Jamie Woods

            Silence is elusive, is illusive.

            When your head is on the pillow

            and you think that it’s close

            you complacently relax and it scurries.

            Clocks ticking.

            The mundane drip of the tap, the one

            with handles for elbows 

            that you’re too far away from to give a nudge off.

            The low-level buzz of electric light.

            The slow wheeze heart and lung churn of the IV pump

            and the siren when it’s nearly run out or you just bump the tube.

            Other people’s ringtones, message chimes,

            other people’s phone calls. Other people’s conversations.

            The excitement of family,

            the desperate anger.

            The admin of auxiliaries and nurses and doctors,

            the gossip of auxiliaries and nurses and doctors.

            The driving mechanics, the alarms, the beeps;

            blood pressure, oxygen count, your still-beating heart.

            Painkillers wearing off.

            The screams fly as wraiths through walls and curtains

            biting and snatching away dying hope.

            At night, at day – no time here, just numbers  –

            the ward whispers sting with invasiveness,

            the rumbles of breathlessness and nasal congestion,

            the snores, the moans, hurt like needles.

            The shock, the pain, the begging.

            The trundle of the drug trolley,

            and the screams at night, my God,

            the screams at night terrify, terrorise.

            Clarion calls for carrion attacks.

            Not me, not this time.

            Clocks ticking.

            Headphones on, I sleep with the spoken word,

            smooth voices, TED talks and shipping forecasts,

            waking throughout, until Thought for the Day:

            unrested, unblessed, undead.