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Nigel Morgan Nov 2012
There’s a film by John Schlesinger called the Go-Between in which the main character, a boy on the cusp of adolescence staying with a school friend on his family’s Norfolk estate, discovers how passion and *** become intertwined with love and desire. As an elderly man he revisits the location of this discovery and the woman, who we learn changed his emotional world forever. At the start of the film we see him on a day of grey cloud and wild wind walking towards the estate cottage where this woman now lives. He glimpses her face at a window – and the film flashes back fifty years to a summer before the First War.
 
It’s a little like that for me. Only, I’m sitting at a desk early on a spring morning about to step back nearly forty years.*
 
It was a two-hour trip from Boston to Booth Bay. We’d flown from New York on the shuttle and met Larry’s dad at St Vincent’s. We waited in his office as he put away the week with his secretary. He’d been in theatre all afternoon. He kept up a two-sided conversation.
 
‘You boys have a good week? Did you get to hear Barenboim at the Tully? I heard him as 14-year old play in Paris. He played the Tempest -  Mary, let’s fit Mrs K in for Tuesday at 5.0 - I was learning that very Beethoven sonata right then. I couldn’t believe it - that one so young could sound –there’s that myocardial infarction to review early Wednesday. I want Jim and Susan there please -  and look so  . . . old, not just mature, but old. And now – Gloria and I went to his last Carnegie – he just looks so **** young.’
 
Down in the basement garage Larry took his dad’s keys and we roared out on to Storow drive heading for the Massachusetts Turnpike. I slept. Too many early mornings copying my teacher’s latest – a concerto for two pianos – all those notes to be placed under the fingers. There was even a third piano in the orchestra. Larry and his Dad talked incessantly. I woke as Dr Benson said ‘The sea at last’. And there we were, the sea a glazed blue shimmering in the July distance. It might be lobster on the beach tonight, Gloria’s clam chowder, the coldest apple juice I’d ever tasted (never tasted apple juice until I came to Maine), settling down to a pile of art books in my bedroom, listening to the bell buoy rocking too and fro in the bay, the beach just below the house, a house over 150 years old, very old they said, in the family all that time.
 
It was a house full that weekend,  4th of July weekend and there would be fireworks over Booth Bay and lots of what Gloria called necessary visiting. I was in love with Gloria from the moment she shook my hand after that first concert when my little cummings setting got a mention in the NYT. It was called forever is now and God knows where it is – scored for tenor and small ensemble (there was certainly a vibraphone and a double bass – I was in love from afar with a bassist at J.). Oh, this being in love at seventeen. It was so difficult not to be. No English reserve here. People talked to you, were interested in you and what you thought, had heard, had read. You only had to say you’d been looking at a book of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and you’d be whisked off to some uptown gallery to see his early watercolours. And on the way you’d hear a life story or some intimate details of friend’s affair, or a great slice of family history. Lots of eye contact. Just keep the talk going. But Gloria, well, we would meet in the hallway and she’d grasp my hand and say – ‘You know, Larry says that you work too hard. I want you to do nothing this weekend except get some sun and swim. We can go to Johnson’s for tennis you know. I haven’t forgotten you beat me last time we played!’ I suppose she was mid-thirties, a shirt, shorts and sandals woman, not Larry’s mother but Dr Benson’s third. This was all very new to me.
 
Tim was Larry’s elder brother, an intern at Felix-Med in NYC. He had a new girl with him that weekend. Anne-Marie was tall, bespectacled, and supposed to be ferociously clever. Gloria said ‘She models herself on Susan Sontag’. I remember asking who Sontag was and was told she was a feminist writer into politics. I wondered if Anne-Marie was a feminist into politics. She certainly did not dress like anyone else I’d seen as part of the Benson circle. It was July yet she wore a long-sleeved shift buttoned up to the collar and a long linen skirt down to her ankles. She was pretty but shapeless, a long straight person with long straight hair, a clip on one side she fiddled with endlessly, purposefully sometimes. She ignored me but for an introductory ‘Good evening’, when everyone else said ‘Hi’.
 
