Democracy... (From the Archives, 2012)

The Arab Spring --

What fruit is born from

Bloody soil?

Putin driving deep into Georgia --

What does a tyrant know of freedom?

The invasion of Iraq –

Suddenly it’s time to unseat

The butcher of Baghdad?

Centuries of brutality in

Democracy’s name as if

It is the name of the newest

Baddest boy on the block

The fair-haired boy that

Everyone loves and wants to

Emulate

Mothers want his blessing

Fathers swell with pride and

Hold parades in his honor

Sons want to champion his causes

And daughters dream of his embrace

DEMOCRACY

The sanctity of the word

Blinds us to abuses

In its name

Democracy

As a concept

Is not a desired ideal for most

Even here in the USA

One man – one vote?

Too much mucking about

Too much wasted time

Too many opportunities missed

Too much free thinking

A danger in these times of

Security alerts and

Terrorism

Who’s watching the hen house?

Who will protect the American way?

And our misguided belief that

God is on our side

That we can do no wrong

As long as our actions

Serve democracy

Democracy

Is the most important word

A word beyond question

A sacred word

A word misunderstood

Because the word has been

Cheapened by sham

& greed

This word / wor(l)d

Means nothing

Is nothing to

Our enemies

So we are told

Our godless enemies

Who value life

Less than we

Live for the day of

Victory over us

Just as we vie for

That same victory

Over them

We are locked in

A struggle that will never end

All in the name of

Democracy

Our American DEMOCRACY

It is a source of

Endless sadness

The Sisters of Mercy

In the hospital, the bulk of the work gets done by the nurses and at Rancho there seemed to be an army of nurses and nurse’s aids scurrying about delivering trays of food (at least that’s what they called it), checking vitals, taking blood cultures, checking blood sugar, administering Insulin and changing IVs.  That’s the technical side of their job. Some did their jobs well; some gave the minimum effort knowing that there was very little the patients could do about it. Nobody did a crappy job.  I guess they left that up to the doctors, who were seldom seen and usually with bad news.

The guy next to me in bed B had been in the Ranch for twenty-two days.  He’d come in from a homeless shelter (his home being in Mexico) and they kept telling him he would be going home soon.  Unfortunately he was going back to the shelter with one less foot.  He told me that he hadn’t seen his primary doctor since the third day of his stay. I knew then that I was very lucky since I was going home with both my feet and I had seen my primary doctor three times in a week and a half! Man, I was walking on air (but it could have been the meds talking)…

But back to the nurses. I don’t think I ever saw an anglo nurse the whole time I was in the Ranch.  There was one lady I thought was a nurse, but I was told that she was an instructor. She had the look of someone who was continually surprised.  When I was asking one of the nurses about her, I said you know the white lady with the look of surprise and for emphasis I palmed my forehead from the eyebrows up, like I was astounded. Oh, you mean the instructor! She was here, helping you? I said yes and the nurse looked at me like I was a snitch, planted in the ward to report on her and her colleagues. So I said that the white lady wasn’t sure what to do with my bandage and I had to tell her how to do it. Hearing that, the nurse seemed relieved. So was I, because you don’t want to piss off the ones who are sticking you in the arm looking for veins to tap into for your IVs, or who are manning the nurse’s station when you wake up at 3 AM with a raging fever and a pain in your knee that’s off the scale from zero to ten.

Dylan said, you got to serve somebody, and at the Ranch I learned early on that you serve the nurses and they, in turn, serve you.  I also learned that if you kept a sense of humor about you, you’d get a lot better treatment than you would if you were grumpy or angry.  Granted, it’s not always easy to joke when you are terrified, but my mama always said you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Of course, I’ve always thought that nothing draws flies better than a big old pile of crap, but that’s just me.

I think I spent the first few days in a state of fear, but I eventually got used to the routine. I began to learn the ropes and saw how the operation worked. The nurse rotated through in eight hour shifts. There was the morning crew, the afternoon crew and the night crew. Then there were nurses who did specialist work like the white haired Asian nurse who took blood cultures and changed my IV location a few times. I was told by several nurses that I was a “hard stick”, which meant that it was hard to find a good vein location to either put in an IV or draw blood from. I guess the veins sometimes roll out of the way when they stick in the needle. I told the white haired nurse that I was a hard stick and she said that she’d have no trouble, and she didn’t, at least not the first time.  The second time was different and it took her several tries to find a vein. She joked with me as she tried over and over…don’t tell anyone about this or my reputation will be ruined. I said, slip me a few extra graham crackers tonight and your secret is safe.

Under any other circumstances I would have made a more suggestive remark, but in the ward, for the most part, I was not moved by the surrounding feminine pulchritude. I suppose being in a gown with your goodies on display every time they have to pick up your leg to change the dressing kind of takes away the nastiness of it all. Towards the end of my stay I got a little horny, but I never got randy.

My nurses, well they weren’t mine, but I didn’t mind sharing them. My nurses were either Asian-American or Pilipino or Afro-American or Latin-American. Most spoke Spanish very well. Unfortunately I did not. I spent a lot of time asking them to repeat themselves. They were courteous for the most part, which made the job of being their patient reasonably pleasant. They put in the minimum amount of work and I kept up a brave face.

There were a few exceptions. There was the night nurse who would come in while I was sleeping and adjust the blankets to make my night more comfortable. Sometimes she’d come in before her shift ended and while she was changing my IV she’d apologize for some ruckus the night before. I always told her it was fine and not to worry. I wanted to hug her for being so kind to me, knowing full well that she was going above and beyond her call of duty.

Then there was the afternoon shift nurse, Cris, the only nurse whose name I learned while I was in there. She and I had shared some hellish times together; she was there when the doctor sliced my knee open to drain the infection, and she was there when my IV had pulled out and a thin trickle of blood was snaking down my arm.  She had changed my dressing and wiped away the oozing gore that seeped out of it the first few days. Through it all, she had been polite and formal, always addressing me as Mr. Armstrong. And when I suggested we should get married, she gently put me in my place, informing me that she was happily married with a ten year old son. I suggested that she must have adopted him since she was far too young to have a ten year old, she, of course, laughed and said she was older than I thought.

Such is the patter when one is dancing on thin ice.

Cris is the one who was surprised that I would be listening to Pavarotti. She’s also the one who I told I was a poet. When I gave her the only poem I wrote while I was in there, she read it next to my bed and later posted it in the nurse’s station, for all to see. She could have just as easily tossed it, but she did not. She was my Florence Nightingale. She’s the one who told me not to come back except to visit.  “I don’t want to see you as a repeat customer.”

For my part, I’ll do my best to keep her happy.

When I Close My Eyes It's Always Raining

This is especially true in this El Nino season in which I'm living through (winter of 2023 - 2024). Here in Southern California, where it used to hardly rain at all and if it did, it was always at night, we don't get much in the way of seasons. No doubt there are many parts of the country that wish they had access to moderate seasons of snow, wind, rain and heat. Personally I prefer the genteel approach to weather. As a bonus, my garden is loving all the water! You should see my tomato patch!