Poem-A-Day #151 : Mute

I have sat in a dentists chair twice while someone near by was being told they had cancer in their mouth. It is harrowing to listen to someone be told that their life is changed, that they will lose a body part. Sitting behind a partition, you are not an observer, you are a hearing device. You are trespassing on grief. The moment has fallen into your lap. And you are static, unable to move, because you too are in a dentists chair, mouth full of cotton.


Mute (4/19/05)

The taste is metallic
throbbing in the back
of my throat

The sound of a man
being told
he has tongue cancer

Bubbles floating over plants
pop
on the aquarium surface

A bright flash
hiss of pneumatic doors
mind the gap -

The tunnels thump
this is a moving place

The feeling of
perpetual motion

The dark tunnel and white tiles

The smell of old
flashing mice eyes
orbs of oil in brick spaces

Why the memory of a dentist
brings up undergrounds is beyond me

The rhythm maybe
of train tracks and random flashes of blue
the sound of setting a filling

The man is now crying
they are telling him
that the tongue will have to go

The doors open on air

Poem-A-Day #6 : Nephology

Nephology

The lights in the dentist's office are covered in a sort of contact paper that has clouds on it

Each light has identical clouds - the lights cast a soft blueish glow - it turns an otherwise bright space into a dream-like experience

The clouds are pretty normal one is sort of spire-ish another resembles a lizard head - maybe a castle

It's hard not to think about floating into that space - climbing the castle steps - running the maze of hallways stomping each villain crossed until -

Would there be something at the end of the fight what would it look like to win that war - the one in a dentist's chair with clouds and castles - what does it feel like to finish