The next day it was hot. I was about the house very early. The apple juice in the refrigerator came into its own at 6.0 am. The bay was in mist. It was so still the bell buoy stirred only occasionally. I sat on the step with this icy glass of fragrant apple watching the pearls of condensation form and dissolve. I walked the shore, discovering years later that Rachel Carson had walked these paths, combed these beaches. I remember being shocked then at the concern about the environment surfacing in the late sixties. This was a huge country: so much space. The Maine woods – when I first drove up to Quebec – seemed to go on forever.
 
It was later in the day, after tennis, after trying to lie on the beach, I sought my room and took out my latest score, or what little of it there currently was. It was a piano piece, a still piece, the kind of piece I haven’t written in years, but possibly should. Now it’s all movement and complication. Then, I used to write exactly what I heard, and I’d heard Feldman’s ‘still pieces’ in his Greenwich loft with the white Rauschenbergs on the wall. I had admired his writing desk and thought one day I’ll have a desk like that in an apartment like this with very large empty paintings on the wall. But, I went elsewhere . . .
 
I lay on the bed and listened to the buoy out in the bay. I thought of a book of my childhood, We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome. There’s a drawing of a Beach End Buoy in that book, and as the buoy I was listening to was too far out to see (sea?) I imagined it as the one Ransome drew from Lowestoft harbour. I dozed I suppose, to be woken suddenly by voices in the room next door. It was Tim and Anne-Marie. I had thought the house empty but for me. They were in Tim’s room next door. There was movement, whispering, almost speech, more movement.
 
I was curious suddenly. Anne-Marie was an enigma. Tim was a nice guy. Quiet, dedicated (Larry had said), worked hard, read a lot, came to Larry’s concerts, played the cello when he could, Bach was always on his record player. He and Anne-Marie seemed so close, just a wooden wall away. I stood by this wall to listen.
 
‘Why are we whispering’, said Anne-Marie firmly, ‘For goodness sake no one’s here. Look, you’re a doctor, you know what to do surely.’
 
‘Not yet.’
 
‘But people call you Doctor, I’ve heard them.’
 
‘Oh sure. But I’m not, I’m just a lousy intern.’
 
‘A lousy intern who doesn’t want to make love to me.’
 
Then, there was rustling, some heavy movement and Tim saying ‘Oh Anne, you mustn’t. You don’t need to do this.’
 
‘Yes I do. You’re hard and I’m wet between my legs. I want you all over me and inside me.  I wanted you last night so badly I lay on my bed quite naked and masturbated hoping you come to me. But you didn’t. I looked in on you and you were just fast asleep.’
 
‘You forget I did a 22-hour call on Thursday’.
 
“And the rest. Don’t you want me? Maybe your brother or that nice English boy next door?’
 
‘Is he next door? ‘
 
‘If he is, I don’t care. He looks at me you know. He can’t work me out. I’ve been ignoring him. But maybe I shouldn’t. He’s got beautiful eyes and lovely hands’.
 
There was almost silence for what seemed a long time. I could hear my own breathing and became very aware of my own body. I was shaking and suddenly cold. I could hear more breathing next door. There was a shaft of intense white sunlight burning across my bed. I imagined Anne-Marie sitting cross-legged on the floor next door, her hand cupping her right breast fingers touching the ******, waiting. There was a rustle of movement. And the door next door slammed.
 
Thirty seconds later Tim was striding across the garden and on to the beach and into the sea . . .
 
There was probably a naked young woman sitting on the floor next door I thought. Reading perhaps. I stayed quite still imagining she would get up, open her door and peek into my room. So I moved away from the wall and sat on the bed trying hard to look like a composer working on a score. And she did . . . but she had clothes on, though not her glasses or her hair clip, and she wore a bright smile – lovely teeth I recall.
 
‘Good afternoon’, she said. ‘You heard all that I suppose.’
 
I smiled my nicest English smile and said nothing.
 
‘Tell me about your girlfriend in England.’
 
She sat on the bed, cross-legged. I was suddenly overcome by her scent, something complex and earthy.
 
‘My girlfriend in England is called Anne’.
 
‘Really! Is she pretty? ‘
 
I didn’t answer, but looked at my hands, and her feet, her uncovered calves and knees. I could see the shape of her slight ******* beneath her shirt, now partly unbuttoned. I felt very uncomfortable.
 
‘Tell me. Have you been with this Anne in England?’
 
