No one ever answers when I call

[Featherless Biped]

Aieee! Feed her to Audrey II!

(I mean, it's not really the dentist's fault and I'm being unfair, but urgh, teeth.)

Interesting that it's almost a limerick, but all the individual lines are the wrong shape (I mean, to make it a limerick, not intrinsically).

[Angela]

Ha! This has me laughing out loud!

Angela~

[shadygrove]

A cockeyed limerick? Best NaPo start ever!

[kristalynn]

Hehe, I like it. Ouch though. I've been putting off a call to my "rooter of my root canal", but thank goodness I don't need anything so drastic.

[Alexandrite]

Great to see you hear Brian !! Clever ditty, very witty, on a topic not so pretty...hehe.... feel better soon!

[Dave Rowley]

Hi Brian,

"the rooter of my root canal." What's not to love?

Hope your get's soon!

D

[kamala]

So many disclaimers, and so little need - I don't think anyone will be returning any poems they get here!
In fact, I may have to pass on your ditty to my dentist pal (not a gal, though).

Wishing you a swift recovery.

[Sorella]

Poor you!
Although...You have an unusually relaxed and friendly attitude to your dentist☺😊
A charmer, is she? Just like your poem!

Sorella

[Dunc]

Brian

Very like my own dentist.

Excellent to see you here, as always.

Regards / Dunc

[BruisedOrange]

Ha, nice start! Hope the pain goes soon.

Jen

[Jenlars]

Brian, an amusing start...what is in store if we start with a root canal and meds? I'll be watching with lips closed tight.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks, all.

I've written very little of late, due to family obligations occupying my mind. Now is the chance to make up for that, I hope.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Selfie with Dad - April 2

In the end, my father valued freedom most.
He tells us about the hidden stairwell,
leading from the nurses' station to the closet
in his hospital room, which leads to the nook
behind the furnace in the basement of his and Mom’s condo.
“The orderlies have a stash of liquor there,” he says,
“and they are stealing from the Good People of America.”

1971 keeps coming up in conversation;
my sister was just a toddler then,
and Mom was soon to have a final, unfortunate miscarriage.
Just think, there might have been another—
maybe a brother, maybe a sister—maybe Eric, maybe Celeste—
but there were already too many children,
some unplanned but never unloved.

Meanwhile, Nixon was busy planning to steal our freedom,
as eight burglars in Media, Pennsylvania,
broke into the local FBI office, exposing J. Edgar Hoover
for the fraud that he had become, and the lies
that patriots told in the service of the state.
He spoke of distant places—San Francisco, and Chicago—
he'd never traveled outside the country, besides Juarez,

though he’d always wished to see so much more.
“We are losing America,” he said, and the doctor
is full of shit—what with that disguise
he was wearing, and that phony accent.
The only thing my father needed was the police,
and his sons to stand by his bedside.
He screams at me for trying to poison him

with chicken, noodles and peas. I had spent months
lifting him from the bed to the commode,
holding his naked body like a crystal chalice,
while trying not to break my back
as he fought against me in pain and fear.
The third time that he called 911, the EMTs
came again, and the police, too—

fine Americans all. They tell him that the law
gives them the right to arrest him
for abusing the privilege, but they tell me privately
that they understand. The threat is all for show.
Most of the calls they get are from old folks
who just want to see a face. And most have no one
to clean them when they make a mess, to change

the bedsheets, to shift their tortured bodies,
to comb their thinning hair. I show him videos
on my iPhone: my friends and I at the open mic,
"Here Comes the Sun", live by George Harrison and Paul Simon—
and he talks about how he and Mom went to a nightclub
in the seventies or eighties, and an old man—Frankie Laine—
singing "Mule Train". I find the song on YouTube,

a hit from 1949. He lies back in bed, smiles,
and sings along. "We have to release him," says the nurse.
Dr. Singh speaks condescendingly about "sundowning",
and how none of his conditions can be classified
as an "Emergency". (Vascular Dementia. Useless legs. Paranoia.)
"Speak to him," I say, "and ask him where he is, and why he is here."
I hear quiet words in an Indian accent, then yelling.

When he returns, the doctor is shaken, his visage changed,
and he rescinds the release order. I play the flute for my father in the dark,
and it is the day after Thanksgiving. He does not know
I am here. His arm is purple from wrist to shoulder
from where he tore out the cannula, and he cannot
even remember 1971. I tell him
about the fresh cranberry sauce that Bob made—

not knowing if he hears me—and how Mom misses him,
but she can't walk or even leave her bed for long.
At his bedside, I place the framed picture of Jesus
that his Mother gave him years ago. Ken calls
from Georgia, and my Father wakes. He starts
babbling about applesauce—"Apple, apple, apple..."
He reaches, open-mouthed, for the iPhone,

and I call for the duty nurse. He has a lucid moment while we wait:
He asks about Ed in Japan. They bring him a burger and chips,
which he can't eat in his condition, and I demand an explanation.
I end up feeding him applesauce and yogurt. He sleeps again,
and I take a selfie with Dad. A week later, back home in Pennsylvania,
I get a phone call from Ken (back home in New Jersey),
while I'm out with friends at Buddy's Burgers and Fries:

"Come."

BrianIs AtYou

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hey Brian,

A well-turned limerick is a fine start and needs no apologies. Nice rhyming with "root canal". Enjoyed.

Your second is very strong, and explains your comment about your father on my thread. It's difficult to know what to say about such a personal poem, except that I found it affecting. The frustration and sense of powerless come across clearly against a backdrop of grief.

I like the way you bring in real causes of paranoia among the imagined ones. I hadn't heard that story. Interesting to consider in the light of the US government's current attitude to whistle-blowing and exposés that, if anything, things have gotten worse, both in terms of surveillance and the consequences for exposing it.

Great start, especially this second poem. I look forward to reading more.

Matt

[Angela]

Brian,

So much history and so much humanity here. I worked as a private duty CNA and PCT (Cert. Nursing Asst. and Patient Care Technician)(In the geriatric community) for a lot of years and this poem has me tearing up. Your Selfie with dad is so touching.

Angela~