The Waiting Room

not a noun
but an adjective
describing the place
I sit waiting
waiting, hoping
that he will be
one of the
seventy percent
whose cancer responds

join the queue
welcome to the
suffering of
human kind

It is the waiting that really gets to you. How to fill in one's time during the long waiting hours? I pack a bag and take a pen, my journals, a magazine and a book but it is a bit like taking these things with me when I go to the beach. I am distracted and cannot concentrate and I end up staring at the silent walls, wondering. Sometimes I journey off into another world. Every so often the fog that surrounds me is pierced by and idea and something emerges on the page. This is from my 'Waiting Room' journal.

If The World's A Stage

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this ruddy melodrama
in which I have taken a lead role
for five long years
please find a replacement.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this theatre troupe
acknowledge that I have done melodrama
and Greek Tragedy very well and need a turn
at some light hearted romantic comedy.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
I am officially happy to enter by the front door and
Be ushered to the best seats in the house where I could sit
Munching popcorn and slurping coke
While someone else struts their stuff