‘No.’ I said, ‘I ‘d like to, but she’s very shy.’
 
‘OK. I’m an Anne who’s not shy.’
 
‘I’ve yet to meet a shy American.’
 
‘They exist. I could find you a nice shy girl you could get to know.’
 
‘I’d quite like to know you, but you’re a good bit older than me.’
 
‘Oh that doesn’t matter. You’re quite a mature guy I think. I’d go out with you.’
 
‘Oh I doubt that.’
 
‘Would you go out with me?’
 
‘You’re interesting.  Gloria says you’re a bit like Susan Sontag. Yes, I would.’
 
‘Wow! did she really? Ok then, that’s a deal. You better read some Simone de Beauvoir pretty quick,’  and she bounced off the bed.
 
After supper  - lobster on the beach - Gloria cornered me and said. ‘I gather you heard all this afternoon.’
 
I remembered mumbling a ‘yes’.
 
‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘Anne-Marie told me all. Girls do this you know – talk about what goes on in other people’s bedrooms. What could you do? I would have done the same. Tim’s not ready for an Anne-Marie just yet, and I’m not sure you are either. Not my business of course, but gentle advice from one who’s been there. ‘
 
‘Been where?’
 
‘Been with someone older and supposedly wiser. And remembering that wondering-what-to-do-about-those-feelings-around-*** and all that. There’s a right time and you’ll know it when it comes. ‘
 
She kissed me very lightly on my right ear, then got up and walked across the beach back to the house.
Duke Thompson Aug 2014
dead dying uncles in icu rooms unstable
little weak men old dried up not dried out
you ask i tell, nothing to see here but ashes
time rots everything
so what tell me is the point
of pitiful, joyless struggles
all our own small motives laid bare
so crass and primal the animals we are
mucking about ******* in the mud
Ellie Geneve Aug 2014
I would want you to be my star,
but then you would fade in the morning.

I would like you to be my sun,
but then you would set at night.

So maybe you could be my 'heartbeat,'
If it stops, I won't die from fright.

**I'm already dead.
Liana Garcia Apr 2014
I wonder what my father saw as his
heart decided to attack. Did betrayal
flash through his mind? Family gave
up first. His body followed in suit.
Whose face came first?
Mine or my brothers? Gods or the devils?
Or just his own in the mirror hanging
on the empty white washed room he
lay in. Which was a sharper slap?
The spasms of his hearts last pulse
or his daughter’s indifference?
Was his heart black and shriveled
like a raisin? Or blue and bruised
like the bump from a clumsy fall?
Did his eyes bulge in surprise?
Or did he know that this would be
the last strum of his hearts chord.
I hope he wasn’t alone. I hope
Christ was tacked on that empty
wall and shed a tear. Or at least
muttered a few words of forgiveness.
Because God  knows he needed it,
God knows I need it.
Terry Jordan Oct 2015
Having an M.I.
Ambulance to JFK
Cardiac cath stat!

Andre Bocelli
Our seats remained empty for
Open heart surgery

Next to CCU
Waiting in the fam'ly lounge
Wanting just good news

Here at JFK
Dr. Lancelot Lester
Mended his poor heart

He won't even know
What day it is tomorrow
Morphine works so well

You won't even know
That I'm staying close by you
While wiping your brow

Post-op time so tough
You must never say out loud
Oh, no, PVC's!

Let his sternum heal
Start on a special diet
When can we have ***?
This series of haikus was written at John Fitzgerald Kennedy Hospital while my husband was post-op from open heart surgery.
Garrett Johnson Mar 2020
Rapid Infarction.

What was.
Became through the showering sound of.
Why.
Screamed into oblivion.
The rush.
Stabbed through the psychedelic spiral.
& vomited upon from the mahogany floor.
Crashed and wedded in embrace.
Held by wind from the creak.
The silence.
The intamacy.
Only to be welded into nothing.
But the field of reeds to keep company.



