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  • hospitals
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hospitals

Cancer Villanelle - by Tracey S. Rosenberg

{ Poem }

Needles plunge. Consultants come and go.
Today, leukocytes are easy to locate;
tomorrow, next year, they may sink below.

After Visiting an Asylum - by Alexander Robertson

{ Poem }

I saw them sitting on a grassy bank –
/ Under the shade of mighty trees they were;
/ Yet those they saw…

Neurology Outpatients - by Gill Garrett

{ Poem }

The consultant’s room
/ a gallery
/ exhibiting the scans;
/ my head
/ an apple sliced,
/ my core on public view.
/
/ To launch the show
/ an invited few
/ stand round, comment
/ on…

When Mum Describes a Horse - by David Gilbert

{ Poem }

When mum describes a horse
/ She has seen from her low bed
/ Galloping across the white wall
/ Or through it
/
/ We cough and…

Sala de Esperanza - by Lawrence Hergott, MD

{ Poem }

The sign on the hospital wall
/ identifying the space
/ begins with a Spanish phrase—
/ sala de espera,
/ waiting room.
/
/ A more symbolic phrase
/ may have deeper…

Poem for a Hospital Wall - by Diana Hendry

{ Poem }

Love has been loitering
/ down this corridor
/ has been seen
/ chatting up out-patients
/ spinning the wheels of wheelchairs
/ fluttering the pulse of the night nurse
/ appearing,…

This Is Bad Enough - by Elspeth Murray

{ Poem }

This is bad enough
/ So please …
/
/ Don’t give me
/ gobbledegook.
/
/ Don’t give me
/ pages and dense pages
/ and
/ “this leaflet aims to explain ……

Ward 64 - by Sarah Broom

{ Poem }

the curtain’s beige and orange checks
/ do nothing to divide us
/
/ when her drip beeps I think it’s mine
/
/ when she hears the…

To My Surgeon - by Valerie Gillies

{ Poem }

No-one else sees me
drowning in the white wave
sprinkled with a terrible salt

Second Opinion - by Douglas Dunn

{ Poem }

We went to Leeds for a second opinion.
/ After her name was called,
/ I waited among the apparently well
/ And those with bandaged…

Nothing - by Selima Hill

{ Poem }

Because she is exhausted
/ and confused,
/
/ and doesn’t want to argue,
/ and can’t speak,
/
/ she dreams of nothing
/ for a thousand years,
/
/ or what the nurses…

Adam, There are Animals - by Chloe Morrish

{ Poem }

There is a small fox
/ slipping through the fabric of morning,
/ still coated in a layer of grey dusk
/
/ and carefully placing his…

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Scottish Poetry Library
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Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2021.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
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