poem
Op Note 30He was one of my favorite patients. He and his wife were so loving and tender together. She never left his side. She slept on the couch in his hospital room and greeted me in the mornings on rounds in a fuzzy robe and furry slippers. They always let me know they saw what I was trying to do.You really care, that ’s what’s different about you, she used to say. In the way she said it, it somehow wasn ' t cringe at all.Watch this man closely, she used to tell my medical students. I felt seen. Isn ’t that wild? Here I am, making it all about me. But that’s ok. They wouldn ’t have minded. They alwa...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 30, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Word CountLove is a bookWhich has exactly 237 pagesI am 51.8% of the way through.I paid for this book with pennies and dimesBanked from years of 9 to 5 loneliness When I finish, the book will belong to meAnd then I will share some of it with you I will read it out loudI will reenact certain passages But you won ' t be able to touch it Or even look at itYou will have to get your ownI ’ve measured its length and widthAnd yes it fits perfectly on the bookcaseAt home. I can read it as often as I wishBut someone has to cast a spellIn order to turn the pageAnd something has to happenTo the space aroun...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 27, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
RainbowLow plumes of white clouds on the horizon suggest a distant fire. I ' m always driving toward conflagration. I ’m drawn to all blazes. I chase after storms. Chuck stones at hornet’s nests. Wave my hand over the licking flames. Always getting a little too close. Fascinated by the flickerings of fire, the way it turns good wood to ash. My first word was “hot”, learned the hard way, touching the orange glow of our electric stove. I watch the shivering people at bus stops in the winter and their little misted clouds of exhalation tell me everything will be alright. That everyone sti...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 22, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXIXI introduced myself as the surgeon. The room was darkened. The curtains were drawn. The patient was pale and waifish in the bed. Nurses had layered her in blankets. All you could see was her head. She was 95 years old. So the chart said. She still lived alone. Her wince when I pressed her abdomen confirmed the suspicion. What to do? She smiled at me, a pink edentulous grin, and whispered “ask them”, nodding toward the pleather couch by the window. Funny, I hadn ' t noticed anyone when I came in. But there they were: a little girl in a tartan ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 18, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Punching BagAfter the rower I start punching the bag. Someone told me it was a healthy outlet for aggression. It can be a face, a minor slight, a missed chance, a dull thud of repressed rage. I ’m bashing it all into submission, pounding precordial thumps to bring myself back to life. Ten jabs with the left, then ten with the right, followed by a series of combinations. I do this over and over. By the end I can barely raise my arms. I ’m a bare chest sheened in sweat rapidly evaporating to a cool dryness like the recently deceased. It’s back to being just a leather bag hanging from a chain. Sm...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 16, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
StomachSometimes it seems the world is churningAround us like we were trapped in a giant stomach,Like something large had swallowed us,So ravenously hungry it forgot to chew And now we ’re all being slowly digestedTossed and frothed in a peptic darknessSorrows and joys, hair and boneDissolving in the hydrochloric acid Of a burning inevitability. But all to good purposes —Corroding us into a bilious muckThat improbably nourishes.8/15/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 15, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Template For My Elegy -to be completed by my children upon my deathDad was a ______ man who lived without _____. He collected ____ and never clung to a single ____. When it rained he had a tendency to _____. At his best he was a desert storm: brief, cataclysmic, quenching but____. When _____ , the world seemed brighter and he was the first to point out why. I remember him reading ____ to me at night. Afterward he would sing _____. He hated ____ adverbs. He emphasized ____ and form. His best qualities were ___ and _____, which rarely occurred together and when they...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 15, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
The Force of TimeHolding this ball over the precipiceAssuming it ' s the law of gravity That takes over if I let go.Everyone knows this.But if I stopped timeThe loosed ball doesn ’t fallNo matter how much gravity pulls Anything we call forceIs subjugate to the dominion of time Without timeNothing happens Nobody reachesThere is no kissI see you down below meWondering when I ’ll comeIt isn ’t electricity that attracted meIt isn ’t gravity that I fear I just need a little more timeTo take me away from here 8/9/11 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 9, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Desert SilenceThe dead silence of the desertDraws us here for the serenityBut most cannot bear for longThis soundless deaf austeritySometimes it ’s so quietI start to hear thingsThat aren ’t really thereJust to fill in the voidBrain unable to weatherThe utter absconsion of soundFrom such vast desolationUnfurling to brown mountains In far off hazy distancesIt gets to be too muchI have to retreat From all the noiseAnd return to the benign Tumult of everyday life 8/7/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXVIIIWell there comes a time when you have to just cut it all out. All the grit and gristle. The uncooked fat. The bad dad. The bad husband. Bad son. That ’s me. Never mastered any of it. Time for a little chop chop. Terrible poet so this will be the last one. All the others I ’ll change author status to anonymous. Too embarrassing. Can ’t run anymore, ankles breaking like balsa sticks. Cut the gym membership card in half. Burned out surgeon. Give it a rest. A nest of gray on my chest at the barber shop. Bad drinker. Bad tipper. Bad road trip companion. Bad fr...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
The NominalistWe ’re all seeking it Can ' t quite put a finger on itNot sure what to call it.Try to name it and there ’s a gapA skip in the recordA sigh instead of soothing wordsA pause when the poet Runs out of breath beforeShe can conjure the next rhyme Leave some spaces on the page Where the words can breatheAnd figure out for themselves What they want to mean But that ’s a lieThe best pausesLack all meaning While remaining indispensable.Em dash periods of ellipses Frantic gestures of her handsCutting and twirling through empty airsAmplifying the clumsinessOf desiccate...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 3, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Sedona KoanFirst they were mountainsFor all phenomena deserve a name And then they became facesStern and forlorn like old menGathered in the shade of a rickety porchGazing upon a baked red desertBored and uncaring Seeking to name others nowSecretly considering the originOf their own names Through the processOf doggedly enduringFirst I was a boy called by a nameThen I was a man staring into a mirror, Whispering his name over and over Until it lost all meaning Until I became just a face in the mirrorLike a mountain against the clear blue sky Mountains like old men ’s facesRing the t...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - August 1, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
SunsetOne day we realized we ’d made something extraordinaryWe made it together, without even tryingWe thought we were doing something else — Sometimes it happens that wayBut before long we broke This beautiful thing into a millions pieces No one person was solely to blame We didn ' t tend to itWe ’d never been taughtAll that ’s left is an abstract residuumOccupying this humming space between usWhich isn ’t really a spaceAny more than there is a differenceBetween the river and the deltaThis is why I like to watch the oceanBeyond just the waves crashing —Here on the beach I extendAll th...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 20, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Poem #43A poem solves nothingIt leaves all the pieces on the floorIt ignores your questionsIt always forgets to shut the door If you have a problemYou have come to the wrong placeThe poem has zero tolerance For your existential crisesEven writing a poem is a trapYou think scribbling a few versesWill unmask the hidden wondersOf your f.ed up universe?But the poem laughs at your impertinenceIt ’s too busy running the numbersDouble checking the angles and testing Your tensile strengthThe poem is creating new problems The poem will break you in half The poem is erasing solutions And the poe...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 20, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
SustenanceWriting is a thing To keep you aliveOn a level with eatingAnd drinking and breathing.Journaling as contributingTo proper bowel functionPoems as supplemental vitaminsLong letters to loversAs morning exercise I ’m not necessarily talking Only of staving off suicideAlthough that certainly appliesIt ’s a different kind of deathThe quiet one of every Day dying inside 7/17/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 17, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
