A few bilateral
open femurs.

Pathologies my American
colleagues would
never witness.

Home watching
baseball.

Sleeping with their
best friend’s wife.

Here, in this place,
beauty,
humor,
god
are found
in the dark
or sanity dies.

Along with freedom.

Even Death’s annunciation
of itself is untraditional:
not in obituaries,
not in Facebook posts,
no town crier.

One
solid
long
annoying
beep.
Morse code for
bring the body bag.

A single flat line.

No daisies,
jubilees,
or banners
sprout out
of the machine
to celebrate
your finish line.

“I need to change the
Flycatcher on top
of it.”
I tell the scrub.

“Someone turn
that damn thing
Off.
We’re wasting
generator time.”

Besides,
the Flycatcher is
more important.

Subscribe

Origin Story

I never planned to become a doctor.
I saw Sally Struthers on television and decided I wasn’t giving her my cash for those humans, I’m going to go there. Yes, I will go there. My eight year old self had no idea what it was asking of my mind, heart, body, and spirit.

Medical school, surgery, war zones and half the African continent came later.

Click o the link below the pic for my interview in “Coffin Talk”.

https://mikeyopp.substack.com/p/278-crystal-cunningham-humanitarian?r=4orprg&utm_medium=ios

this was such a great time & reunion. Thank you for your encouragement since day one.

Nope.

It’s the liquor,
conducting my
brain like a
neurological symphony.

Prefrontal cortex,
off.
3AM Redeye.
Booked.

Again.

Bravery and impulse
have collided
to make
one
big
beautiful
scene.

See you in London.

Sometimes:

fun

strange

Make you think

Make you remember

Hopeful

Most importantly truthful.

Thanks for sticking around

We got this thing off the ground.

No fingers crossed.
No lucky stars.
No rabbit feet
or wishing jars.

Who needs superstition
when I’m this damn good

and you knew it
all along.

Thank you.

Particles of pollution,
greenhouse fumes
leave a film
on my skin.

Conversations in Nigerian Pidgin
between my driver
and backseat passengers.

Amidst beef roasting over burning tires,
Salvation Ministries’ loudspeakers,,
I pack the blue canvas bag
Pepsi tagged across the top.
(A proud sponsor
of American Baseball.)

The infectious oil bug,
left this place
like a plague of locusts.

Like a single cell in the sea,
I linger, waiting for directions.

Because…

I think…

I just caved in.

I pocketed a porch
feather.
A dead friend
told me that’s
a sign of an angel.

A feather.

The feather was from a dove,
fragile.
Not sturdy like
primary goose feathers.

I gave it a nib
with my No. 11
scalpel.

Forty-five-degree angle,
narrow slit to
make capillary
flow practical.

Puddles at the stroke-
Excessive width-
Bleeding-
Pooling-

None to be found
on the parchment
from Japan.
Error received no mercy.

Cured.
Without blemish.
Intricate vane.
Calamus filled.

A steady hand
writes cursive inscriptions.
Even the words you
said I couldn’t.

Manifestos.
Love stories.
Tales of those
who have seen war.
Aphorisms for those
who have not.

First and foremost,
I will write
instructions on
how to
make a pen
from a quill
and a No. 11 scalpel.

I woke up in ugly,
dogs at my feet.
They know
don’t wake me
before I wake.

Period sheets
wadded on
the pissy carpet.

Into the washer
the bloody things
go.

I don’t pay for water anyway.

My mind
fluctuating
between feral
and more Valium.

It settles on a cycle.
Cold.
Heavily Soiled.
Express.
Repeat Rinse.

Broken mirrors,
tequila bottles,
under my feet.

He bought
this flowery reminder
the day before he left.

I watch
suds, becoming suds
becoming suds.

I can climb in,
get clean too.

The sheets are:
Nice.
Expensive.
High Thread Count.

Carefully negotiated
to be the perfect
ones
to bleed on

In your absence.

One night,

you were

bourbon brave.

Sinking into the couch,

drunk and curious

you asked

“Are you afraid to die?”

Yeah man.

I’m fucking terrified.

I count the days,

months,

years,

my antibodies

eat my lungs.

On Tuesdays,

I close

the bedroom door

and weep.

Let The Rolling Stones

bless what’s left of me.

I refuse to be brave as I go.

I hold on to MY life

with claws

the witch from

the North Country

gave me.

You said

you wouldn’t hold on.

You’d let go.

Leave this doomed

place

without a fight.

If,

I had your life,

I’d feel the same.

One.

Single.

Ludicrous .

Existence.

No returns.

No rain checks.

I holdfast

to the living:

Candle light,

Incense,

Langerie,

Cigarettes,

Top shelf,

And watch porn.

While my body

wages war with itself.

In the morning,

you remembered nothing.

I was indifferent

and went for off sale.

Wild Horses played on.