Garrett Johnson.
Return of.
Anna Starr  Sep 2016
Infarction
Anna Starr Sep 2016
I woke up with the need
To breathe
Heaving
thinking of you leaving
No transition
Point to your position
Tell me what you want
I can't let you haunt
We're not like this
I thought you'd miss
Me
Us
We

I want nothing more, nothing less
I'm sorry i got us into this mess
I thought this Monday would be the worst
It was actually the best
With the onset of a tuesday,
pain found its way.
Johnny Noiπ Jun 2018
.                                                   one-verb-for-all
Unified-Ego-******-sound-hall-hole-all
wall-one-­wall-two-walls  [unified house]
I-one-I (universal house of the ego)
versal-Temple of the ****** [Ego-Priest]
sess-I-O-U-1 [Priestess-******-prophetess;
prophet; ******-****-******* **** **** -
******* **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
**** **** **** **** fuffing ck fukf cuk-f
****/fək/****** slang/verb
verb: ****; 3rd person present: *****;                     past tense:
******; past participle: ******;      
                     gerund or present participle:              *******
1. have ****** *******  with (someone, anyone).
(of two or more       people) having                    ****** *******.
2.     to                     ruin or damage        
her little                          ***         virginity hairy  
     bbbb                    [buttfhole]                    
         ­          (something) noun: ****;       plural noun:     
               [several guys]    x     ***** [train-*******]
            hairy child-rides; not virgins          [ god forbid,
            rubbing themselves on sharp rocks to
        burst their               [there are towns anywhere
        the world where every women resident has been *****]  |                                   ***** so they
        won't have to [goes to NYU, starts
smoking *** & sniffing ******,                                       so cool-
          (the postmodern art majors descend
           on Soho so mixed up don't know
    [galleries pushi  ng out the boutiques [coffeee-haus/boutique da] ya-
b     yeh            **** from gay - *** *** *** |  baby ***** [                   ]
        that's really old school; throw
her down the hard        basement stairs             ;
          memoirs yellow tape       s eals it    |  off from the public:
"it's (         )     a | mess in there - like Sid & Nancy
all over again: blood  *****- some kind
     of Aboriginal thing; Native                Spirits rising from
    the toxic soil to strangle albinos               in their             dreams  
No, man -that was his mother: "get it?'
Henry Lee Lucas ***** his mother &
cut her throat w/ a broken                  bottle then
artless, natural, unaffected; informal:      
Myocardial infarction
Synonyms    Acute myocardial
        infarction (AMI), heart attack
Diagram showing the blood supply
     to the (******* on the *******
gave her a heart attack        [
                                by the two major blood vessels,
the left and right coronary arteries (labelled LCA a
nd RCA). A myocardial infarction
                         n  has occurred with
blockage of a                       branch of the left               coronary artery.
                                    Specialty Cardiology
­Symptoms Chest pain, shortness of breath,
nausea, feeling faint, cold sweats,           feeling tired
Complications                 & left to die     |
                                  due to Heart failure,
irregular heartbeat,
cardiogenic shock,         death by               cardiac arrest
Causes:               Usually                                                 coronary artery disease
Risk factors            ( High blood pressure,
                               smoking, STDs )
diabetes, lack of exercise,                        obesity, high blood cholesterol
Diagnostic method Electrocardiograms
(ECGs), blood tests,                                              coronary angiography
Treatment Percutaneous coronary
intervention, thrombolysis
Medication Aspirin, nitroglycerin,                   heparin
   Prognosis STEMI 10% risk of death
                              (developed world)
Frequency 15.9 million (2015)
Myocardial infarction (MI), commonly
known as a heart attack
   straight, upfront, on the level, on the up and up
"a genuine person"
shoved the bottle up her *** -  & r                   ***** her again
        she's      a poet u know           u should change
                                  ur name to something radical]
this is the ******* *****         she lets fist her up the           ***;            
whatever -         get married -  extreme cuntbusting is
an (                          )   underground sport - u can bet on it  -   [it's a sure thing] her **** is made                 of iron |
whose **** bleeds first is the loser:
              dripping ****** ***** pus;
                    ***** broke her **** clean off & so      ld the video       like a ******* bone -) on the darknet    
1. a vigorous act of  involuntary           ******              *******.
a ****** partner.          cherry (often performed on a child)              torn
exclamation: ****
1. used alone or as a noun fet·ish
ˈfediSH/noun: fetish;                 plural noun: fetishes
1.                                            a form of ****** desire
in which gratification
is linked to an abnormal                               degree
                    to a particular object, item of clothing,
                     part of the body [armpits - crotch ] teenage girl locker room stink                      etc.
"Victorian men developed fetishes focusing
on feet, shoes, boots"
synonyms: fixation, obsession,

