Poem
Dannie Abse
IN THE THEATRE
IN THE THEATRE
IN THE THEATRE
Sister saying - ‘Soon you'll be back in the ward,’sister thinking - ‘Only two more on the list,’
the patient saying - ‘Thank you, I feel fine’;
small voices, small lies, nothing untoward,
though, soon, he would blink again and again
because of the fingers of Lambert Rogers,
rash as a blind man's, inside his soft brain.
If items of horror can make a man laugh
then laugh at this: one hour later, the growth
still undiscovered, ticking its own wild time;
more brain mashed because of the probe's braille path;
Lambert Rogers desperate, fingering still;
his dresser thinking, ‘Christ! Two more on the list,
a cisternal puncture and a neural cyst.’
Then, suddenly, the cracked record in the brain,
a ventriloquist voice that cried, ‘You sod,
leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,’ -
the patient's dummy lips moving to that refrain,
the patient's eyes too wide. And, shocked,
Lambert Rogers drawing out the probe
with nurses, students, sister, petrified.
‘Leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,’
that voice so arctic and that cry so odd
had nowhere else to go - till the antique
gramaphone wound down and the words began
to blur and slow,‘...leave...my...soul...alone...’
to cease at last when something other died.
And silence matched the silence under snow.
From: Ask the Moon: New and Collected Poems 1948 – 2014
Publisher: Hutchinson,
Read by the poet at Poetry International Festival Rotterdam, 1983
Publisher: Hutchinson,
Dannie Abse
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1923 - 2014)
Dannie Abse was an esteemed poet, author, playwright and former doctor. He was a hugely popular figure in British poetry, a former President of the Poetry Society (1978-1992) and a powerful reader who displayed great humour and lightness of touch. He remained a vigorous poet up until his death in 2014, with new poems published in recent issues of The Poetry Review.
Poems
Poems of Dannie Abse
Close
IN THE THEATRE
Sister saying - ‘Soon you'll be back in the ward,’sister thinking - ‘Only two more on the list,’
the patient saying - ‘Thank you, I feel fine’;
small voices, small lies, nothing untoward,
though, soon, he would blink again and again
because of the fingers of Lambert Rogers,
rash as a blind man's, inside his soft brain.
If items of horror can make a man laugh
then laugh at this: one hour later, the growth
still undiscovered, ticking its own wild time;
more brain mashed because of the probe's braille path;
Lambert Rogers desperate, fingering still;
his dresser thinking, ‘Christ! Two more on the list,
a cisternal puncture and a neural cyst.’
Then, suddenly, the cracked record in the brain,
a ventriloquist voice that cried, ‘You sod,
leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,’ -
the patient's dummy lips moving to that refrain,
the patient's eyes too wide. And, shocked,
Lambert Rogers drawing out the probe
with nurses, students, sister, petrified.
‘Leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,’
that voice so arctic and that cry so odd
had nowhere else to go - till the antique
gramaphone wound down and the words began
to blur and slow,‘...leave...my...soul...alone...’
to cease at last when something other died.
And silence matched the silence under snow.
From: Ask the Moon: New and Collected Poems 1948 – 2014
Read by the poet at Poetry International Festival Rotterdam, 1983
IN THE THEATRE
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