DRY CRIK Journal

One may wonder why, in God’s name especially, I might post the following poem, but the reasons are several. Poetry, I believe, is a stream running parallel with hands-on experience, the song we hear that makes even the most mundane, or in this case the unspeakable, richer. The metaphors that find their place in a second sight that comes naturally to people dependent on all the elements of a land-based culture (whether they write poetry or not) is simply the humorous and easily-accessible silver lining for a lifetime of so many dark clouds. If this is indeed true, one can write poetry about anything!

The topic is timely with today’s technology, fraught with fear for so many and subsequently postponed with tragic consequences. For all those reared in this macho culture, it’s no big deal: I felt and remember nothing. The only discomfort is the 24-hours of fasting/cleansing and shaking-off the drugs after the fact. If the poem assuages one cowboy’s fear, it serves my purpose.

DR. BROWN

As evening crawls up the mountain,
we critique our town performance with
a gin and tonic, a day’s preparation for

an early-morning colonoscopy behind me,
I remember being wheeled between
rumpled beds of patients recovering,

rolling down a narrow crowding alley
to the chute. Corral short of humor,
I compare nothing outloud. Small cubicle

with wear on big machinery, I search
for a cable coiled like a lariat hanging
somewhere. Tall, outdoor doctor asks

if I’m “all pooped-out,” as if for the
first time. Urgent nurses kind, but
after a second dose of drugs: nothing.