Henry Denander: Five Poems

Henry Denander was born in 1952 and shares his time between Stockholm, Sweden and Hydra, Greece. He is an artist and a poet and his most recent poetry collection, The Accidental Navigator, was published by Lummox Press. He has two forthcoming publications from Pig Ear Press. He has a website with poetry and art at henrydenander.com.
*****

Modern times

My doctor has given me
Botox and Zoloft to try to
relieve my headaches.
Botox is a common
ingredient when you do
facelifts and Zoloft is
one of the most common
anti-depressants.
I am a Modern Man; these are
the drugs of our times.
Only the Viagra is missing,
my wife said.
Nice try.
***

Botox

My neurologist tried a new cure for my never ending
headaches; he injected ten shots of Botox into my
skull.
Botox, in the undiluted form, is a very strong poison
but apart from being used to cure severe headaches,
it’s used in face lifts; by injecting it you loosen your
muscles and get rid of all the wrinkles in your face.
OK, I said to the doctor, but if all the wrinkles in my
forehead will go away; how will I be able to carry out
my job?
Don’t my clients want to see me looking serious and
worried?
***
Little Church alternate take 2015-1

Nursing

When I came back from the hospital
I wanted to tell my son about what
they had done to me;
I’d suffered from a really painful
kidney stone and I had rushed
to the hospital to get it removed.
I told him there’d been one doctor and
two nurses present and I was about to tell how
they had performed a cystoscopy; by inserting a
long instrument through my very private parts
they had removed the stone from my bladder.
I told my 10-year old son
the nurses had started by cleaning
my “weenie”.
William interrupted me:
– Did there really have to be two nurses to do that? he said
It was a good question.
***

Beauty Sleep

I am sleeping with a CPAP,
it’s a device that blows
air into my nose.
For years I’ve been snoring heavily and
suffered from sleep apnea.
With this tube attached to my nose
I no longer snore and I have a
good sleep.
But when I strap the mask on at night
my wife realizes I no longer look like
the handsome young man
she married
but more like Hannibal Lecter.
But I think she prefers
the Silence of the Lambs
to the Thunder in the Night.
***

7 AM at the Zeus hotel

Because of a long swim in the sun yesterday and
a three-hour long siesta in the afternoon, I wake up
before 7 AM this morning.
I sneak out of the room and take a table at the front
of the hotel, overlooking the beach. No one else is
around, no guests, only Paris Theodorakidis and
his dog Astero.
Paris gets me a cup of coffee and Astero leans her
head on my leg. The small city of Tolo starts to
wake up, there are deliveries of Loutraki water,
fish, fruit and vegetables. Some early swimmers
are heading down to the beach.
After a while Paris gives me an omelet and some
bread.
I have my notebook and the book on Mycenae, I
drink coffee, pat the dog and write some stuff in
my notebook.
Stuff like this.

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