many people have found that journaling and being grateful are useful methods to feel better and to enjoy life more. Grateful people seem to be happier. I prefer to be happy, so it follows that I want to be grateful. I will not discuss journaling since I don’t, but I admit that I should. Maybe this blog is kind of like that. I don’t make gratitude lists, but I could easily. I know many happy souls that do.
Last week, I had a medical procedure. It is not new to me. I inherited what I refer to as bad plumbing from my father. He called it poor circulation. Medical folks call it arteriosclerosis. I am not grateful for it. My doctors tell me that I am just ‘one of those people.’ Anyway, I have had this before. They’ve run things up into arteries from my wrists through both arms and into my heart. Years ago, I had stents inserted into my iliac arteries through my groin to help with circulation in my legs. Last week we again had to venture in at my groin. With all of these, I was awake so I could joke with my doctor and tell him how I was doing. As he tried to find my artery and his fingers pressed into the spot between my groin and leg, I let out a moan. He asked me if that was pain, or was I ticklish. I am very ticklish and I was also very stoned thanks to the happy drugs the wonderful nurses slipped into my IV. I already had four stents. These were numbers five and six. It took about two hours and I was off to my hospital room for the night. Not my best night, as it happened.
At that point, I had one order: “Don’t move!” I had to be (lie or lay?) flat on my back until told I could move. From my chest down, I was not to move a muscle, not roll to my side, not lift my knee, not bend my leg, nothing. This is to prevent bleeding. Until blood clotting improves, the doctor left a sheath, or tube, in my artery that the nurses would remove after checking on my clotting factor. Let me help with time.
I got to the hospital about 1:00 PM and was placed on a bed until called to the OR (Cath Lab) at about 5:00 PM. It was supposed to start at 3:00, but there was an emergency. From the time I got there (5:00), I was flat on my back for the next 14 hours. After the procedure, which took two hours, at 7:00 PM, I was in my room. The nursing team transferred this old gnome’s body by sliding me on my back twice. By 11:00 PM I was in miserable pain caused by not moving – as blood just pools with gravity. But there was one more problem. They kept pumping fluids into me, which means that eventually, that bodily function had to….well, function. I had to pee.
The last time I peed from a position flat on my back I was wearing diapers, or should have been. Since pressure was going to be applied to my groin, I had to let it out. But how? I asked the nurse how and suggested rolling on my side. “No, Mr. Bill. You will need to urinate into the container while not moving.” I protested, “That’s impossible. That will never work.” She smiled at me and said, “Let’s just have positive thoughts, shall we?” And then, like I needed extra motivation, she tells me, “If you can’t go, we will just have to insert a catheter. So do your best.” Uh, oh.
Several years ago someone stuck one of those things in me. I’m sure was an old garden hose. Back then, a male nurse (jokingly) informed me that they have a lady whose husband left her for a younger woman put them in. She is angry with all men for what that guy did to her, and she exacts revenge upon those of us who are so equipped. I recalled the pain of that experience and how it was many days later, before I could pee again without pain (Stephen King, are you listening?).
In less than two minutes I had filled the plastic jug to the brim without moving an inch. I handed to the nurse with a smile and asked her to keep that catheter thingy away from me. She smiled, let out a mildly sinister chuckle. Then she said, “See what positive thoughts can do.”
Finally, at about two in the morning, they managed to remove the tube from my artery with virtually no bleeding. That’s because the nurses maintained pressure on the wound for 25+ minutes. Then the clock started for a minimum of another four hours on my back.
I am grateful for all the nurses, doctors, techs, staff, cleaning crews, medical technology folks who manufacture the stents, the drugs, the plastic jugs, and all that they have done for me. I am grateful for my wife for being there and barking orders when the nurse was off dealing with other snarcastic old farts. I feel wonderful, my heart is doing great, and I am back to normal. Thank you.
Our Literary Journey 