I'd close the present with my eyelids

and enter yesterday

and go deep in talk with someone real

and then they'd go away

Mostly they would not come back

ideas of truth mis-spent

non-sequitur and eerie

images came and went

For a pulse, a pill, injection

or clearing up the trays

or maybe time to change the bed

pausing many a play

One visitor was a grocer

selling or telling an outdated line

or a friend who missed admission

just saying "you'll be fine"

Sometimes I'd utter sentences

out loud and break the spell

and smoke invisible cigarettes

you may conclude that I'm not well

I miss those conversations

at different times and places

they were useful in some special way

those talks with unique faces

It all revolved around life and death

in a quite subliminal way

so out of time, unsynchronised

in and eye-lid interrupting kind of way

Each time I bent my elbow

the drip would stop supply

and beep until the night nurse

made it and me comply

She'd just push a button

but I, a machine of different kind

the nurse said "keep your arm still"

stricter every time

But my arm would take no notice

of that message in my brain

and no sooner had I met up with friends

that alarm would sound again