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Honoring All Nurses, a poem and its backstory by Anjum Wasim Dar

Photograph courtesy of Jesoots.com@jeshoots, Unsplash

“It is impossible to describe exactly what I learn, though I know it lies somewhere between science and art. It is all about the smallest details and understanding how they make the biggest difference.”  Christie Watson, The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story

Anjum wrote me that she’d penned this some years ago. It was originally published in the Pakistan Times. She’s dusted it off in light of the current COVID-19 travesties and the heroism of nurses in response. I value her wish to honor those compassionate health care providers who are putting themselves in harms way for the greater good. / J.D.

The day is near its ending
The sun is slowly sinking,
The black veil of night is spreading,
Covering the day’s golden gown

Air outside is cold, but she is ready
With her cap, cape and coat,
Pen and red pencil, her pockets hold,
Pips and buttons shine like gold

For duty she is bound,
To the ward, she makes her way,
To look after the sick in the dark hours
As they rest and sleep till day

Alone, as midnight strikes, she goes
To give patients the medicine due,
Two gulps of a “mixture’
A ‘capsule’ or ‘tablets’ two

Awake alert ready she will be
To ease the pain and all misery
Never tired never with a frown
Comforting all in painful recovery

Darkness gently slips away
Silence prevails, peaceful and holy
Her duty done, she leaves the ward
As dawn approaches, slowly, slowly

Nurse on Duty

One night as I was about to drop off to sleep a sharp pain in my armpit shook me. I almost screamed. I put my hand where I was feeling the pain and my heart missed a beat. There was a hard lump there. 

Terrified, I felt a shiver run down my spine. I realized I was running a fever. Should I wake my mom who was dead tired after a heavy days work.? No, wait, the inner voice said. I don’t remember how I spent the night, my pillow was wet with tears of pain and  fear.  In the morning I was taken to the hospital, a military hospital.  Upon evaluation, surgery was recommended and then followed the most unforgettable eleven days of my life.

On that first day, I was struck by the smiles on the nurses faces, a welcoming smiles, reassuring comforting. “No need to worry all will be well,” said Captain Maryam as she tucked me in. I put my head on the white pillow and noted the red blanket that covered the bed. Red was the official color of the blankets of the military hospital. They gave me a sedative and the nurses smiles were a warming touch as I succumbed to a deep oblivion.

The next day the Operation Theatre Nursing Officer: quick, efficient, deft in her handling,  prepared me by helping me put on the gown and suddenly  I was on the operating table.  Presently in came the Surgeon. Then another man walked in with a mask on his face, the nurse held my hand: “Count till ten” . . .  and at  3 … 4……5…I fell asleep.

Four hours later I came to myself and the same tall nursing officer was leaning over me putting plaster across my chest. She covered me with another red blanket. I felt myself being lifted and carried on a stretcher. The ambulance moved slowly I dozed in and out of consciousness. I  vomited from the anesthesia …lost consciousness and later woke up again vomiting. Dozed again and so it went until . . . I don’t know how many hours passed by.

And so it was the care of the nursing officers of that Military Hospital where I spent eleven days and recovered from my critical operation. I was lucky to have a benign tumor but I was more lucky to be under the loving responsible care of the Nursing Angels who gave me the emotional physical and medical care I needed most.

I wrote a poem for them which I wish  to share. Here I would like to Dedicate this story to all the Brave Nurses of the World in this Pandemic time. Day and night they doing  their duty courageously, risking their lives and I will never forget my time of need.

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Anjum Wasim Dar

ANJUM WASIM DAR (Poetic Oceans) was born in Srinagar (Indian occupied Kashmir) in 1949. Her family opted for and migrated to Pakistan after the Partition of India and she was educated in St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi where she passed the Matriculation Examination in 1964. Anjum ji was a Graduate with Distinction in English in 1968 from the Punjab University, which ended the four years of College with many academic prizes and the All Round Best Student Cup, but she found she had to make extra efforts for the Masters Degree in English Literature/American Studies from the Punjab University of Pakistan since she was at the time also a back-to-college mom with three school-age children.

Her work required further studies, hence a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad and a CPE, a proficiency certificate, from Cambridge University UK (LSE – Local Syndicate Examination – British Council) were added to  her professional qualifications.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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Jazz Me Do, a poem by Ben Naga

Photograph courtesy of Chris Bair @chrisbair, Unsplash

“Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.”  Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

Memory splinters … Splinters linger on
Orphaned … Amputated … Alien
Earlier hellbent … Later bent
Like a banana
Like a tasty adventure
Up … Behind … To infinity and beyond

Like the neighbour who
Spotting the Buddha in the back garden asks
“What’s wit’ monk?”

Like a glance above wondering
In this boundless blossoming heaven
“What’s wit’ bird?”

