Medical Procedures

Tonsilectomy 1960

I was in 1st Grade, when I had tonsillitis
I was taken to old Providence Hospital
In Kansas City Kansas
Where I was born
7up with ice cubes that
they made drink though it burned
like fire going down my throat.

I fell asleep
as they took
on the gurney,
The attendant told my
Mother I had fallen asleep
I fell asleep so they wouldn't
Give me a shot.

Arthoscopy 1987

The day I hurt my knee,
I asked her to marry me
A month before my wedding
They shaved cartiledge from
My right knee
You may have arthritis later
In your life my doctor said.
My fiancée took me home
Where I drank chicken broth
And took darvocetts for pain.
As I write this my right knee hurts
She has remarried and has a 5 year old child

Endoscopy 1994

What can I say,
I had a lot of job stress at work
My brother was dying of
Incurable heart disease
And stomach acid would keep me up
Til the middle of the night
The Indian Doctor put me under
Yelled at his nurse
After the procedure was over,
My throat was sore and
I had a hietal hernia and was lactose intolerant
A few days later, my brother went code blue
And literally died before my parents eyes.
No parent should ever have
To live through the loss of a child
My mother later said.

Colonopscopy 2004

I was suffering from rectal itch
It was the same Indian doctor
He had mellowed and didn't
Yell at nurses now.
I did the "colon cleanse"
48 hours of shit happens
and happens and happens
after the ordeal
my friend Sam took me home
The doctor recommended I take
Metamucil for the rectal itch.
And get another colonopscopy in 5 years
Two months later I had my first blood clot
A year later, the first symptoms of MS

Endoscopy and Colonopscopy 2009

It was a new colon cleanse
That lasted only 36 hours.
I lay on the gurney and tried
To sleep wishing at least that
The ghost of my mother was
Walking me down the hall
To the procedure room
Where a different Indian Doctor
Shove a tube down my throat
And up my toucus
I could see on TV the program
I called up Jamie's colon
It wasn't all that fascinating
As the demorral wore off
The different Indian Doctor
Told me I had ulcers
Gave me a scrip
And rushed off to grab a sandwich
Or a game of golf.
He also told me he'd see me again
In one month and again
In five years.
I can,
Hardly wait.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Medical Procedures copyright Sept. 30, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Can't abide a sloppy man

Neat, that's how he's always looked
His momma always made sure
His hair was combed, his shirt was pressed
"Can't abide a sloppy man," she'd always say.

Marines made him neat as well, tougher too.
Korea was hell but when he was on
R&R in Japan, his boots and belt buckle
always gleamed.

Working in the Midway Sunset oilfield
Was hot, dirty and hard.
But he never was sloppy.
In the oilfields, like Korea, sloppy got you killed

He looks dapper today
Straw cowboy hat
Bolo tie with the blue turquoise slide
starched plaid shirt and pressed khaki pants.

Riding his power scooter
round the block by the assisted living facility
no need to change the habits of lifetime.
Never was sloppy. Sloppy gets you killed

Capitano Tedeschi

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Can't abide a sloppy man copyright Sept. 22, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

El Corazon Del Valle San Joaquin

El Corazon Del Valle San Joaquin

For Teresa Anderson (died Jan. 9, 2006).


Fox

The San Joaquin Kit Fox
is like a magician
Kit foxes can make themselves disappear
Once I saw a kit fox with a kitten
in its mouth trotting away
from a house on the edge of Bakersfield
one minute it was there
next it just disappeared
invisible amongst the sage and dessicated grass

Owl

The burrowing owl
pretends to be wise
he stands outside his borrow
close to the Kern River Bike Path
by the shores of Lake Truxtun
fishermen, joggers, walkers, and cyclists
all pass by
None of them bother or frighten him
At night he soars above the parking lots
at the edge of the Market Place shopping center
he listens for the squeal of the mouse
and then he swoops
no more squealing just the flapping
of his wings.
during the day he ignores
the people on the bike path
It is not night
they are not mice
Did I not say the burrowing owl
pretends to be wise?

Grizzly Bear

The California Grizzly Bear is history.
The last one in Kern County
was killed in 1898.
But the grizzly bears once were everywhere
Places names bear this out
Bear Mountain, Big Bear, Los Osos
They ruled California before man first came
They ruled California when man came
because Indians' flint arrows and small bows
could not kill all of them.
But when the Spaniards and the Americans came
with their big bore muskets
The California Grizzly was doomed.
They survive in Canada and Alaska
There have been rumors
that grizzlies have been sighted
in the Sierras of northern California.
But who, who I ask you,
believes rumors?

Ernesto

Ernesto, (Call me Ernie) is a retired
PG & E engineer.
His grandparents came from Mexico
in 1910 refugees from the civil war
His father and mother picked grapes
in Delano, except during the strike.
He spends his morning in Starbucks
talking to his friends, he has many.
Today he sits alone talking on his cell phone
to his youngest daughter,
a student at CSU San Francisco.
I eavesdrop on his side of the conversation.
"What do you mean you want to quit college?"
"Where you gonna live?"
"No you ain't living with me.
"I got no room in my house for a college dropout!"
End of conversation.

All

Fox, owl, bear, and man
we live in this land, sometimes we share it.
Mostly we share the bad,
the heat, lack of rain, smoggy air, pesticides,
and poverty.
Making do. Trying to do better
than eat, sleep, mate, and survive
Doing better ain't easy,
but some how it gets done.

