Spoken Word Yet Unspoken

I wrote this piece nine years ago, while I was sitting in that Nauga-hide chair. The "waiting for winter" line came true... By January of the next year I was in remission. This piece was written with a bold, expressive rhythm in mind, and I always thought I would perform it as a spoken word piece... That never happened, for one reason or another, but maybe someday It will. tjh

Poison Fruit

Polyurethane vines carry the

nectar of a very peculiar fruit.

It hangs there dripping its poison, not

on the ground below, but into my

veins.

You sink into pink Nauga-hide

surrounded by sickness. All of us

marching to the mantra - One day

at a time, one day at a time. I sit

while serious women juxtaposed to

their brightly colored, cartoon character

smocks with matching draw-string

pants WORK the room. It’s an

unnatural blend of nurse and flight

attendant passing out peanuts, cold drinks

and the strange, poison fruit. They hang bags

and recite medications with a slapped on

smile, that flight attendant smile that

disappears as quickly as it landed

on their lips. Then it’s down to the business

at hand, accessing ports like tugboat captains

and tapping veins like miners.

I hear rhythms, rhymes, lyrics

perhaps - a bizarre little ditty sung

in E flat it goes...

Poison fruit hangs from a stainless

steel tree, dripping its nectar into me.

Every 21 days a new crop appears.

Same poisons. Same fruit. Same fears.

Poison fruit plucked from its metal

limb, 21 days and you’re back again.

At its sweetest, this strange fruit goes

on a killing spree, breaking down the

disease that is crippling me.

I’m waiting for winter, when the

metal limbs are bare. There is no

smell of sickness, no Nauga-hide chair.

I’m living for a scar where the

disease used to be. No more

sweet sickness, no poison fruit for me.

Thom Jordan Holden - Cancer Survivor