Stains Across the Ceiling

Suffering from a severe childhood illness Labyrinthitis Otitis Media of the middle ear in the early nineteen fifties was no trivial matter.

The name of my diagnosis was written in Doctor Downs fountain penned hand upon the Twenty-eight small glass Penicillin bottles that I had been allowed to keep, I stood them upon my bedside table like glass soldiers.

I was in a coma for a week and required six weeks recuperation which has, even to this day, left me with limited hearing and occasional Peripheral Vertigo.

Stains Across the Ceiling

Laid abed waiting for Doctor Downs

A bright coal fire burning in the white marble fireplace

Fiery reflections dancing all along the polished brass fender

Flicking shadows all around my mother’s cherry paneled bedroom

I can see the twisted branches of the giant cork oak tree

Listening to the gentle tap, tap, tap as they scrape against the wide bay window

As the gnarled bark of the trunk catches dancing feather flakes of snow

Dream sleep began drifting all about my pain as imagined pictures became real in the dark damp stains across the flaking ceiling

Oh, how I feared the good doctors twice daily injection administrations

Dignity was not afforded small boy's bare buttocks which ached like sin until the next rude intrusion