Sunday, May 27, 2007

Poetry Corner: Three Poems and a Turning Point

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, before, during and after I was diagnosed, I emotionally shut off for a time. I seemed to get easily overwhelmed, panicky, and then I would be totally unfeeling. 

For over seven months I couldn’t even write poetry. Then one month, during a particularly dry unfeeling state, the following three poems found their way out of me and onto paper. 

This was the first time that I’d felt like I was truly able to express myself in a long time. Also, as I read over them in the order they were written, I feel that you can see a healing process beginning to stir in the early stages.

They Say I Look Fine...

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.
My flesh is wasting and I am wide-awake.
Wide awake as I forget
Wide awake as my body sleeps
Wide awake as my vision fades
God help me! Where are my hands!

“Excuse me, please, where is my voice?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.
I feel spiders chasing butterflies inside my veins
I feel cold and hot at the same time
I feel my bladder screaming every five minutes
I feel that I am unfeeling
I am scared!

“Excuse me, where is my inner strength?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.
Doctors say there is no cure
Others say I look fine
Doctors say medication and “Can you walk from here to there?”
Others say this and that and you’ll be cured
But I can’t shake this one off!

“Where is my faith?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.
I shake all over, but no one sees it, yet.
I shake, I crumble, I cry, I ache
I shake wondering what it means
I shake yet methodically move
Somebody hold me!

My peace is lost


Something’s wrong,
can feel it.
Everything is shaking
Nothing is certain.

By Diana M. Bateman
2004 ©

~

Yesterday, Today, and Whenever

Day 1: The Storm Inside

A sudden chill
burns through my flesh
creeping allover and
butterflying me –
simultaneously heat radiates the chill and burns on.

Shrinking my sinews…
gray matter becomes grayer
as my bones clatter,
chattering unheeded demands.

Merging synaptic conversations into white noise –
it’s too loud,
so loud I feel it
taking away my “I think I can”,
as I putter backwards into me.
Exposed,
I am surrounded by life’s storm;
I am stuck inside a war of the elements; beyond repair.

Holding on to anything,
as long as it’s not moving, I wait.
Watching
waiting
hoping little damage is done –
praying for aide,
knowing there is none.

Day 16: Cessation
A sudden chill burns
B s
A d
C r
K a
W w
k A
c R
a D
b S
radiating departure. I am left
with an odd redress
and its heat leaves its chill on me…

Awakening my sinews from a
painful hibernation,
they rejoin the quick –
though the subliminal white noise
never leaves.

By Diana M. Bateman
2004 ©

~
Just Smile, Carry On

none of us are exactly the same
some hobble
some stand tall
others are obvious in capability
then there are those that you cannot tell,
but that you watch in curiosity

then, for some reason,
we compare ourselves;
letting the supposed reality frighten us
or render hope on apron strings

regardless
these comparisons become false expectations
causing needless anticipation
of the worst
or best
in the end it is all just another excuse
interrupting success…

graded on self perception of ability
the point is often missed.

By Diana M. Bateman
2005 ©