Still Here

Entombed like a tulip bulb Rolled up with no way out Buried alive And if that Weren’t bad enough There’s a racket Like world’s end Coming from above Like the lid of the coffin Will collapse And I’ll be crushed As well as smothered There is a mask Of hard plastic Upon my face

I can’t move my arms My fear level Is fast approaching panic I know if I panic The scant oxygen Between me and the Top of the lid Will escape even faster I will accelerate my own demise

The tube I have been inserted into Like the cork of a bottle Is looking deep into my brain Bubbles suspended in glass

All the while My left hand Is fingering the panic button The MRI will be Interrupted If I become Overly claustrophobic Or otherwise find myself In a panic

All because I have become deaf In my left ear And they don’t know why Doctors want to ensure That it isn’t a tumor in my Brain interfering with my senses

I’ve grown used to it now I have adapted I am grateful that I can hear at all And see and ambulate Get around, make sound Make breakfast, make whoopie Make dinner, make friends

When I listen to my Beatles records I hear their stereophonic harmonies In old-fashioned mono And I still feel a little like The fool on the hill Who sees the sun going down Earlier than ever now And the world still spinning round