What It Takes

Sitting in a waiting room at a cancer hospital with someone who is waiting to meet with her new doctor

 

What It Takes

 

What it takes

To glare with hawk’s eyes

Eight floors down

Through wait room glass

At blocks and blocks

Of brick-faced buildings

 

What it takes

To wait for the next

Stooped eighty year man

With pain and deadened appetite

To sit with pleading eyes

Across from yours

 

What it takes

To step inside a doctor’s room

When the chill air

And hospital bustle and stench

Frightens the future out of you

 

What it takes

To be a player in the medicine game

In the halls of life and death

Is every chit called in

From your lifetime’s bank-

Reviews

[Paul Grimsley]

the weariness in this piece is palpable. it comes across as somewhat of a thankless job which i hope is not entirely the case.the repetition in the form and first line of each stanza works well to reinforce the tiredness on display, also it seemed by the end of the poem to have accumulated in such as way as to be crushing the narrator into the floor. this definitely falls within those poems which you write where it is calm surface versus barely contained turbulence beneath, although it struck me that this had something of a different flavour to it, and i think that may derive from the fact that the calm surface usually masks contained energy which here the calmness covers bone-tired weariness. an interesting piece for definite.

[Angela Talbert]

This almost made me cry. It reminds me of visiting my Dad at Roswell, he died of cancer a year and a half ago. I know what it takes- God holding you together. Beautiful job.

[B. Lapinski]

an aura of sadness and fear seeps through the wording of this poem. nicely written

[Gary H]

I am struck by the spareness in this. There is an air of despondancy that no-one can solve the problem(s) faced - and is this due to lack of knowledge or money placed in the right places? Could this be to do with humanities inhumanity? What I mean is, medical care and technology is surely a better thing to fight for than War. Sorry, a bit controversial.
Really made me think.

[Barry S. Maltese]

We must do what it takes. Our health, and that of our loved ones, must come first. I've been there, and it is as scarey as you describe so well here. It is a scarey sittuation, but it is better than have someone that you love write . . . "What it take to sit in the Morticians waiting room to identify the body . . ."
Great write my friend. Very provocative.

[Gandré]

that's why we should be very careful with our health. I think you went through a trauma - your experiences with clinics and you also was able to describe this perfectly, your message got me, pretty scary. I am sorry you made those experiences, dear.

[Lionel Braud]

this poem fervently describes all strata of government and bureacracy that is between the man and his prescription.