Tag: poems/poetry

Martin Kohn

There are certain days
when death is just
not appropriate

When the mock orange blossoms
scent through the window
next to your sleeping son

When your wife stands naked
at the top 
of the stairs

When the day stretches inside out
and the city vibrates in doo wop
riffs and arpeggios

When the scraps of paper
each containing a random word
fall to the floor 
and assemble themselves
into the sonnet
you could never write–
even if your life depended 
on it

About the poet:

Martin Kohn is director of the medical humanities program at the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Ethics, Humanities and Spiritual Care, and an associate professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. With Carol Donley he co-founded

Tabor Flickinger

At the coffee stand as always getting tea,
so always that the ladies see my weary face
and start the water steaming without words.

I hover there with others waiting think through labs to check 
imaging to glance at does he have pneumonia or pulmonary edema 
has social work found her a nursing home will his family want a feeding 
tube despite his end-stage dementia did I order cytology on that peritoneal 
fluid when will I next see the sun it’s so

“Oh, did you take care of him before? He’s dead.”

                                                                  unnatural in here fluorescent 
now where was I peritoneal fluid hey I wonder who is dead

“Yes, I heard. We all had him at some point. 
He was in the hospital