poem
NarcissistI think I ’m pretty interestingSomeone worth getting to knowI ’ll sit and hold your handTry not to let you downI can tell when you ’re sadI pay attention when you speakNot exactlycriminallyunderratedMaybe a blip just off the radarMore a flash in your peripheral visionA rough draft versionOf an eventual revisionYou might tape to the corner of your mirrorI have a few assets. I think I ’m okI think I ’m doing ok. Someday I ’ll ask you if it’s trueBut I ’d never insistNever say it out loudI ’ll leave it here in a poemLest anyone think me a narcissist. 7/12/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 11, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
GenieMy plan if I ever got my hands on a lampWould be to ask last for three more wishes,The classic cunning ploy of the rascal,The dumb kid who doesn ’t know anythingAbout love or loyalty or friendship,Who'd say it with a conspiratorial smirk.Of course the genie wouldn't dig itA thousand years locked inside bronzeAnd some wiseass is gaming the system.The disappointed disgust on his face would Dissuade anyone from taking advantage.Probably just let him go, never see him again.It ’s another one of the gutting lessons of life:Some people will offer you the worldOr at least everything they have to give And ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 10, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
HeavenMy son asked me what heaven was like.For his sake I hope there is one.Not that I ’m expecting to spend much time thereNor do I think I would even want to.I just need to know it existsSomewhere way up there beyond all this.I ’d be content to lay on my backOn the uncut grass on a warm June day Bees buzzing in and out of magnolia bloomsLeaves politely applauding in the light breezeJust gazing upon the blue expanseSlashed with wisps of white clouds like terrible mustachesUntil I was able to suddenly see through The best that reality has to offerAnd understand there ’s something even better—A sanct...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 10, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Ghost CaveMy mouth is a cave where sounds won ’t echoEven the yelps and wails get muffled I ’m just a hole in a stone wallThat only bores halfway throughWandering down my dead end path whereSilence and darkness have shuffledWon ’t get you to the other sideThere is no side. There was never a wall I am the ghost of absenceI ’m what the universe points toWhen it asks itself what it isn ’t So it knows the extent of all that it is7/9/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 9, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
TeagueIn college Teague told meI had to get an identityI was pissedHe ’d seen right through me, pointedlyThat I was a fraudAn emulatorDevoid of substanceA clever fake So I went out and got oneMore my styleA witch's concoctionOf weirdo loner intellectBut then that oneGot a little staleSo it had to goI found anotherChurned through A whole successionOf ill-fitting personasRecycled a few of the oldMeanwhile time passedI did this and thatMade a familyBought a house Someday I ’ll runInto Teague againHow could I forget his shit-eating face?Sit down for a beer, get sousedFrankly, I ’m back to square oneN...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 7, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXVII like to think I ’ve gotten better at this as time goes on. Fifteen years a surgeon, you learn a few tricks. Whip out a gallbladder lickety split. Slide along the planes of action. Spot the hidden vessel. Some cases it ’s almost elegant. But never anything close to art. The best we can get in this gig is mechanical, the cold uncanny beauty of something approximating a machine. Actual machines are never beautiful. Awe inspiring, maybe. Useful. Precise. Remorseless. A hint of indescribable dread. Dogged relentlessness. The perfect soldier, in other words. ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 5, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
PortholeLove is a portholeIn the giant iron boxWe ’ve all been born into First you find a portalTo see what everyone else sees:This is a treeThere ’s a squirrelThis, we call a streetAll that above is blueWhile below we call green Millions of tiny gapsIn the firmament Of isolated lookingnessGazing out on the worldAgreeing on a languageThat is cold and precise While love is sharing a viewFrom a single small windowWith someone like youWhere I can sayYou know, the grass Today has a purplish hueDusted with splashesOf blooming clover And you touch my handIn a gesture of assent &n...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 3, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Poem
Van GoghAt the Van Gogh exhibit she Turned to me and asked whyAll the great artists seemed to succumb To madness or suicide.Bruised swaths of despair swirled And looped into skies of trembling flesh.I saw that her forehead had coiled Yellow into a writhing full moon.Everything was vibratingly alive,Walls melting into the floorAnd I was now part of a screenWhere everything played out.Every colorall the formsthat Thom Yorke songI recalled the dive barPacked with squinty-eyed derelictsIn scuffed boots and flannel shirtsWhere we ’d stopped for a cheap drink.We felt like interlopersTrespassing on bur...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 29, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem/draft
