Medicine
Steve Gunther-Murphy works in IT Healthcare at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California. He's been writing poetry since the seventh grade, has had works published in a variety of magazines and poetry journals, and has given poetry readings in Hawaii, Colorado and California. The following poem, first published in Pulse Magazine, is dedicated to his friends Teresa Harris and Ellen Case.
THE DISABLED BOAT
Drifting on the sea of disease
in a cardboard boat,
never knowing when the slash
of a spinal eel
will lunge from its coral-bone cave
and cut through
the threads
of a once dancing ankle
or the push of a thigh
singing race or run.
Waiting without wanting--
as the slap of a wave
against the paper-thin stern
then bow
brings on the storm
that pummels every movement
until you slip into a coma of the wind;
your sails ripped from the mainstay
and the tar between the rails
yelling like the death of a two-year-old child.
You wake weeks
later
and notice
that your keel is gone;
your body shakes like a rock cod against
the pith of the boat's floor
with the hook deep in your gill;
making you talk in slow motion
and without air.
Who wants to live this life
of a shadow fish,
pulled from the depths of who you were
and gutted of simple motions
or the ability to sing glee from your gullet?
This is not the space I am.
This is not the blue snap of yesterday
that burst forth from my mother's womb
like an iris
on an island of moss rock.
- Steve Gunther-Murphy
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Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught at New York University, Indiana University, and the New School. The following poem was first...
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Dorothy Kligerman is ninety-five years old, widowed, with three married children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her first published work appeared in February, 1931, in The Record Book of her graduating class at Simon Gratz High School...
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Cortney Davis is the author of four poetry collections, most recently "Leopold's Maneuvers," winner of the 2003 Prairie Schooner Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of two anthologies of poetry and prose by nurses, "Between the Heartbeats" and "Intensive...
Medicine
Guest Blog: The Disabled Boat
Steve Gunther-Murphy works in IT Healthcare at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California. He's been writing poetry since the seventh grade, has had works published in a variety of magazines and poetry journals, and has given poetry readings in Hawaii, Colorado and California. The following poem, first published in Pulse Magazine, is dedicated to his friends Teresa Harris and Ellen Case.
THE DISABLED BOAT
Drifting on the sea of disease
in a cardboard boat,
never knowing when the slash
of a spinal eel
will lunge from its coral-bone cave
and cut through
the threads
of a once dancing ankle
or the push of a thigh
singing race or run.
Waiting without wanting--
as the slap of a wave
against the paper-thin stern
then bow
brings on the storm
that pummels every movement
until you slip into a coma of the wind;
your sails ripped from the mainstay
and the tar between the rails
yelling like the death of a two-year-old child.
You wake weeks
later
and notice
that your keel is gone;
your body shakes like a rock cod against
the pith of the boat's floor
with the hook deep in your gill;
making you talk in slow motion
and without air.
Who wants to live this life
of a shadow fish,
pulled from the depths of who you were
and gutted of simple motions
or the ability to sing glee from your gullet?
This is not the space I am.
This is not the blue snap of yesterday
that burst forth from my mother's womb
like an iris
on an island of moss rock.
- Steve Gunther-Murphy
- Guest Blog: A Snail's Pace
Eric Cheng is a primary care physician for the VA, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA, a devoted husband and father, and an occasional poet. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he draws inspiration from his patients' incredible...
- Guest Blog: Writing Poems On Antidepressants
Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught at New York University, Indiana University, and the New School. The following poem was first...
- Guest Blog: Reflections From A Senior Citizen
Dorothy Kligerman is ninety-five years old, widowed, with three married children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her first published work appeared in February, 1931, in The Record Book of her graduating class at Simon Gratz High School...
- Guest Blog: The Rudeness
Rick Kempa lives in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he directs the Honors Program at Western Wyoming College. "The Rudeness," first published in the Bellevue Literary Review, dates from a time a few years ago when his mother, who is afflicted with Alzheimer's,...
- Guest Blog: I Want To Work In A Hospital
Cortney Davis is the author of four poetry collections, most recently "Leopold's Maneuvers," winner of the 2003 Prairie Schooner Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of two anthologies of poetry and prose by nurses, "Between the Heartbeats" and "Intensive...