The speech therapist

when my love swears that she is made of truth

the words come down the wrong half

we can’t - we are – learning unlearned

I do believe her, though I know she lies

in the world's false subtleties
not the half, the other we will learn to speak

although she knows my days are past the best

helpless helpless, paralysed

I credit her false-speaking tongue
it’s coming spent, it’s half through

but wherefore says she is not, she is
hard to describe

therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
it’s half through, we hope it will

BE.

Anonymous

31^st July 2009

Be patient

many patients
aren’t patient
if there’s waiting to be done
take your turn at

patience
nurses can’t give
everyone time
undivided

the vale of years turns
take turns to be patient, wiser
the main answer
what wound healed but by

patience visits
sits quiet with my own thoughts
I call myself
a quiet person

was a dressmaker
if a stitch went wrong
I set it right
in two words, two small words

Margaret Hargreaves

October 2009

O lovely walls

seven months sorrow
been seven months
(o lovely walls!) its been hectic
times seven

nurses change the speed

lively nurses
change beds, lives
coming to you bones groan
brain on top spine down the back
I don’t have time for please

change the speed of the day

doing you good
change your window speed
good-doers do-gooders
throw your body puking
sorrow eat my body

nurses change please

anonymous
Stepping Hill
2008

Football

stanley matthews georgie best nobby stiles sammy much roger byrnes busby babes in packs in a set players 10 or 20 cigarettes on the back their age height history wifeswaps then in germany in munich early morn the takeoff

I do as best I can I do the journey from here to there is no different to any other journey more’s the difficulty is keeping your friends cos you cant get out the wheelchair

known as the munich crash the ground frosted fog photos of them on the runway matt busby sandy busby the son (good at spending money) when they emerged the babes were near unbeatable on £15 a week put edwards on he could cream the lot dog them clobber them sort em out

you cant get out the wheelchair and start getting angry telling the fellow where you want to go well lets say it does make you feel you’re not getting anywhere it’s just a question of administration

stanley matthews turned up at 8 in the morning running barefoot feels free blackpool sands (soak your feet in cold water you’ll walk a million miles) georgie best kidded the goalie banged it a brilliant shot but he done himself in daily brandy-soaked

you feel limited in the weight of this you’re not designing the journey the other person is I was an apprentice pro blackpool fc loved every minute gave back every penny

the footballs were heavier then leather soaked in rain describe a great god the best he was a tippler of everything two or three wives he had so many women over the weekend hundreds seen him train in the park a dangerous man a danger

you’ve got to be determined to stay alive otherwise this world will see you off falling into chaos somebody needs to mop the world up nurse sort the ends out I’m sat in a chair thinking literature I cant express god's fire in the head

re-match: duncan edward he was only 19 in munich on the runway play was awhile ago you’ll hear them you’ll hear them a mile away no problem just a trick of the foot.

Allan Whittaker, Frank Wigley

Cherry Tree Hospital

2007

Souvenir

there are a lot of souvenirs in my head
raining
the water in lines
falling
the gutters
the line going
I remember everything
an older brother
he was running

the river
boots
running through

it was raining and I remember
the planes passing over
making a boom boom boom
I’d sit on the window sill
curtains drawn in case there was a bomb
watched the children through the curtains
on rainy days

head in a fog
frustrating, confusing, annoying

it was raining and I remember the ground
wet and muddy, I had to wear Wellingtons
splash splash splash
through the
raining and I remember
the old ladies couldn’t go out
so grandma and I went to the pub
to get them guinness

your head in a fog
horrible
because you have it in your mind
but what I remember is right

remember playing by the
river and my shoes falling off and being washed
away
(I didn’t get into trouble but the other kids did)
used to love lying in bed
listening to the rain pattering the window

it was raining and I remember I was
a little devil
when I was young, when it was raining
raining in Alexandria
lightening
and then, for a month no rain
then again, rain really bad
looking out through a window
and swimming far
the fruit of the beach
catch it and eat with a spoon
faraway, the fruit
when it was raining it was raining hard
there was lovely fruit
I was mad, I was a devil swimming
taking the fruit from the rock
the fruit from the sea, rezza

raining women’s voices

branches of trees and old tyres
being washed down
even the baby’s dummy
gutters on roofs overflowing
leaves and pieces of soil run down the walls
cats and dogs
want to get inside

what does it feel like to forget?
it can be confusing, frightening
especially if you’re in the rain
like
getting off a bus
when you don’t know where you are

it was raining and I remember
Gene Kelly singing in the rain
in a musical, a great musical
Gene Kelly dancing under an umbrella as he sang
Morecambe and Wise singing
the same
funny, I remember singing at school with the other children
‘rain, rain, go away, come again another day’
raining and sunshining
I remember seeing a rainbow
remember it poured most of this summer
remember splashing the puddles when I was
a child
getting very wet
having to change and
dry in front of the fire.