What’s wit’ Bird?
Variations on a theme
Came a long long way to end up here
To land up here wondering
“What’s wit’ Miles
What’s wit’ all these miles an’ miles?”

© 2020, Ben Naga

Ben Naga

BEN NAGA (Ben Naga / Gifts from the Musey Lady and Me. “Laissez-moi vous recanter ma vraie histoire) has lived in England all his life, apart from brief periods in France, India and Scotland. Music is probably his greatest love, with England’s Lake District not far behind. He has privately published “Northern Limericks” and “September Shadormas” and is working on two other collections. His poems have been published in several online magazines.

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Jazz Is, a poem by Moe Seager

Photograph courtesy of Jens Thekkeveettil, Unsplash

“Jazz, like left-wing politics and ‘the common man’, was a cause.” Martin T. Williams, King Oliver

Jazz is
A way in to a way out
Way up down deep inside
An audio odyssey
A jet stream blowing in from Ghana
Belted out in Congo square
Jazz is a round trip ticket
Round the world of Africa and Africa touched

Jazz is
New Orleans second line
Voodoo queen looking so fine
Jazz is a diva’s honey croon
Looking for love, spell of full moon
Jazz is a man down and out in Chicago
Jamming entranced beyond his sorrow
Jazz is a child with a sense complex
A feel for a world beyond that given
Jazz is Havana throwing off heat
Blaze of a trumpet, bodies in beat
Jazz is a Jew on a clarinet
No hold back, he lets it rip
Jazz is a gypsy heeding the call
To new found sounds in his finger tips
Jazz is in duo with Mozart and Bach
A spoon in tune with Cafe Vienna
Jazz is a niche on a back-street in Paris
Rendezvous lovers, loners and poets.

Jazz doesn’t know solitary confinement
Be big band, be bop, slow motion shuffle
Be ballad, be blue.
Lay back and be cool
Come in and go out
Each time unique
Like the last time

Jazz is
A cargo the trade winds sail
To the door of the depot of the lost be found
To ring your ears and throb your heart
Stormy Monday turning sunny
Feel the blues depart

Jazz is
A riff that walks me home
Is a bass line I climb to the top of the stairs
Is the hand holding mine when nobody cares
Jazz softly whispers – I know how you feel

Jazz is
Chump change and scratch
Is chewing through the gristle
To suck on the bone
Jazz is a holler, a cat call, a hymn
Dollar down, dollar a month
Why I’m so broke I can’t pay attention
Jazz is red wine, white wine, up in smoke
Raising caine, strung on dope
Jazz is singing Lush Life in the shower

Jazz is
An instrument of fingers and tongues
A vessel of muscle and breath
Body and mind in sync with itself
Jazz time tics free off the clock
A serpentine march out of formation
Jazz can leap to the end of the line
Makes every stop along the block
Jazz goes uptown to get down
Calls night time the right time
And the right time is now

Jazz is
A teller of history, a history maker
Jazz be love oh so tender
Off the chart form the heart
Jazz is memory come with forgiveness
Jazz is a bitch
She´s the mother load

Jazz is
Sweet smells of incense, of jasmine, of hormones
Deep note moans, high pitch groans, twists and turns
Sharps that burn, flats that howl
Guitar licks that sparkle
Drum beats driven off the four corner map
And the beat goes on and the beat goes on
Through the Rio night, the Harlem dawn

Jazz is
A gas, a liquid
A solid mass of substance
A floating island in the center
Of the infinite sea
So vast is jazz, so deep and wide
How the middle passage
Placed us side by side

Jazz is
A family, a family of man
Whose taproot is the music of the Af-ri-can
Poly-rhythmic pollination from the talking drum
Graced in gospel, rolls of rag time
Tears and laughter of the blues
The gifts of many makers
Freely given me, freely given you

Jazz is
A way in to a way out
Way up down deep inside
A way to, a path through
The mindless rubble,
The poison propaganda
Lies of the masters
The illusion castors
Now cross you over to another side
No papers, no passports, no human claims denied
No charges pressed, no back-seat guests
Welcome to a dynasty of open borders
Jazz is
A free country

© 2020, Moe Seager

Moe Seager

MOE SEAGER (Moe Seager- Paris Calling) is a poet and jazz & blues vocalist who sings his poems on stages in Paris, New York and elsewhere and has recorded 2 jazz-poetry c.d.s. Seager founded and hosts Angora Poets (Paris) World Caffé, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Paris and is one of the coordinators for le Fédération des Poètes paris. He has 5 collections of poetry and currently publishes published with Onslaught press, Oxford, U.K. Other poetry collections are issued from the French Ministry of Culture – Dream Bearers,1990. One World, Cairo Press – in Arabic translation, 2004. We Want Everything in French translation, les Temps des Cirises, Paris, 1994. Perhaps, La Maison de la Poesie, Grenoble, France, 2006. Fishermen and Pool Sharks Busking editions, London, 1992. Additionally Seager won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism, 1989 and received an International Human Rights award from the Zepp foundation, 1990. He teaches writing in Paris.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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Mothers and other Collateral Damage, a narrative poem by Mike Stone

