MEN IN WHITE COATS

MEN IN WHITE COATS

Open the flood gates for the men in white coats,

Their clipboards in hand, their fine stethoscopes.

Their sterling credentials that boggle the mind,

Their antiseptic waiting rooms,
their wisdom most divine.

I have come to know them well,
to tread their hallowed offices.

They’ve x-rayed, poked and prodded
and pried into my business.

The rigidity, the stiffness,
the odd infernal shaking,

Are theirs to note in triplicate
in prose that’s most breathtaking.

Their pressured, caring nurses,
their gentle secretaries,

Strive to put the mind at ease
in the face of futures scary.

Open the floodgates for the men in white coats.

The journey’s last leg but no ending in sight.

Open the floodgates and break all the banks,
deductibles, co-pays and oxygen tanks.

Fears of demise that darken the evening
and vague diagnoses with ominous meanings
are mine for the taking and theirs for the giving,

Burning a hole in the passion for living.

Open the floodgates, let the madness begin,
trapped in the darkness of a game I can’t win.

On the horizon the great storm is brewing
and the men in white coats will be my undoing.

-BRUCE POTTS
COPYRIGHT 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED