Voyeurism
by windchime (Member) - published: September 5, 2007
Word Count: 96 Word Bytes: 672 Viewed: 966 times
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Get to watch
people slow their breathing
die in my face
sometimes without visitors around
dying is done alone anyway
at four AM
during a drag race of cars
ten floors below
in a hospital zone

Get to see eyes freeze open
mouths agape
touch inertness
Get to glance at wristwatch
ascribe a legal time
Get to make those bad news phone calls
with a fixed stare at green walls
where old scotch tape barely holds
outdated notices up

Get to say goodbye
pray as I wrap
and get to guess
who will be next

------
Of all known institutions, I attend only two: church, in my heart, and school, in yours. Both are subject to demolition. - Lucie Adams, 2007
It is only for poetry to know how many stanzas fit into one caress. - Lucie Adams, 2008

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Comments

The following comments are for "Voyeurism"
by windchime

almost missed this...
This is so blunt...and it feels so routine...so resigned. Harsh reality, but how can this kind of reality not be? It filled me with sadness and compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings. Our time here is so brief, but they didn't really die alone. You were there. You knew.

Blessings to you, Lucie. You are a very special soul.

( Posted by: TheRealKarmaTseringLhamo [Admin] On: September 6, 2007 )

it's a blog
Lena, I put this here because it's not poetry. It just is. It's terse and dry and matter-of-fact. It reminds me to remember that this should never be relegated to "ordinary".

Thanks for stopping by here. You understand.

Chapter1, thank you for reading, and rating this.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 6, 2007 )

The role of tape
Love the title, Lucie. You- witness to this most private of moments...

This is a blog entry, yes, AND a poem, I think. "die in my face"; Maybe one day you will also witness one of those old notices drop from the wall, the adhesive on the tape gone the way of all things.

~ John

( Posted by: Flonigus [Member] On: September 7, 2007 )

John
Thanks you for commenting! And for filing this under "poem". Maybe it is, I don't know...

I work in a large downtown University Hospital Trauma Center. This is not a hospice. To be admitted to the Palliative Care unit I work on, you come in with a signed "Do not ressucitate".

The ICU is one floor below, the Cardiac Care unit one floor above.

On every unit but ours, code blue is called to the noise of dragracing below...They say "you can't go". We say "goodbye".

Don't know if that's voyeurism or not, but happy you like my title...

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 7, 2007 )

Oh Lucie
How often have I said that something I’ve scribbled is “not poetry”? … only to be told by readers that I ma quite mistaken. more often than not it is the readers who decide what is and what isn’t poetry, the writers- poor saps- do not get a say…

so I’m sorry, but I agree with John, both a blog entry AND poetry. poetry has room, I think, for expressions that just are, for the terse and the dry and the matter-of-fact, I think…

no, I’m not sure if that’s voyeurism or not either. to me voyeurism suggests detachment, a vicarious experience, of which this is the exact opposite of, because it resists being relegated to “ordinary”, because compassion is present, because it reminds of the necessity to feel, and it allows the readers to feel… maybe that’s it then, maybe it is we, the readers, who are the voyeurs?

thank you for this, Lucie, and for the compassion and empathy it allows us to access.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: September 7, 2007 )

Shannon
Okay, okay, it's poetry. There. I said it. Bah! It is what it is. I have so many occasions in which to surpass the lowly human that I am, and this place is where I meet those occasions and sometimes, it occurs to me that nobody really knows me, because nobody has ever seen me at this. You kinda need a new fix of God's grace each time...

I love that you get the need to feel and to allow for feeling to spend itself at this...

I once had a cynical poem that began "I do empathy for paychecks" in which a monetary value was placed on empathy. But that's absurd. Empathy ain't worth money. Proof is that there ain't no empathy on the stock market, eh???

Thanks for coming here. And for taking time.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 7, 2007 )

Point of interest
Whatever it is, the viewpoint is interesting; the fact that you "get to" do all of those things that very few others get to do.

It is interesting to take that point of view and still tell the honest parts without making it to be all about sarcasm -- it wouldn't work that way.

Nice thoughts

BW

( Posted by: BWOz [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

Brian
Yes, viewpoint! Exactly! I'm still holding on to my viewpoint, feel like I need to.

In poetry written by family members of dying patients, we the health care team members are incidentals, "ad hoc".

