as I lay dying eyes wide shut voices, I hear voices under the bridge is death the end present but temporal through the looking glass destined to be wandering in a lost land all that you’ve held sacred falls down chances missed, opportunities avoided does the misery continue is it all a mystery peace, settlement, nothingness melancholy morbidity a moment of eternity an eternity of moments emerging from the rabbit hole remember that death need not be the end or is it?
© 2016 Michael D Emmerich
my finger is on the trigger the needle is in the vein my blood is on my hands my soul is in disarray my dreams are littered with death the smells soak my dreams drenching my bed sheets awakening, bound in linen and sweet in the distance I see fields littered with red poppies drooping, dripping in the morning mist bending with the weight of the unknown mortality waits at every turn the knife blade glints in the morning dew the bare wrist looks inviting as the knife slides silently into its sheath the red mist clears the sun breaks through the clouds my soul is in my hands the red poppies look beautiful this morning
© 2016 Michael D Emmerich
draft or dodge conscription or jail exile or war hero traitor or coward choices that define or break who is the enemy the just or unjust war justified by the church who stands aside letting death slip quietly by welcoming death in gods name it shall be done who chose this war justified by the politician arrogance greed and power forcing boys to become men to become killers for the sake of an ‘ism, as told by an idiot who has the most to lose who binds the wounds that bleed the scars that don’t heal the wounds you cannot see none but the fellow beside him neither the church or politicians in whose name their blood is discarded along with their futures whose life is to be sacrificed not mine said the politician, suckling on the teat of corporate greed not mine said the bishop, god made me do it not mine said the arms dealer, I just sell death not mine said the general, I’ve done my time not mine said the wealthy, the poor are the pawns not mine said the socialite, I’ll read it on page seven who has the most to gain At whose cost At what cost WHY? FUCK WAR!
© 2016 Michael D Emmerich
My father would have been 82 today, but sadly he passed away 3 years ago. I still miss him, and have been thinking about him a lot of late. Was lying awake during the night thinking of my father. The loss of a parent who was dearly loved leaves a pain that always lingers.
fathers are refuge from the storms of life when that safe port passes on when the lighthouse fades all that is left are the memories memories never fade they are never forgotten or passed over they remain memories shine through the mists of time even when the lights fade and no one lives there they remain constant, eternal not ethereal these remain, never forgotten what was once real is now no longer the reminders of your love do not fade they remain through the years we walked different paths they diverged and merged over the years at the end they had become one constant reminders of our togetherness unconditional love learnt remains
© 2016 Michael D Emmerich
Last thing I remember I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man, “We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like but you can never leave”
EAGLES – Hotel California
EMS is like the Hotel California: “You can check out anytime you like… but you can never leave” the memories, faces, successes and failures will always be with us. They dim at times over the years, but they are always there. I read a thought provoking and honest analysis on being a paramedic a few months back and have been mulling over her post, digging through ramblings from my field journals and the skeleton of a story I have been working on for about 2 years… these all prompted me to ramble further…
The blog post that triggered this article is: Unless you’ve been there, you wouldn’t understand: A Paramedics farewell to the job. Posted on February 10, 2015 by Di McMath
One of the key issues for me is the ability/or lack thereof to detach from what we are doing and seeing; this drags one into the massively dehumanising temptation of EMS. I do feel that this dehumanisation is both inexorable and dangerous – as practitioners we need to know how to halt or slow it down. After 30 years of emergency medicine practise; I am still not entirely sure if we can entirely halt the process, which is why we can never fully check-out.
Being a fan of the poetry of Wilfred Owen, and as I reread his poems on a regular basis, I was drawn back to his poems during this thought process and found some further insight on reading “Insensibility”:
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt
The poem plays along the interesting juxtaposed lines of detached versus involved, and the varied degrees of these mindsets. Those of us in the profession have over the years dabbled with both approaches, the trick is for each individual to find his/her own balance. That is all part of the process of slowing down the dehumanising process. Finding this balance is key, if we do not, then we are doomed to keep repeating the mistakes of our past (mistakes as regards emotions and those of a clinical nature).
Emergency Medicine has the ability to dehumanise and diminish or renew and expand our powers of feeling. It is our choice to decide which path to follow. We realise soon on in our profession that this is one of the many choices that we have to make. How we deal with this choice determines how we deal with another key critical decision we as practitioners in the field are confronted with at numerous times in our career. Who lives or dies, or why do some people die despite our best efforts; and the pain of admitting defeat and saying okay, we need to stop now, the patient is deceased.
It is on these crucial scenarios, that I have to agree with the title of Di’s blogpost:
Unless you have been there you wouldn’t understand – Its sounds trite, but it is so true.
Trying to explain this process of immediate Triage, that at times needs to be done in very short time frames, less than a minute, is very difficult. Those are some of the choices we can never walk away from, and even when we do make them we cannot stop thinking about “What If?” the curse and bane of every paramedic. The cursed ability to second guess yourself long after the fact on an ongoing basis. It is here where we as emergency medicine practitioners are faced with the dehumanising and diminishing or the renewing and expanding of mental and medical health.
The goal of our profession should be a living force in the quest for and prevention of human suffering, but that sometimes comes at the cost of our own mental health. As we enter, continue in and exit this amazing profession, lets consider the cost to those we have served and continue to serve. All we can do as practitioners is warn, and that is why the practitioner needs to be truthful.
Over the past few days a good friend of mine passed away, and upon his passing, and it has dragged me along to think of death, the fragile state of our existence and how quickly and unexpectedly the candle can be snuffed out. It made me remember something my dad said before he died: that its a sad day when you get to the stage of your live when your friends start to die around you … having lost a few friends of late, all in their mid 50’s, I have had cause to gaze introspectively at my navel, and just contemplate life.. and all its joys, friends, family and time spent with them, recollections of past events/encounters, and all the pleasure that these interactions have brought.
For those who know me, they would say that it is an irony that I get so closely caught up in death, with all its pain and emotion, seeing as though I have seen so much of it in my career, in so many places and caused by so many different events. All that prevents me from getting dragged into the quagmire of death; is my ability to insulate myself, build a wall…although that has also been to my own detriment, and I have, of late become more immersed in the death and pain which I encounter in my daily walk.
All these thoughts, emotions and reflections have moved me to pen this poem:
The Ven of Life
all that we are and have is our emotions interactions and experiences all that we have is the ven of our lifes as we journey through life we cross paths with strangers friends, family and loved ones it is these paths that cross intersect which drag us into the ven the bigger the interaction the greater the ven the more we interact the more we ven we cannot exist without interacting the extent of our interactions increases our circle the more we interact the more we overlap seeking to be apart of the greater universal circle the commonality of our existence increases our ven the more walls we break down the more we interact the more expose ourselves to risk and become more fragile this fragility increases our ven which then enriches our lives only through the ven of life can we fully enjoy and appreciate all that life has to offer so ven on!
© 2015 Michael D Emmerich
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