Capitano Tedeschi

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El Corazon Del Valle copyright Sept. 19, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Rain Maker

Rain Maker

It is getting dark
The sun has set,
All that is left of the day is
A yellow band of light
A ribbon hovering
Just above the peaks of the mountains
Of the Temblors and the Coast Range
Like a wind blown piece of silk

I sit on a bus bench, that is on an edge
Of the city of Bakersfield
Drinking ice water from a sports bottle
My dog lies behind me
Licking her paws.
In the distance I see lights starting
To blink a reddish yellow
The lights are people in houses
In Fellows, Mariposa and Taft.
Lights of pumping units and
Transformer stations
Strung like party lights
Along the foothills of this mountainous bowl
That rings the Southern San Joaquin Valley.

Seven years I have lived
One half mile from this bus bench
And this is the first time
I have come with my dog
To contemplate the sunset
So I sit as twilight becomes
Evening and a cool summer night begins.

Finally it is time for me and my dog
To head home.
I pour my remaining water out as a libation
Thank God for the blessing and the gift of rain
I pray for rain for this drought stricken valley
Cars rush by.
kids racing past the high School
Adults in SUV's on some important errand
I don't expect my prayer to be answered
Miracles happen all round me
Provided I have eyes to see
I don't need my prayer to be answered.
But I guess, one has to pray for something.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Rain Maker copyright Sept. 15, 2009, by Jamie Jacks

Small Price That, First Day of Classes

Small Price That

He came into the University library
A youngish man in his mid-twenties
With an artificial lower left leg
I wondered where he had fought
Afghanistan, probably Iraq.

George W. Bush, and his dreams of Empire
We'd be welcomed as liberators Cheney said
We were, but then welcomed with land mines
And roadside bombs.
The Decider decided to get the man
Who tried to kill his daddy
Got him too

Safe now in his Dallas suburb
The Decider still no regrets.
It's too bad that
This someone, is one thousands of someones
who lost his lower left leg to get Saddam.
Small price that.

First day of classes

They come
for a different kind of knowing
To sign on, watch a video, or email
An invisible professor.
They want their class schedules and
Online course passwords
They come .
With different needs
Seldom are there questions
That I can answer

Above my empty, aching head,
Knowledge lies filed
And is waiting
Theories of poetry when written poetry
When poetry was formed
Proper prayers to cure the plague
from the 14th Century
The letters of a Union soldier
From an Iowa Regiment
Computer languages
and the proper way for a nurse
to conduct an MRI

Meanwhile the call centers in Bangalore
Have thousands solving all our computer problems
In China thousands of engineers work
60 hours a week for $600 a month
designing future electric cars
as for the new students
they wander in
I sigh,
Against such relentless competion
There is so little
I can give them

Capitano Tedeschi

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Small Price That, First Day of Classes copyright Sept. 14, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Defying the Sun, Osama Bin Laden & Like a Beggar

Defying the sun

Today I did defy the sun.
It was 98 degrees and air was
So polluted that it can
make lungs feel like you’re
just huffed exhaust fumes
from the tail pipe of a Hummer

I soaked my jersey and cycling cap
in water before the ride
I rode slowly on shady back streets
That had little traffic.

The sun was setting and I pedaled from
shady spot to shady spot
until my cycling was done

I came home to all those
wonderful rewards,
a cool drink of water
a shower that rinses away
both care and sweat
and then I laid naked on clean sheets
While the cool air of the fan
evaporated the remaining moisture from my body.
I closed my eyes and rested

I have traveled the world
And drunk deep
searching for release
from lonliness, pain and regret.
All my efforts to find oblivion only
manufactured more pain and misery.
During all those sad times,
I never--not never

imagined such sweet pleasures
as a cool drink, a quick shower.
a nap beside a whispering fan.

Much is wrong with me
but cycling
even in the heat of a smoggy summer day
cures some of that

Osama Bin Laden

He spends his days
A hunted man
In a safe house in Pakistan
Drinking tea, surfing the internet
Raising his children
Fondling his wives

Some day he’ll die
Though I doubt that
No American missile
Will kill him

But on that day
In the slums of Cairo
And the streets of Karachi,
He will be celebrated
As the first great Military genius
Of the 21^st Century.

With just 4 jet liners
And 20 men,
He set in motion the
Chain of events
Which has brought America,
the greatest
Nation of the 20^st Century
To the brink of destruction

Of course he was lucky
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld were his enemies

Like a Beggar

Why do I bother with you?
Like a beggar pretending to be deaf
Or a deaf man pretending to be a beggar
I just stand here waving my hands
As if the waving had meaning.

But in the end all there is
Is my need.
And who really needs that?

You reply with a shake of your head
I'd have to be blind not to know
What that means.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Defying the Sun, Osama Bin Laden & Like a Beggar copyright Sept. 12, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Spare Change & Arise Tim McVeigh

Spare Change We Can Believe In

The bum
outside the bookstore
Asks for spare change
probably to buy crank or Ripple

Would he be here
if he had had access to
affordable mental health care?
I don’t give him
Any spare change
either.

Arise Tim McVeigh!!!

A Kenyan Muslim is president
Liberals, those Socialist, Nazi, Commie, Fags
run my country
in eight months
they have destroyed America
with their false promises
of affordable health care
And their unspoken threats to
seize our guns.

The body of Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh moulders
in some unmarked grave.
His soul yearns to rent a Ryder truck
and park it outside
an inner city daycare center
His proud soul yearns
to march on
America awake!!!!!!!!.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Spare Change & Arise Tim McVeigh copyright Sept. 1, 2009 by Jamie Jacks