In poetry written by us, the health care team members, we are "standing".

If you can find this, read it:

"Rainbow in the Stone"
by Robert A. Neimeyer
2006
ISBN 978-0-9789556-0-1

It's good poetry.

Thanks for reading, Brian.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

the concerns and the connecting posts
ma,
iook up your blog and i would not leave without leaving a word.
much more about voyeurism,
it could be so cold to be close to death, and much colder to witness the passage of a soul unto the wolrd beyond.... being a medics, you may not be so different from a member of the executioners or an amour bearer at a land operation near bashra....
life comes in a flow of a liquir and goes in a fume. more little is the pain of a dying man, than the pain of the witnesses at his death.
about your comments on my poem on the Nigerian Polls of april 2007, i am happy that even far away in the place you are, the pain of the rape of democracy is felt, and shared... and this means an injustice to one is an injustice to all.
my plea is that the international community should not be dicieved that all is well with our nation yet...
i am only taking a queue after the commrades in the struggle for the emmancipation of the nigerian masses....
i will be willing to know more about you.
ibukun.
ibadan, Nigreia.

( Posted by: poetdave [Member] On: September 14, 2007 )

poetdave, Francisco
poetdave, yes, witnessing death is painful, even when death is expected: where there was a person one minute ago, there is now a body. It is brutal.

Francisco, separating from all of it is indeed difficult. I've learned that grieving is what effects the separation best. So I grieve. Daily. (I laugh, however, hourly...) Ya know?

Thank you both for seeing inside of this.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 17, 2007 )

sigh...
Wow...I just can't believe this is the first poem i read on-line today...tonight is my fathers memorial service...he died of cancer a couple weeks ago and i was alone in the room with him in the middle of the night when he passed...i also watched my mother take her last breath a few years back...life is a tough gig...you do a good service...thanks for this...

( Posted by: kilgoretrout [Member] On: September 18, 2007 )

Terence
Your late mother and father have a great son: you!

I've loved every bit of you I've read so far here. Your poetry lives in your gut and doesn't rot when it hits the page. It keeps. So do your comments to people on their work. Thanks for being here.

Sorry for what I sometimes write about.

And thank you for leaving me a thoughtful comment on this.

You're right: life is a tough gig.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 18, 2007 )

Touch inertness
This is a poem. You are not a voyeur; you are clearly an involved participant. Your expression of a difficult (daily?) experience has obviously struck a chord with many of the folks here in different ways. You have taken the reader into your life experience and evoked emotional response in very few words. Anytime you can touch someone and make them feel and think in under a page, you have written a successful poem. Congratulations on that and thank you, not only for the poem but for the work you do.

( Posted by: poeteye [Member] On: September 18, 2007 )

Thank you, poeteye
Your thoughtful comment invigorates me, and validates my work (which is an important part of my personality make-up).

I posted this under blog because it is missing the "lore".

But as each person comes to comment, I realize it is a poem. Thank you again for making your point so convincingly.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 18, 2007 )

Better late than...
..well, I won't finish that sentence.

Growing up in Tennessee, I got used to seeing dead 'things' - everything from roadkill to hunting season and even detours into pets blasted with shotguns by quarrelling neighbors.

And I've seen family, neatly pressed and powdered and tucked just so in elaborate boxes, so that they didn't look so much dead as simply sleeping.

I got the job I went to night school for. Nothing fancy, just a CNA in a long term care facility. I'll tell you, though, that a lifetime of seeing dead 'things' and peacefully arranged loved ones days after what was loved about them already departed, did nothing to prepare me for the moment you so perfectly described here.

And eyes that will not stay shut, no matter how many times you try to close them...

A sad and sobering read, especially the hurtful truth that so many leave without visitors; the only person holding their hand as they go just a caregiver at the hospital.

( Posted by: chinadoll [Member] On: October 2, 2007 )

Meghan
It's gonna soon be 8 years that I work in Palliative Care and I don't remember one single "wrap" where I didn't say "goodbye" out loud. Go figure. Dead person after dead person but one thing for sure, each person dies only once.
Congrats on your new job! Make friends among your colleagues. You will need people to talk the talk with.
No family at bedside is when you access the biblical "we are all brothers" and staff stands in as family. It just is. What can I say?
Thanks for coming here and tuning in to this unadorned scene...

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: October 3, 2007 )

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