A quick-silver dew weighs heavy on the grass

As the morning shift comes on.

The summer air is steamy hot

Hazy is the torpid Brisbane sun.

The ward’s monotonous corridor,

Blushes with red balloons.

Beds festooned,

Coloured paper streamers

And silver stars,

Hang from every door.

Drowsy patients wake.

Patchwork stockings

Kind thoughts

And little things

Hang about their heads.

The man with cancer

Cries for help,

Sobs of pain,

His very last sad Christmas

We’ll be glad when he is dead

The same routine as usual

Nothing can change this play,

Few think of a suffering Jesus,

For today is Christmas Day

Some old ones wake to find

The rising of the summer sun.

Some remember a youthful Christmas

When life was hard,

…But fun.

.

The gnarled, old worn-out stockman

Sucks like a babe,
On an uncracked nut,

Then sinks in demented dreams;

….Wet again.

Another fumbles with her stocking

-Her arthritic hands won’t bend.

There’s a party round the Tree,

In the television room.

Paraplegics and amputees;

Young men,

Plastered legs and chests.

The young girl,

The broken neck

-her bed rolls in as well

The party starts

But never starts

A celebration with no end.

Room One’s the place;

Young men waylaid by

 Fate and foolishness

-their life stands still.

Old beyond their years,

They watch the world go by.

The handsome young Italian,

Knees stiff, legs straight

Opens the “champagne”,

A “lucky” quad who can wheel his chair

Pours drinks.

Cheers, Merry Christmas,

Happy New Year!

They reminisce

The good old days,

 -Before…..

One in plaster;

A sweat-suit of armour

He can’t sit up.

…Asks for a plastic straw

It’s hot inside his tortoise shell,

And can’t escape the smell.

The young boy in the corner

 Just reached his nineteenth year

Memory’s pain

When he sees his body now

His paralysed, frail body,

His amputated leg,

His once-strong muscles wasted,

The sores he’s got in bed.

He jerks his hand across the sheets

Quadriplegic fingers trailing like a broom

To dust the fruit-cake crumbs away

And to scratch his greasy, itchy head.

He dreams of gleaming motor bikes

 .. He’ll never ride again.

One day he’ll have a wheel chair

Then silent cries within his lonely soul..

It echoes through his private hell.

And yet he never grumbles

Never cries aloud,

Never envies anyone

He just smiles and says he’s well.

They all start laughing,

It makes the time go fast.

Comradeship soothes the sorrows;

Alcohol keeps them sane.

Christmas C3,

Much like last year’s,

An old nurse tells me,

Misery, hard work,

And heavy wheel-chair showers.

I collapse on my bed at three.