Category Archives: Disability

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English Riders

Their backs perfectly erect,
English riders pettily gaze at Western riders.
Pointed toes poke through iron stirrups.

Legs wrapped around mares, stallions,
In perfect sync with their mounts;
Their backs perfectly erect.

Fields of green, broken by fences
Chestnuts, browns follow baying hounds.
Pointed toes poke through iron stirrups.

Zigzagging prey dart from bush to bush.
Felt jacketed riders spur their warmbloods,
Their backs perfectly erect.

Tempi changes on the diagonal
A pirouette at “B.”
Pointed toes poke through iron stirrups.

Obedient beasts directed until the end:
Superiority complexes spike off the scale
Their backs perfectly erect.
Pointed toes poke through iron stirrups.

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Plowing In The Niverais Painting

A chestnut ornate frame to border
our march through muck
my brothers and I
in front,
next to,
behind me.
We haul the heavy planks, drawing lines.
My tongue lulls
from my gaping mouth. Our drivers stride
to my right flexible hide
swaying in the wind, cracking when our steps
falter; the other pressing
pieces of wood dull and shiny
into the ground, corrugated.

Old and young come to view
our painter’s handiwork. Some move in close
to see the clumps of dirt
or the distant rolling forest.
Others stand back to admire our strain
on this forever hot and muggy day.

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Alternative Music, The Keys to Childhood

A song to pull me

Toward the past

Distant and gone.

 

A song to lift me

From one of many 90’s

Car drives, music blaring.

 

Picking and strumming

Basic beats that carry

The mini stories to their conclusion.

 

I stroll down moving stills

That reflect a blissful ignorance

That kept difficulties at a distance

 

Which only now 

Can be reflected on

With solemn observance.  

 

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The Foreign Math Language

A foreign language of numbers and symbols
Glare mockingly as I try to cope. Examples
Complicate the code presented on the board.

Mental gears desperately in need of oil
Grind slowly in an attempt to soak in
All the drawn out explanations. Basic

Problems are assigned to further register
The abstract ideas addressed, but the internal
Cogs and wheels refuse to spin.

“Why can’t I get this? Why is the answer
One half and not simply five tenths?” Despair
Floods my mind as I move to the next problem.

Eyes moving from the board to the book,
Thoughts tumbling and twisting—
Acceptance is the only answer:

These concepts known as fractions
Confound my slow brain. I only hope
The teacher sees these feeble attempts

Are my best efforts, since upstairs
Half the lights refuse to shine, refuse
To make room for this new information.

I meant for this to be my closing poem to the month of May, but unfortunately I didn’t finish it in time. Even though it is no longer May, I want to say this: this poem is supposed to reflect another aspect of a kid having a stroke. Things like math turn into gibberish or an impossible foreign language. This is true also true for some adults, but of course for a kid who must learn the information or fail the class, the pressure is higher. Anyway, before I really start rambling on and on and go on random tangents, if you would like to know where you can find information on childhood stroke, here are some websites you can go to: national stroke association or stroke in children. Or you could go to my post on the statistics of pediatric stroke which I posted on May 6th.

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Childhood and Infantile Stroke Statistics

Well it is that time of the year again. It is time for me to do my part and spread the word about childhood and infantile stroke. I would like to provide several links (for you to click if you so desire) which will provide the statistics for childhood and infantile stroke.

CHASA: http://www.chasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/chasa_pediatric_stroke_fact_sheet_2012.pdf

American Stroke Association: http://www.strokeassociation.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@adv/documents/downloadable/ucm_302255.pdf

 

In the case of adults, here is a link from the American Stroke Association:

Warning signs of stroke: http://www.strokeassociation.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@hcm/documents/downloadable/ucm_434181.pdf

The month of May is stroke month as well as pediatric stroke month so spread the word and pass these along to everyone you know as stroke can be a killer when the warning symptoms are not recognized or passed off as “nothing”.

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One Stroke Poem (Fists Like Buried Chests)

The fisted hands balled up tight
Presses against the pink cotton shirt

Knuckles white as pearls
Shine in a dimmed light.

Soft mother eyes watch
The sleeping child.

“When will your little fists
Unfurl to grasp my hands?”

A soft caress down one arm
Toward a tightly wrapped hand.

“I await the day you’ll find the key
To this perfect little chest.

Then we can walk hand and hand,
But for now I will treasure

The you I see today.”