Poem: From the Hospital Window by Doug Holder

 ****Beth Israel Hospital,  Boston, MA.

My wife

rests in

her cancer

bed,

as some

nefarious,

chaotic weed

blooms and feeds

in her body.

I look out the window

to the towers

of Boston University

they pierce

the gray day

and I can not

forget them.

I see

West Campus

the high-rise dorms

where I lived

psychotic

from bad weed

I picked up

from a joker 

on the Common,

throwing bags of urine

out the window

afraid to be

exposed in the

men's room.

Downed by a Green Line trolley

on Commonwealth Ave

woke up faceup...

shocked 

on the track.

A man in the Rat

in Kenmore Square

guarding his beer

saw me in

my army jacket

and long hair

(if that was possible)

I was

a rebel from the

broad lawns and

narrow minds

of the Long Island suburbs,

He cocked his

hat and head,

" Hey, asshole

I want to suck

your ass bone dry."

I felt all this

hate....

Nixon

and Watergate,

nude streakers

on Nickerson Fields

rush the goals

breasts and penises

flap in the wind

in protest.

A remnant of the SDS rises

in my philosophy class

with no due respect

and challenges

the tenured pomposity

of the professor.

Frisbees fly 

through the air

in disparate directions

like the mayhem

in my head.

I greedily

munch cashews

in the 

TV room

(like they were

some elixir)

in the Sherman Union

wondering why the White Album

only speaks to me

and are 'they'

outside the door?