Hospital
I was prepared
for your skin enamel skeleton,
immobilised in a blanket cocoon,
but my inability to blunt your agony
struck with brute force, repeatedly.
Sometimes, you tried to move.
Your emaciated head outweighed a planet.
You drifted between sleeping, waking
and The Twilight zone.
What could you see,
as your eyes rolled back?
Sometimes,
moaning in pain was indistinguishable
from embracing a dream.
I adjusted your bed
as nervously as a first time forklift operator.
Your wife returned to show me
the ideal slope and elevation.
Once upon a time,
they were hiking questions.
I’d known you for sixteen years.
Never, had I felt awkward in your presence.
But as you lay in your hospital bed,
still fighting the cancer
as it made inroads into your brain,
I didn’t know what to say.
I wavered between calm and panicky,
as I prattled on about bushwalking,
art museums, break dancing exhibitions,
creative writing adventures
and white board scenes on your wall.
Someone had drawn castles, dragons,
hobbit villages, you and your wife,
with black marking pen.
Few could’ve outdone them
with pencils and sketching pads.
I decided the only thing missing was unicorns.
This didn’t please or bother you
as you lay there in the grips
of another tumour addled dream.
Your eyes fluttered open.
I tried Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rendition of Little Wing.
It landed, soared and played with the atmosphere,
but I could not tell
if those flitting wings conjured heaven or hell.
Finally, I tried silence.
It was more beautiful than music.
If you’re still here on Monday,
I’ll read a relaxation therapy script.
I can do that without looking terrified.
The Great Beyond
A day has passed.
You’ve stopped drinking water.
Soon, you will leave your cancer eaten shell.
Which will be my strongest emotion?
Grief or relief?
Your ecstasy will surpass a gold medal winner’s,
as you journey into forgotten realms.
Vast canyon’s, glittering, gleaming,
pulsing with unknowns and unknowables.
Spiritual, physical, they’re just words.
Planets form through your windows.
What is fast, what is slow,
when no camera shutter can open
before you’ve watched the aeons grow?
The speed of light constrains
in the land of the frozen.
Strolling through Van Gogh’s pallets now.
More shades of gentle fire than atoms.
Then, the colour sprites come out to play.
A trillion senses intermingle with the famous five.
Do you see how the manes
of the woolly giraffes dance.
Beethoven fashions follicle motion
into symphony medleys.
On Earth,
he had eighty eight keys to craft magic.
Our little rock lacks the real estate
to house his heavenly instrument.
His untethered mind is a galaxy of fingers.
Upon an ocean spanning bridge
he is a humble busker.
Here, we’d call that an eventful morning.
There, clocks mean less.
We need up and down.
You’re not so easily disoriented
as you fashion Olympus Mons snow
into floating palaces.
Yes, infinite dimensions overlapping.
Is my montage more than a mirage?
Are you drinking starshine like a fruit cocktail,
sucking it in through makeshift skin,
as your being basks in clouds of compassion?
Are your ancestors smiling upon you?
Are your families there and here?
Consciousness is complicated.
The religious fake answers.
Scientists get stuck in the static of knowing too.
After Death
Now your body is ash,
the flavour of my musings is simpler.
Yesterday,
I sculpted your remains into the Mona Lisa
and the Persistence of Memory.
There was no glue.
I did it with a leaf blower
and a cloud of dust.
The wind was mildly co-operative.
Is fancier, bigger, faster
the road to serenity?
Are floating ice palaces needed?
When your ethereal eyes flutter open
will your heavenly figure be draped
in silkworm humbling sheets?
Are they the hessian mongers of heaven?
In a place where insects and arachnids
give free massages,
maybe a bed of leaves is enough.
© Rodney Hunter, 2023
The Surreal Art Psychonaut 