Doors

In hospitals here are countless doors
that lead nowhere.  Nowhere!  I know the ones
with numbers on them maybe make you think
behind must lie some truth or certainty.
Like the ones down the hall with names on them
or doors beneath the glowing exit signs.
Do not be fooled by such decorations.
They close and open but they lead nowhere.
These doors here now I've gone through more than once,
they told me these ones here, the swinging type,
ones colored baby blue—I don't recall.
But once inside, I'm sure, I've never left.
Some say our minds and hearts they too have doors,
and long corridors made of nerves and veins.
It's far too easy getting lost in there,
when things out there, a touch or sound, a light,
become a sense, a feeling, form a thought,
become a part of you, and loop inside,
and set off countless other loops of pain....
Once you're in here, you're never ever out.

Woe.

I sing a sweet barcarole to escape grief—

its sores bleeding confusion, silence, disbelief.

Yes, we try chanting; airs afford us relief.

Thus men row; miseries ebb as harmony haltingly flows.

Melodizing is soothing. Mourners need a caretaker, however,

a spirit caressing and embracing humanity’s woe.

Because grief (a sullenness which protects, as heartland’s scarecrow

intends) when lingering, cuts—cuts, song's powerless to sew.

Discordant traumas painting a grisly show!

Melancholy dreams of reaching higher.

By contacting divinity, heartache generates

harmonic elixir of serenity. O God, vast Universe,

do allay the tide, so I, a crooner,

blissfully return amongst shipmates.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As an additional personal challenge to writing about the emotion of grief, my poem also corresponds with digits of mathematical constant, π/Pi.  First, the number of lines in each stanza is equal to its first few digits: 3.1415.  Secondly, and this was the most time-consuming, the number of letters per word, also correspond to the first 100 digits of π.  For instance “Woe” has three letters, “I” has one, and “sing” has four, corresponding to the first three digits, and so on.  Oh, and to represent “0”, I’ve used the letter “O” and words with 10 letters.  And here are the corresponding 100 digits:

14159265

358979

32384626

433832795

02884197

1693993

751058209

749445923

078164

06286

20899

86280348

25342117

0679

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve....
eleven hundred weeks—before me—flashed:  
the doctors, nurses, students, staff, the rooms, 
and soon, the judge and jury, lawyers—theirs 
and ours—harangues on mercy, blame; intent 
and chance, revenge and justice....Time we spent
rewording and remaking life: I'm numb
with dolor, fury, horror, guilt, and shame; 
the runes of woe, my daily torture, now
tattooed inside my wasting folds of flesh. 
Emotions cling, unsaid, unnamed—preserved  
inside my jaw and limbs, my blood and bones,
the meanings lost, just piles of words and words.  

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve—
and for a moment going o'er the curb—
now swerved about the purple traffic cones  
(thus marking borders of my tortured nerves).