Poetry or not

With the beginning of the new year, I begin a new cycle of poems---poems of Despair and Abandon.  You, dear reader, have the benefit (?) of my uncensored thoughts, my rough drafts.  So, be warned.  I do not promise prettification or commodification.  If you want the glib visuality and cliches of so-called  social networks, you won't find that here.  You have been warned.  No successes, no achievements, no proud accomplishments; but, yet, perhaps, on a good day, only life itself.....

Poems of Despair

My mother is working,

working today,

as she has every day of her life.

But, no;

it's not like every other day.

There is more urgency,

more crowding,

less generosity in the neighborhood than when she was a child,

less generosity

because others are working,

with crowded urgency.

She is working,

and her labor does not count among the statistics

of the unemployed or employed or discouraged workers;

I would call her a worker who is not allowed a retirement,

a worker who is not allowed peace,

a worker who is not allowed rest.

Do you tell me that what's done out of love should not be called work?

Then, what do you call it?

As she struggles to carry food from one room to another,

struggles because her leg is frozen,

her back in unceasing pain,

and because her husband is hungry,

and if she doesn't do it,

no one else will.

All that out of love?

Yes, of course,

but don't distort it to fit your greeting-card sentiments.

It is a struggle,

It is effortful,

It is difficult and demanding,

and there is little leisure or rest in her days.

She is caring for her husband:

She will feed him,

Clean him if he dirties himself at his toilet,

admonish him to be careful,

help him put the telephone alongside his ear,

and she will arrange his doctor appointments,

and her own.

She will manage his eighty-seven year old life,

and her own of eighty-six years.

And she will not have much time to laugh at a joke,

unless her helpers manage to find something funny.

She will nurse her aching leg,

and try to stay on schedule with her own pain-killers.

Pain-killers? 
Do they kill the pain?
Not at all!
No, they are merely  pain moderators,
pain diminishers,
not pain eliminators.

A man in the train suggested to me that my mother was addicted,
that if she cries and cannot sleep when deprived (for months) of her medicine,
she must be an addict!
 

That threw me.

I thought about it and thought about it.
And I thought about the cruel discomfort
which my mother experienced
only because
a cruel system of Don't-Care
is designed to say NO easier than Yes.
 

Addicted?

What a stupid, easy suggestion!

There is nothing the doctors can do for her,

No cure available.
No way to make her back young again.
No way to reverse a lifetime of arthritis pain,
only now become more intense.

There is no cure for her constant pain,

pain which doesn't go away even when she takes the medications.

A degenerative condition,

A life of pain as a reward for a long life,

A short life with intense pain

because the medical systém managed to keep her alive

until now,

when she could enjoy the peace of old age,

but, more importantly,

so long as she is alive,

various companies and even hedge funds will have access

to the funds accumulated in my parents' Medicare account.

They will be rewarded for my mother's suffering.