INTENSIVE CARE

I have been sedated, opiated, and constipated

Laid on my back here in Intensive care where

The nurses are wonderful ‘

The nurses are incredible,

And the food is edible

The lights are bright

The machines are frightening

But there is codeine and morphine and paracetamol

And the pain Is bearable

For a stretch if I don't move around too much

I piss through a catheter

Have Strange dreams

Wake and remember where I am

I think that I know what it all means

I'm on my back in a hospital,

Re knitting a broken bone, I hope,

Trying to think straight through clouds of dope

We can’t all do that

Laid down In beds like plants

Or sat in sticky plastic hospital armchairs

Some believe their wives are with them

When there's nobody else there

And one man is sure that he is falling downstairs

If I had a faith

I might pray

But for whatever reason the pain ebbs away

And I start to hope for the chance

To ride home in an ambulance

But for now, I’m

Laid on my back here in Intensive care where

The nurses are wonderful ‘

The nurses are incredible,

And the food is edible

The lights are bright

The machines are frightening

But what am I whingeing about?

I'm in Barnet, not Beirut,

When the windows were blown out

And some of the wonderful, incredible nurses died

I could have been wheeled out into the car park

Through corridors carpeted with broken glass

Left to snivel on my drip

As the casualty's came in

So, I lay in my bed in Barnet

Dreaming of going home,

Free from fear off death and debt

And thanking socialism for the NHS.