poem
Op Note XXXIIII began to think of the hospital as home. Not a second home. Home, home. Hacienda.La maison ancienne. The espresso machine in the break room. The couch in the doctor ’s lounge while waiting for a case to start. Extra pairs of socks in my locker. A clean shirt hanging from a hook. Old New Yorkers I ’ve left all over the recovery room. Moments of contemplation in the meditation room. That one place where I really like to sit. The extra toothbrush. I know where everything is. The saltines, the ginger ales, the mini-bags of pretzels. I just need a shelf with all my favorite books. A fl...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 19, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Cruelest MonthI get the argument that April is the cruelest monthEvery spring it all comes storming backFlaunting it in our faces Bloom after f.ing bloomBut not for us. Just one blossoming for the likes of us And the bulk of our petals have already fallen December is a different kind of suffering Carved out of modern time as a marketing scamDriven by quarterly Capitalist sales demandsDid I buy enough?Was I too selfish?Did I waste a year of life?Will I ruin Christmas?And how all that phony nostalgia and Auld Lang Syne Preys upon our sense of running out of time It ’s just win...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 15, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Dramatis PersonaeThe auditorium is packed and stuffy.Everyone dressed to the ninesFanning themselves with programs Perfume wafting in thick waves With deep baritone cologneA rolling tide of lipsticked murmuring But we ’re all watching an empty stageWaiting, waiting for the show to beginMen in masks bring out the propsNothing but blank canvasesLooming over scattered brushesAnd tubes of unlabeled oil paintsIn the pit we find an orchestra of muted instruments:Plugged horns and stuffed woodwinds Volas unstrung,Waiting for us to unfurl The strings wrapped around our necks Impatient op...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 12, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Fruit TreeI pick up an appleAnd say this is a pearYou roll your eyesYou really don ’t careAnymore, whatever, call it whateverIt ’s overripe and starting to smellI cut it open and extract a few seedsHere, stick one in the ground, if you dareThen go on your wayCall it exile, call it anywhere I ’ll be the one who waters itWatches it Shelters it from winds By the time it starts to shed leaves You ’ll neither distrust meNor remember to trustThat I ' ll do as I say Either way it becomes a treeThat dangles with succulent truthWhoever winsGets to keep the shadeAs for the fruitI promise, I pro...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 10, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Fruit Tree
Fruit TreeI pick up an appleAnd say this is a pearYou roll your eyesYou really don ’t careAnymore, call it whateverIt ’s overripe and starting to smellI cut it open and extract a few seedsHere, stick one in the ground, if you dareThen go on your wayCall it exile, call it anywhere I ’ll be the one who waters itWatches it Shelters it from winds By the time it starts to shed leaves You ’ll neither distrust meNor remember to trustThat I ' ll do as I say Either way it becomes a treeThat dangles with succulent truthWhoever winsGets to keep the shadeAs for the fruitI promise, I promise I ' l...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 10, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
SpendthriftI can get through thisI ' m a spendthrift with timeDistilled it down to A means of transactionUse it to buy blocks of distraction. Stay overworked. Stacksof books. Stoned reveries.Absurdist escapist. Quietly suppressed rage. I try not to think about it anymore. I don ' t have timeAll I can spare is a few minuteshere in the white spacesof this last page 12/7/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
WetI ’ve always been a grinderScratching out brown dustAn inch or two at a time I am the sluice in the stoneWhen the river runs dryAll these people staring in aweFrom the edge of what ’s now a canyonWhat was the point and why?Look at those inscrutable geological agesLayered in the crushed silence of looming wallsWhen the waters come againThey ’ll come thundering through empty hallsThe ancient dust now realizes the thing it ' sBeen feeling all this time is parched Everyone else trapped below drownsI remember how evenA desert can get drenchedGeysers of pleasureErupting from the center of the earthI reme...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
NeutronWhat is the purpose of a neutron Neither positive nor negativeJust along for the rideMindf.ing the protonOr so we say.What about the neutrinoChargeless, nearly masslessBillions, they say, slice through us every dayLeaving not a single scarI never feel a thing, I sayA photon of light passes easily through this glassIf I were to try the sameBroken shards would slash my fleshIs the light so bloodied?What would you say?12/7/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Shelf LifeI feel bad for the autumn leaves that hangAround too long, clinging to thin limbsAs the calendar flips to NovemberDesiccated like the cracked leather gloveNailed to a wall in a closet In Chirico ' sSong of LoveSome of these shriveled leaves never fall at allCradled high up within witch ’s claw branches Spend the winter clustered in browned banana bunchesBuffeted to a feeble chattering by paint stripping windsIt ' s a error to mistake this resistance to gravityFor a form of relative immortalityThey know themselves they should have let go They know themselves the wind was a chariotAll that ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 22, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Two KindsThere are two types of people here. There are the ones, a category which includes myself, who consider there to be two places. Here and there. It is crystal clear to them that they have entered a new territory when they come “here”. They arrive from the land of “there”. They recognize their own continuity as a collective lived experience and count the transition from there to here as one such experience, having utterly little to do with the person they were at the beginning of the transition. For them, being is interwoven with experience. They possess a willingness to release a little bit...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 20, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXXIIThe patient arrived broken and shattered into a million pieces. She called herself a puzzle and asked if I would be able to put her back together. I think I can. Yes, I said. Soon, though, it became clear that she was just a pile of disparate pieces, collected from the lost remnants of old puzzle boxes she ’d found in her attic, pieces stolen from the edges of non-existent puzzles she imagined someday completing, pieces that she had carved from her own flesh and bone. None of them really belonged together. None of them fit, at least not precisely. So I woke her up and told her s...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 20, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Phone Tree You have reached my voicemailIf this is an emergency please hang up and dial 911If this is not an emergency please consider hanging up and not dialing 911. If this is about that time I oughtto have done the thing we both know,in retrospect, I should have done please press “2”If this is simply a butt dial know that I don ’t believe in butt dialsand will go to my grave assuming you intentionally calledbut panicked last minute when it came time to say the thing you meant to say If this is a solicitor wanting me to sell my soul for the chanceof re-purchasing that very same soulsometime dow...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 20, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Display CakeMid November and it appearsthe world has once againpowdered itself in sugared snowWinter is the shimmering dessertprominently displayed in the front windowof the amber lit bakery on Main streetIt remains there untoucheduncut, untasted, a hunger arising for its blank slateSpring is for the chewingthe unleashing of suppressed devilrythe tilling of crusted modestyThe churning of all that delectable desire.Now we repose in quiet contemplation:the marvel of this made thing 11/19/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 19, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXXIShe kept coming back I kept operating on herCutting away scar Chiseling bowels free She said it made her feel betterBut only for a whileThen it was back again. This time I had nothing left to offerShe needed words To heal old traumaAnd I exist as a man of actionIt ’s hard to say no When there are things I think I can do To make you feel better I ’ve always experienced stillnessAs a form of failure If there was nothing to doHow would she ever heal?But I ’m bereft of ideas nowI ’ve run out of toolsThe only thing I could doWas to tell her what ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 18, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Middle PositionThe meaning of the loving perspectivecomes often near middle age the middle way betweenloathing and adorationhopefulness and resignation between the force and the quivering the believing and the finally living here everything radiates outwardaway from the Eliotian still pointilluminating both past and futurehere there is no lightdelineating any difference between you or mefrom this pointeverything is seenneither clearly nor cloudyfrom here on outold as you areyou ’ll never be any youngerwhat arises is a gratitudefor the missing father the lost love the never said words the th...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - November 13, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