ReunionBy a fluke of circumstances I was able to meet up for lunch at a trendy downtown brasserie with my past self and future self. We didn ’t know what else to do. Neutral territory, I guess. Have a few drinks. Break the ice. The comfort of knowing there would be a well defined end. Split the bill, I assumed. I certainly wasn ’t inviting them tomyhouse. Act like they owned the place. Drink all my wine. Make fun of my shoes. Try to f. my wife. Golf was out too. Past self played to a 10 handicap but I hadn ’t swung a club in years. Future self didn ’t like his chances, given curr...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 27, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
ReunionBy a fluke of circumstances I was able to meet up for lunch at a trendy downtown brasserie with my past self and future self. We didn ’t know what else to do. Neutral territory, I guess. Have a few drinks. Break the ice. The comfort of knowing there would be a well defined end. Split the bill, I assumed. I certainly wasn ’t inviting them tomyhouse. Act like they owned the place. Drink all my wine. Make fun of my shoes. Try to f. my wife. Golf was out too. Past self played to a 10 handicap but I hadn ’t swung a club in years. Future self didn ’t like his chances, given curr...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 27, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
My SonWhen a young dad saysmy sonHe means it mostly in the possessiveSelf enhancing sense:Fruit of my loins!Bearer of hopes and dreamsRedeemer of past sinsContinuation of my nameThe boy as object: As silver Porsche As plasticine trophy wife As wall of degrees As go rake the leavesAs, here ’s a word of advice young manwhen I was a kid I used toHandle thingsAs vassalAs once and future king It ’s the bombastic bellow of the man in fullJust before an untimely fall:Behold my boy!But the older dad whispersIt with a whiff of apologetic Ruefulness. It ’s not solely ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 23, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Lost in TranslationI can ’t sleep anymoreTormented by the possibilitiesOf what Bob whispered to CharlotteAt the end of Lost in TranslationThere ’s a theory he ad libbed the lineTold her he had to be leavingBut wouldn ’t ever let that come between themBut that doesn ’t resolve anythingIt ’s a platitudeHe ’s speaking all sideways TangentiallyToo much like poetryWhen we ask what he saysWhat we really want to knowIs what he ends up doing. I know what he should have said:I love you and cannot leave youAnd need you always hereFrom now until the end of my light While he folds her into his em...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 23, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Love is the GuideLove is the guide that takes us Deep beneath uncharted seasPast the white skeletons of coralPast the sunken Clipper shipsWith their holds of briny treasuresBeyond the penetrance of lightWhere the only non darknessEmits from the bioluminescence Of undulating alien creatures Stay right here, love instructs us,I ’ll bring oxygen and masks.And we do. We like it hereWe like this sinking feeling Of a world pressed tightly against usA pressure that could crush us.Love always looks back onceOn its way back to the surface And smiles at our trusting facesAs we exhale the last b...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 21, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
Op Note XXVAfter a while it starts to seem unreal. All this putting to sleep and prepping of flesh, this cutting and excising of tumors and organs. Some come in too late. They die. There ’s labor and delivery down the hall. Replacements on the way. But then you wander one night on the upper wards, alone. Dead, dead, dead, soon to die. You feel like you're someone else. No, not someone, something else. A different form of being. Not like this patient or that. Not like the GSW in bay 2. The rigid belly in slot 14. They all have medical record num...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 14, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
poem
TiredThere ’s tired and then there’stiredDead tiredDog tiredTongue wagging Beat as a whipOut like a light Ready to dropYou lose your focusLike half way drunkOr just deeply depressed But no, it ’s just tirednessFuzzy headed, briefLapses of consciousnessOvertired, my ex-wife Used to call itSure, whatever.Miserable as f.I ’m tired?Asleep on my feetEither dreaming I was in another lifeWith urine all over the tablesOr on the verge of wakingFrom a mildly disturbing nightmare6/15/22 (Source: Buckeye Surgeon)
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 14, 2022 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