compulsion, mania; weakness, fancy,
  fascination, fad; informal:      thing, hang-up
"he developed a bodybuilding fetish"
an excessive and irrational devotion or
commitment to a particular thing.
"he had a fetish for young boys                                  more opinions
              each year than                                    any other justice"
2.    an inanimate object                                  worshiped for
                   its [supposed]                              magical powers
              or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.
synonyms: [juju, talisman, charm, amulet; totem, idol, image, effigy
"an African fetish"]
Origin:                     early 17th century                         (originally denoting
an object used by the peoples              of West Africa
as an amulet or charm): from French
fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço ‘charm,
sorcery’ (originally an adjective   |                     meaning
           ‘made by art’), from Latin factitius
                           (see factitious)       .the ****
                  or a verb in various phrases
to express anger, annoyance, contempt,
impatience, or surprise, or simply for emphasis.
early 16th century: of Germanic origin gen·u·ine
ˈjenyo͞oən/adjective: genuine
truly what something is said to be;                          authentic.
"each book is                                   bound in genuine leather"
synonyms: authentic, real, actual,
    original, bona fide, true, veritable;
attested,           undisputed; informal:         the real McCoy,
                         honest-to-goodness, god is dead,    
                honest-to-God,
     the real thing, kosher
"a genuine Picasso": is a        contradiction-in-terms:        (art is a business;
                                   make it pay)
antonyms: bogus
(of a person, emotion,
           action) sincere.
"she had no                      doubts as to whether            Tom was straight"
synonyms: sincere, honest,    truthful,                      straightforward,
        direct, frank, candid, open;                 artless, natural,
unaffected; informal:         straight up,

                                    upfront, on the level,
                          on the up and up, heterosexual   -          
"a genuine person"
******                
antonyms:                                   [insincere: she'll take the money -
Origin:           late 16th century
          in the sense                  ‘it's only           natural or should I say  
  proper’):
from                     Latin genuinus, from genu ‘knee’ i.e.  get on ur knees -
(with reference to the Roman custom      (                          )
of a father or               uncle             acknowledging the        paternity
of a newborn       child by placing it             on his knee & furtively    
                        molesting it);
later associated with genus                      ‘birth, race, stock.’
                                          (compare
                             Swedish dialect focka
and Dutch dialect fokkelen );        (*******)   (                     ) *******;    
possibly from an                        Indo-European root
    meaning ‘strike,’                    shared by Latin pugnus                 ‘fist.’
Translate **** to:                
                             ["my gf loves to get
      her *** fist-******"] (         ,          )
verb
Frisk  Jan 2014
cicatrize
Frisk Jan 2014
using stalagmite icycles as tooth picks in between the crevices of my head
my brain is getting frostbite as if i ate too much ice cream at once, but this
sporadic heartbeat is going into myocardial infarction, and all at once, every
second goes into slow motion, a familiar stillness before the blast of powerful
dynamite, bats living inside me are vexatious inside my head, like a parasite,
you weren't even noticed until you completely wracked my helpless body
with worms and ticks, leaving me with some sense of how a sick dog feels,
a walking contradiction and an anti-compressive depression that leaves me
with nothing. you're a sea that keeps on growing, a forest that keeps on burning
and a fire that is everlasting and almost behemoth, i'm helpless

- kra
Dawn King Mar 2015
baffled at ** hum
yawn snore boredom
what a conundrum
this viral life infarction
unnecessary creation
boring old pity party hum drum
cry me a river; don’t want none
get off your *** ***
enjoy the sun some
be a person
impaired some?
take your **** meds ***!
walk the woe is me to the dump slum
debbie downer 24 sev 365 clusterfucktion
sad lil’ emo infection
overdone depression queen incursion
misery loves company seduction
Katie Penkert  Jan 2015
Shape up.
Katie Penkert Jan 2015
Dear Dread,

Have you considered a fitness plan?
If not, I suggest to you look into it.
Your obesity is unhealthy.

I simply cannot support your weight any longer..
This document is your official warning.
If you do not adhere to my recommendations
Action will be taken

Sincerely,
Impending Mydocardial Infarction.

— The End —