“Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance” - Plato

Which Doctor?
 
I have a gnawing in my heart
     That niggles noon till night.
All rhyme and reason fall apart –
     My rhythm isn’t right.
I cannot fight this nagging blight
     With symptoms so perverse
That when I seek a remedy
     My malady gets worse.
 
I have a harpy in my head
     Whose carping pains my brain
With wails to wake the very dead
     And drive the live insane.
If only experts could explain
     The causes of my curse –
But when I seek a remedy
     My malady gets worse.
 
I have a shiver neath my skin
     That quivers through my bones.
I have an itch and twitch within
     My optic rods and cones.
A specialist would probe these zones
     Assisted by a nurse –
But when I seek a remedy
     My malady gets worse.
 
I need to heed the grim alarm
     That’s ringing in my ears,
Alerting me to certain harm
     From snowy-coated seers
With stethoscopes and fierce ideas
          To which I am averse –
     For when I seek a remedy
          My malady gets worse.
 
My stressful quest to find the best
     Physician blessed with skill
May lay my sickly soul to rest
     With pills for every ill
On which I’ll choke – my cure could kill
     Then toss me in a hearse –
Cos when I seek a remedy
     My malady gets worse.
 
Susan Jarvis Bryant


If you have any thoughts about this poem, Susan Jarvis Bryant  would be pleased to hear them