Elusive Sleep

When you measure their age in days
You cannot sleep because they don't

When you measure their age in months
You cannot sleep because they are sick

When you measure their age in years
You cannot sleep because they have no friends

No-one tells you before you become a mother
That you will never sleep properly again!

Compression bandages of life

I send emoji hugs
I smile and blink away tears

"H+" come and look
"Is that you?"
Yes
"How old where you then?"
I must have been your age

The school yard
Impressive building
Arches in the corners

Memories
The sound of beating drums
Singing and rocking
The sandy brick ground

It must have been

The year before


It gets easier with every year that passes
Memories fade
Painful jolts infrequent

Mostly days, weeks, and months pass by
In the numbing ordinary
Work, school, house
Treat, check, cook and clean
Everyday worries of
Parents, siblings, children
Health, wealth, and hopes
Layers and layers of normal
Compression bandages under which
The ulcers get smaller all the time

Ring true?

Heard this on the radio this afternoon, feels like it was written about me

Felix Dennis

Never go back.  Never go back.
Never return to the haunts of your youth.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track,
Memory holds all you need of the truth.

Never look back.  Never look back.
Never succumb to the gorgon’s stare.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track,
No-one is waiting and nothing is there.

Never go back.  Never go back.
Never surrender the future you’ve earned.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track,
Never return to the bridges you burned.

Never look back.  Never look back.
Never retreat to the ‘glorious past’.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track,
Treat every day of your life as your last.

Never go back.  Never go back.
Never acknowledge the ghost on the stair.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track,
No-one is waiting and nothing is there.

Heavy Heart

After fifty shifting the heaviness becomes more difficult

Daytime covering my trainees who manned the picket line today in protest of the inevitable pay cut, the deferring of retirement for a further five years, the obligation to work a minimum of 13 weekends a year, in protest of the changes that will come, and be followed by the same rules applied to us old folk, in probability before I have finished paying for the children's education.

Four relapses today, four families, four long discussions, one less choice each, compromising length for the quality of days that remain.
Four new combinations to try, one phase I trial, there is almost always a little hope left, and as they leave smiling, thanking, clutching my hand, I feel like a cheat, have we really cheated death today? or have I just led them into misguided belief?

Evenings skimming through images I just cannot comprehend
What happens to someone to make them goad their starving fellow citizens with images of their ample meals?
What drives someone to spread their poisonous thoughts along with their body parts all over so many cities in our eternally muddled east?

At fifty, his heavy heart suddenly stopped
He was in my year in medical school, and for the past two days the pages have been brimming over with platitudes, poetry and prayers for a father, a healer, another mild mannered mind lost forever

I remember uttering some of these same words, many years ago, but never did I promise a child that they would meet their parent again in some better place, never did I state that the chosen ones were spared the torture of the grave.

Hardened and standoffish, I explicitly describe what will happen in the next few weeks, potential events, and what can or cannot be done about them, trained to be true, to be open and keep no secrets, years of practice numbing me to her distress, to her silent request that this not be true, or at least not be spoken.

"She is such a pessimist" her daughter tells my trainee, "I prefer you younger doctors"

"That has become my job" I reply, "the final deliverer of sorrow"

Selfish thoughts

It is probably the most selfish of positions
But every time something like this happens, my thoughts are always the same
Self-preservation
Thoughts that go round and round my mind
Hour after hour
Night after night

They told me to try and hold the thought for a minute
To challenge it
"How likely is it to happen" in my mind very
"What is the worse thing that could happen" read the history books
"Will this matter in five years' time" in my mind this is becoming more likely as time goes by

I listen to an extended "any answers" on the radio
The caller suggest that refugees be militarily trained and forced to go back and fight
Another that anyone likely to be "one of them" be sent to a concentration camp in Scotland
And that friends and family "who should have known" will also be sent there

I find myself thinking up plans to be prepared
Looking for strategies from the past
Who survived when Europe last turned on its minority religion?
What did survivors have that others didn't?

Apparently best chance was
Married to someone of a different religion
Connection to someone in authority
Money
Certain professions including scientist, tailors chefs, musicians
Aged teens to thirty
Male
Healthy
Committed to some ideal
Connected to country by language / heritage
Able to establish and maintain links with others including outside immediate family

Ultimately I conclude it also depended on whether or not one was able to influence others to leave with the children before it was too late  

RE homework

Write 200 words on the subject "life under occupation"

I thought you could help me
It isn't as if anyone else will have any knowledge about this

Half an hour later

Stories "as conveyed"
Emotions
Descriptions
Bullet points

Half an hour later
Toned down
Diluted
All specifics removed

What do you think?

Well it just seems like you are describing a natural disaster

Ok then that will probably be safe

Endless cycle of misery

For decades or longer the Europeans mistrust their Jewish minorities

As a result "nationalist" and "religious" political movements are born

Calling for the creation of a "state" based on ancient history and religion

There is poverty, followed by war in Europe

Half the European Jews are murdered

A proportion of the remainders "migrate" to Palestine

The new Jewish "state" thrives, but causes wave upon wave of catastrophes for all its neighbours

As a direct result numerous "nationalist" and "religious" political movements are born

Calling for the creation of a "state" based on ancient history and religion

There is poverty and war in the Middle East

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are murdered

A proportion of the remainder "migrate" to Europe

For decades or longer the Europeans mistrust their Muslim minorities

As a result.............