Last Will and Testament

 

Last Will and Testament

 

Being of sound mind & body

well, considering the pain killers

antibiotics vitamins

various medications injected

ingested inhaled by myself

over the years

the sound of body I have

is the rattle of my lungs

the flap of my mouth

as I spew at those around me

and if they were asked

they certainly wouldn’t

testify to my clarity of mind

so perhaps we can skip

that part of the testament

 

to the smug snug drug manufactures

who feel the astronomical cost

of the medications is justified

by the cost of research

I ask how many of those researchers profited

or did the vast profits

go to share holders

to smarmy executives or

publicists

who made sure the world knew

of the wonder drug

 

to my various doctors I leave

this signed & numbered series

ultrasounds of my rumbling body

x-rays of my chest

mri’s of the brain

cat scans of the frontal lobes

blood tests of dwindling white corpuscles

ultraviolet blow-ups

that turn even the most devastating germs

into a colourful abstract designs

to serve as a suitable screen saver

reminders that you weren’t life savers

that little of what you did

added to the quality of my life

added to my soundness of mind

to the length of this dilapidated existence

 

to my specialists who tsk tsk

when I decided to have one last smoke

one more drink

one little toke

then drove off

in your bmw’s

to sunny gold golf courses

or who were out of town

at conventions

when I had my seizures

who found me so truculent

only sedatives seemed to do the trick

to you I leave

the empty feeling of

having no emotion other than

the small spike of rage

that would filter through

the fog around my brain

a beacon of fury

that could cut the pain

the frustration and spite

without which

I may have just pulled the chemical blanket up

over my chin

and gone silent into that happy light

 

to you charming scientists

I leave

the fact that you are powerless

mortal buffoons

whose big words and

cold little hands

didn’t keep me alive any longer than it took

for you to see me a scant minutes

after hours of shivering

in your waiting rooms

 

I leave you all the happy prize

of my death

at your incapable hands

The ‘I’ in this piece is not me. It goes back several years & is filtered through my own experience working in the HIV community & also from hearing how patients in general were treated. It seemed rather than indulge in false hope the medical community was more confident in indulging in false despair.

Sadly some of these things go on – patients who ask the wrong questions are apt get sedated into quiet acceptance. Specialists spend more time researching their statistical reports than they do actually seeing their patients.

I did hear a talk given by a specialist whose tie fabric was of ‘germs woven into a colourful abstract designs.’ He was very pleased with it in fact. I suppose it was his way of distancing himself from what these germs did – see how pretty they are. I wondered if he’d consider having a sweet kaposi tattooed to show off as proudly.

 

I remember performing it for the first time at The Rant at the Cafe May on Roncesvalles. Sue G ran the this funky series out there, one of the open stages first I began to go to before I discovered things closer to home. But I kept going to it till she moved on to other things.

 getting the L out of Loyalist

 what it means to be sedated