New lamps for old
New pain is shrill:
Screaming sirens and squealing tyres.
It thunders in the ears
Pulsing with passion,
Crimson coated across the retina:
The loud insistent throb
Of deafening music.
It hammers at your door,
Shrieking like a demented lover
Demanding your attention.
Old pain is quiet,
Lodged in bones and gut,
Buried in muscle
Hidden by fat.
A constant ache,
Dull but bearable.
A sudden scent, a forgotten face,
A careless chord and then,
Pain pounds, a brief flare
Of hot remembered hurt.
by Viv
Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking 
I love your ability to use your art to express and deal with your pain. Thanks, I will continue to visit.
I had a real awakening doing a flyer about Chronic Pain realizing that it does not exist as a word in Webster or medical dictionaries. So if it cannot be defined, it must be us who suffer who are left to attempt to define the experience. And hope that by defining it thru poetry, writing, art work, we can move closer to allowing the experts to understand this intense multi-colored experience.
Namaste, Mary
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Hello Mary,
lovely to see you here.
Yes, it’s taking the medical profession a long while to even begin to accept chronic pain and it takes even longer to have this filter into the dictionaries.
I have been very lucky as the pain management specialist I see every three months is a lovely man, kind and understanding and not at all judgmental and while what he’s been able to offer hasn’t stopped the pain, it’s begun to make enough of a difference to make things much eaiser. The upshot of the meds is when I need to take them, I get powerful and visionary dreams even though the day time can sometimes be a bit hazy! So seeing the benefit even of side effects is a good way to accept them.
Can you tell me what purpose the flyer was to have? Are you forming a support group or just for general awareness? I find that people lack understanding of it, especially as I am usually very stoical and dont moan and groan, so colleagues and friends don’t know how much pain I am often in!
cheers,
viv
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Wow..
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You are an extremely talented poet.
As fibi says…WOW.
No need to add unnecessary words here.
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thank you very much.
I don’t try to write; the words just appear sometimes.
This one was as much about physical chronic pain as it was about non physical pain(emotional, mental and spiritual pain) all of which I suffer from. The physical side of things I get meds for (and a cool TNS machine!). The other stuff I have to find ways of dealing with myself. Meditation, rather than mediCation helps.
Incidentally, I think I put a link to a site I buy meditation cds from, Spiralling. I bought some new ones recently and the one I have used so far, Cleansing, was superb. gave me a precious few hours of inner peace!
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