Fred, Patricia, Yolanda
11 September 2009

Stepping Hill Hospital at Night (after Vosnesensky)

coughing at night

other breathing at night

people tend

droning to sleep

quietly

nurses’

footsteps

low light faces

the television

an adventure

of dark blue glass

constant

quiet breath engine

in their beds

three or four

calmed

safe



people

moving that’s the thing

I want to hear

people

X-ray photos of the soul

lonely

speak to me with dark tongues

lone

night

yawning




Ralph Starmer and Keith Philips

Stepping Hill 
2009

Conch

many a time tea

on blackpool beach

day trips with me dad all the time

when he had time

blowing her nose

an excuse me lost at sea

in winter gardens - indoor gardens

that’s yours my love that music

fox trot waltz

a winter garden

fresh warm

stay the day

conch

it’s just the blood in your head

you can hear it rush

to shut

it’s rough

cough it up

an excuse me

scared the life out of me change the scene

sea rough

a garden a-flower

a tower

a walk many a time

asleep

me

shells

May Cocker, Rosamund Blackham and Mary Arrandale

Stepping Hill Hospital

2009

Coming into

Coming into hospital for the fifth time

coming into hospital for the fifth

hate to think of so many times

it’s a desperate thought

I don’t want to think it

get on and forget sadness

get on with it and remember only the

forget

who you’ve been with

where you’ve been you’re not yourself

I’m so glad that they come

I’m so glad that they come

I can’t say how often but they do

it’s action for yourself

to see someone

to see some with the same

perhaps the same difficulties

you are not alone

there are many people like you for better or worse

there are many people who like you

good people there are many

friends of myself friends of I

saw

my place

sat in my chair

saw my place sat in my chair

I can see so much from here

I wish

good

I can see I can hear.

Mary Arrandale

Stepping Hill Hospital

Wheelchair

walking

an outlook

an outlet

your body don’t dilly dally

does what you tell

marbles on the way to school

for a long way flick it through

play for each others’ cowboys and indians

late at night

in the fields around farms

make dens of

long-seeming summers

in the 1940s

the first

thing is

to keep

little things adding

to a bigger step

on the fringe of farmed fields

bounded by the Mersey

we’d walk over the iron bridge

time working horses

the river a-flooded with ducks and geese

it’s all we had

kids walking the road home

was better frittered

what’s so good about sitting down?

if you’re going

for a walk

get your shoes and

go

Group

Cherry Tree 2009

Diphtheria

the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

she can remember them ringing
them bells

it was one of the common ones
the cough
a sore throat easily contracted
diphtheria scarlet fever
five years old
the cloth stretching across the wall
my father raised a blade

the ambulance bringing

take swabs
of it the children terrified
isolation hospital
their faces
thought they’d be red
scarlet fever
diphtheria

ding a ling a ling

keeping them apart
lockjaw
didn’t talk
to em too scared
peered through a washroom window
one of the kids saw me said
I won’t tell
remember

them ringing the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

them bells.

Dora Boulton, Frank Bryan, Olive Wilson
Cherry Tree 2009

This poem is part of the Patience project, for more information please visit http://patience-project.blogspot.com/

Auntie Ida

was kindness itself
well if you were looking at Auntie
you were looking at me


and looking at me you’re looking at her


just like her
she’d take what I’d say
the only one who could give me a hug
and get away with it


vivid in my mind
If we were both having a good day
nobody could say anything to us
nobody could touch us on them days


if we were having a bad day then it was


I’ve had big journeys all my life
stepped off bridges wider than the widest road


the day you feel it coming all that has been the truth:
thoughts of Auntie Ida so vivid
could say that Ida just walked past the window


someone with a coat like Auntie Ida
I’d insist it was
the two of us stood waiting
for Ida to come through
her face
is it like mine?
anxious to see her
picture
a lovely little daisy
if I could express it


Auntie Ida’s just come in
you haven’t got to be frightened of her
on
a miserable Wednesday
I couldn’t describe her on Wednesday
she’d be so down in the world


Wednesday was one of her bad days
if I could throw Wednesday away
I always think something happened that day
a deep loving August day
she’d change into somebody


but for every bad Wednesday
keep it love
Because you’ll be wondering if tomorrow
she'll be flying through the window
like Peter Pan


Ida Regan
Ward A10
4th December 2009




This poem is part of the Patience project, for more information please visit http://patience-project.blogspot.com/

That greeny flower

The Garden, that Greeny flower

with roses

a life filled

Hydrangea

with flowers.

Lilac fuchsia So that

I was cheered

Snowdrop bluebells

reawakened,

Not the weeding

Not the Daffodils

a memory of those flowers

Today:

I’m filled with love

and passion

colours it

while our eyes fill

with tears

So near to people to

Love and greet as friends

I’ve met so many near friends

love, abiding love,

it will be telling

True loyal friends

reawakened,

a memory of those flowers.

Loyalty to send me cards

Get well greetings

A looping flower wisteria

that there were flowers also

True friendships

A pastel shade of blue

Only give me time,

I don’t know what to say

Wisterias they cover

the patio door

Go along

Give me time

Each day

I cannot say

Time to recall them

I cannot help but think back

reawakened,

a memory of playing golf in the afternoon

I have seen it

and so have you

I’m filled with the feeling

being upside down

and retained

a number of various

something of their sweetness

I can remember it all

Silence can be complex

But you do not get far

walking down

walk

with silence.

saying it that’s a different thingand the will becomes again

reawakened

Joyce, Muriel, Tom and Victor (in response to WCW's Asphodel, That Greeny Flower)