From the ashes of your bass guitar
to the darkness of my night,
I look for brightness in the deep.
And I live.
I live …I live

If you’re going to the rally
with her, make sure her coat is warm.
I was that one, decades ago.
It was me.

I wonder
if you remember me at all.
The harmonica plays.
The guitar fades.

You,
You are in that canyon where winds are heavy.
I said I’d drive through with my maid;
I have one now.

I see you still stack boxes
late into the night.

That angered me so long ago.

It wasn’t good enough for me then.
Now, I see
we must all live.

Because that’s the point of it:
Life.
To live.

We auditioned for

“Worst Communication”

we tied for first.

Read more

stained glass

window

last night.

It rivaled

Saint-Chapelle,

Notre Dame’s rosettas.

You woke up seeing drywall.

Intimate conversations

dissolved into static.

Subscribe

Bourbon pickling your hippocampus.

My vulnerability, a gift,

wrapped in connection,

turned into vague recollections.

You said “I love you”.

Morning comes

you never say it again.

Your brains archivist

is on leave.

I fill the hole

in my chest with:

Tom Petty,

Smoky bar jukeboxes

Marlboro Reds

and Masturbation.

Under this lamppost
between Cochise and Apache
I understand you, Tolstoy:
love of life in suffering.

Feces float in the gulags
of your minds’ refuse.
Floating with blood exsanguinating
in the bellies of Native children.

Read more

(A Medicine Woman’s Poem to Her Family)

I’ve never let

someone I

cared for

drift away,

let worries

take over.

I haven’t been asked

for that.

I stay for the drift.

A robust war surgeon

never lettiing

Family, love, liberty,

Death.

IED(s),

come between

Me

and responsibility.

That’s what everyone

is

Responsibility.

I never asked

For it.

Wait,

Yes I did

When I committed

To Sally Struthers

Age 10.

Responsibility,

It says come home.

Pick it up

for the loved

ones that I

abandoned

for my dreams

decades ago.

That’s what led

up to the killing

of the cat.

Farmer, surgeon

we take care of

our own.

Pith.

Poison.

Pistol.

Not really,

we didn’t have money for the vet.

My grandchild

their umbilical

cord

in a landfill

on the Reservation.

East of Pineridge.

I was supposed

to bury it.

Home for

the soul

to come

back to.

Tears fell.

Still a warrior

Sovereign.

Loyal.

Strong.

But not too

strong

feelings are felt

Talked about.

Ten-year-old

Warrior hands

placed Mr. Imposter

In the goodbye bin.

A hoodie,

towels,

heading for good will,

swaddled him.

The warrior took hair.

They know this is important.

Not sure why.

They know.

Intuitive.

Natural.

Crucial.

We burnt sage.

I left with the

black bundle

of beloved

muscle and flesh,

bones,

a smile.

If cats smiles.

I only visit

Sioux Park

with the kids.

I dare them to walk

across a cement wall

four inches across,

over raging rapids.

This Medicine Woman ready

to jump in.

Only if they fall.

They won’t.

We don’t tell their mother.

I visited this park

today.

With Mr. Imposter.

He asked

me to carry him

To the wall.

I sat

with my feet in the water

he drank from my cup.

He drank

From the earth that

gives us sage

sweet grass

feed for thebuffalo

Grass for the deer

Mother gave us

the rapids

that quenched his

last thirst.

It won’t be long

Mr. Imposter,

We will all

Be there too.

The lawn sprinklers
shot like a pistol
bullets of water
through my broken window.

I’m still sleeping on a towel
from yesterday’s alarm.

Section Eight Apartments.
Bullshit.

The French press
is broke.
So, I choke
on the grounds
from a cup of
yesterday morning.

I don’t beat
mornings anymore.

I wander into them.

Looking for a quick
way out.

The world
is never urgent.

Never.

Another day of unneccessaries:
A poem.
Bad decisions.
Unpaid bills.

No one gives a damn
if these things
are done today.

Neither do I.

The Universe,
its urgent call to come
out and play,
it don’t give
any fuks either.

Happy Saturday.

Still needing pens.

In the days
before the rain,
we lay
beneath thirsty oaks,
in grass
browning
beneath
the sky’s
lack of deliverance.

We needed
deliverance.

From guilt.
From shame.
From curses
spit upon us.

Read more

Galvanized Buckets

In the days
before the rain,
we lay
beneath thirsty oaks,
in grass
browning
beneath
the sky’s
lack of deliverance.

We needed
deliverance.

From guilt.
From shame.
From curses
spit upon us.

Spare the rod…

Then it came,
sweet drops
of glory.

The veil
of the blue
temple
tore open.

We dunked our
faces into
galvanized
feed buckets.

Once empty,
now running over.
We stood in the
infinite fields
watching the wheat drink.

Please help me get more Pentel V5(s)

Read more