Whak!
Snap!
Crack after crack.
My fingers fold down
My knuckles break back.
The bones in my hand
Are under attack.
The pain hits me quick
On the side of my wrist
And the throbbing is constant
It’s making me sick
From this powerful blow
That has crippled my fist.
It’s crooked and swollen
I can’t take it back
‘Cause the damage is done-I just broke my hand!
The X-rays have shown
The brake in my bone
The doctor sits down and sighs.
And it doesn’t look good
When he’s staring at me
With an emptiness deep in his eyes
“Your hand is in pieces,” he begins to explain,
“It’s shattered,
It’s battered
It cannot be saved!”
So what do I do?
What do I do?
Can you fix it?
Can you heal it?
Can you mend it?
Can you?
“Well here are your options,”
The doc says to me,
“We can pin it
Cast it.
Then let it be.
In a year or two
It might work for you
But we will not know
Until the waiting is through
Your second option is to replace your bones
With knuckles and fingers
That are not your own.
I can surgically insert cadaver bones
From a donor, who passed away not long ago
I can take out your tendons
And ligaments too
And construct a new hand that will work for you.
It will not be easy
And the healing is long.
But when the healing has ended
The pain will be gone.
I know it sounds creepy
And morbid
And crude
But I believe that this option
Is the option for you!”
So I thought and I thought
But then quickly gave in
And they prepped me for surgery
So they could begin.
They gave me some drugs
Through a shot in my skin
Then told me to relax
And count back from ten.
Ten…
Nine…
The donor arrives
Wheeled in beside me
And smelling of lime
Eight…
Seven…
Six go by.
Slowly but surely I’m changing my mind.
I’m attempting to speak
And I signal about
But they can’t understand
My words that come out!
Five…
Four…
I make it to three.
They pull off the sheets from the donor-to-be
And there lies a girl-
Maybe twenty-three
There’s no doubt about it…
She’s as dead as can be.
And her milky white pupils are staring at me.
Two…
One…
I reach for someone
But I cannot speak
‘Cause my jaw is numb.
Then my body shuts down
As I finish my count
And the voices around me
Are drowning out.
My head becomes weary
And falls to the side
And there is the girl
Who has recently died
We stare eye to eye
As the doctor arrives
And the nurses present
The scalpels and knives
And the first thing I wonder
And the last thing I wonder
While the medicine is quickly pulling me under
Is why did she die?
Why did she die?
How and where and when and why?
THE LUNACY MACHINE
(cOVER TO cOVER sTORIES)
Through The Eye of His Only Son (intro poem)
The Starving Author (the beginning of everything (a poem)
Avalanche (No more skiing alone (a poem)
South of The Covered Bridge (A deceiving (a poem)
Presents in The Cellar (A paranormal experience in the basement (a poem)
A Bump in The Night (Alone at Grandma's (a poem)
Half Dead (The average man lives to be 67 (a poem)
Spiders (Where spiders go at night (a poem)
Grandma (A limerick plus one line about the other side of Grandma (a poem)
Dead Cat (A cat has nine lives, but not all are equally nice (a poem)
Night of The Twister (A stand-off between man and mother nature (a poem)
The Boy Who Knew Too Little (A know-it-all boy learns the hard way (a poem)
Infection (Take care of your spider bites (a poem)
Ouija poem
Edge of Madness poem
Mouse Hole poem
Writer's Cramp poem
Red Eye ( A simple trip to the doc can land you in the loony bend (a poem)
Under The Rainbow (The Wizard of Oz limerick... one year later (a poem)
Mouse Coffin (why not to drink alcohol and build coffins poem)
Where The Floor Creaks (Why some houses are sold cheap (a poem)
Room 402 (Don't feed the dead man... you'll get caught (a poem)
What Gnaws on My Spine (Sometimes, when your back hurts... (a poem)
Twisted Fate ( Next time, go right instead of left (a poem)
Sick (Never watch television with a high fever (a poem)
The Devil in Dr. Feddlestine (Addiction = lunacy (a poem)
Complaint Department (Form a line behind my wife (a poem)