Photograph courtesy of Eric Froehling, Unsplash

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

This is not an epic tale in dactylic hexameter
Such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey;
No kidnap of Helen or destruction of Troy,
Nor a lover’s star-crossed tragedy,
But an Ohio story, not as unique
As you might well imagine:
My father aspired to escape his parents
And their protective quarantine,
To write stories for the radio,
And met a beautiful poetess
With the soul of a whippoorwill
And a heart born in the wilderness.
She could poem all day
And poem all night,
She could poem you a poem
Till the dawn’s first light.
She could rhyme you by the river,
She could rhyme you in the wood,
She could rhyme you in the field
Where the scarecrow stood.
She could mete out any meter
Like galloping horses on a plain,
Dactylic or iambic
Till you went insane.
He put a ladder to her window
And they ran away together
To a justice of the peace in ol’ Kentuck
Too young to know any better
And got married, till death did them part.
O how we loved them both,
My little sis and I,
Their happily-ever-after troth.
But I’m getting ahead of my story –
I was born respectably later
And my sister sometime after that
Not knowing of the traitor.
Mama suckled me on poetry
Instead of mothers’ milk.
Maybe that’s why I grew up skinny
With a voice as soft as silk.
Dad told me stories sitting on his lap
O how he could spin yarn,
He could tell me stories
That would burn down an old barn
And Mama burned his face with kisses
After we were put to sleep
Dreaming dreams with safety nets,
Little souls deposited in God’s keep.
If only our stories had continued so
We would have been content,
But that was not what was to be
And nothing we could prevent.
Maybe Dad grew jealous of her poetry
Or his parents threatened him
That if he didn’t break it off,
His fortune would be slim.
One night she was loved and cherished,
The next night she was betrayed.
Her fragile soul was broken
When she saw their vows unmade.
I’m sure they didn’t mean to hurt us,
We were just collateral damage,
Thinking we had somehow caused it
And felt like abandoned baggage.
How could she stop being Mama?
Things like that couldn’t be,
Such was inconceivable
To a seven-year-old and one who’s only three.
We were raised by housekeepers
For the next two years,
Grandma made sure they were ugly as sin
To assure there were no affairs.
I remember Missus Weber
Told me of the Rapture at the end of days
And scared the bejesus out of me
With the world being set ablaze.
Then Dad brought home another Mom.
They told us Mama never loved us,
That she’d take a pancake turner to me
If something made her fuss.
The new Mom, that’s what I was to call her,
Not stepmom; that she wouldn’t stand for,
She promised she would love us
Better’n we’d been loved before.
Years later I grew to understand that
Love meant something else to her
Than what we had understood:
Cooking meals and pots were stirred,
Making sure we brushed our teeth and
Washing behind our ears.
No poetry would feed our souls,
No one would wipe our tears,
The ten commandments would have to do for us,
We pretended that was love
And laid our dreams to rest
In the starry night above.
One day Mama married another man,
They moved to Panama
And adopted two new infants
But a careless driver killed Mama.
My little sis and I grew up and moved away
To escape from our ordeal,
Sis went to live in Connecticut
And I moved to Israel.
We’d keep alive our memories
Of evidence of Mama’s love.
Sis was always certain of it
But I had doubts thereof.
What with all the fictions I’d been told,
What memories could I believe?
I continued to play the son
But myself I couldn’t deceive.
Dad passed away; it’s been ten years now.
Soon after that, Mom became demented.
Her brain was strip-mined by disease
And claims that she had married Dad were soon rejected.
With all the fictions gone, all that was left was truth:
That sis and I were Mama’s kids, Mom had to agree.
A few years ago, the infant girl Mama had adopted
Sent us Mama’s book of poetry,
Casting away my many doubts
And resurrecting love from Lazarus’ cave.
Mom passed away some months ago,
Buried next to Dad, grave to grave.
Maybe they’ll warm each other’s bones
On the long train-ride to eternity
Pointing out the windows with bony fingers
At stars and galaxies flying by.

February 16, 2020
(c) Mike Stone 2020

MIKE STONE (Uncollected Works) is a regular participant in The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt. We are always delighted with the opportunity to read  and share his work.  Mike was born in Columbus Ohio, USA, in 1947 and was graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in Psychology. He served in both the US Army and the Israeli Defense Forces. He’s been writing poetry since he was a student at OSU and supports his writing habit by working as a computer networking security consultant. He moved to Israel in 1978 and lives in Raanana. He is married and has three sons and seven grandchildren. Mike’s Amazon Page is HERE. His work is recommended without reservation.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton