Today is my youngest son’s 37th birthday. A couple of years ago he went into a coma after an old friend gave him a “kill shot” with the intent to rob him. We didn’t know if he’d survive a week, let alone recover. He has since married and moved on, still suffering from short-term memory and other symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. But he’s keeping on keeping on! Here are poems we wrote about his bad trip. I CAN’T SLEEP By David Allen I can’t sleep while my son sleeps this troubled sleep. A seizure slapped his skull with a wash of blood that squeezed his brain and forced the sleep with eyes rolled up and shaking limbs. A tube plunged down his throat helps him breathe, while one in his skull drains the invading blood. And we caress him and hold his hands and give assurances of undying love, as he sleeps the drug-induced sleep from which we were told might never end. I can’t sleep while my son sleeps what well might be the final dream about what may or may not come next. I WAS ASLEEP By Matthew Allen I was asleep for two weeks. Then I woke up relearning how to speak, walking on legs that were already weak. I asked if the hemorrhage was from the tweak. Yup The tweak exploded a vein in my brain causing a blood clot, killin’ parts of the gray matter that controlled movement on my left side, my speech, and short term memory. It was a little like blowin’ a head gasket or having a water pipe burst and flood the basement. I’ll tell you about it, but, don’t ask me too much. I don’t know why my “friends ” gave me what the cops called a “kill shot” to knock me out and steal stuff from my Dad’s house. The docs are telling me my memory May not ever be the same, But I know one thing --I’m still fightin’ and will get better While those “friends” rot in prison.
Matt and his wife Heather
WANDERLUST
By David Allen
It's a wonder my parents
didn’t get in trouble
for letting me run free.
From as far back as I remember,
I did things that could have
brought charges of child neglect
for allowing me to run wild.
I am the oldest of seven children
and gladly surrendered the role
of mother's little helper
to my sister, two years younger,
while I discovered the world.
Trespassing was my usual crime.
Abandoned homes, factories,
military bases, and the estates
of Roaring Twenties millionaires,
decayed after the Depression.
They were my playground.
I never knew what I might find
Signs of a ghost?
Old books, photos?
Remains of animals?
Forgotten paintings?
Broken statues?
Stairways to the sky?
I once found the blackened
remainder of a forgotten pie
in an old wood oven.
In a mildewed closet,
I discovered a half-filled diary
that ended with a huge
hand-drawn exclamation point.
In a flooded factory basement
I used a wooden door as a raft.
I was lucky no one
ever confronted me
as I sought what remained
when life moved on
to other structures
and other worlds.
