Richard M. Berlin, MD

Being a poet isn't a 9 to 5 job.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.

"A fruit fly fell in my fine crystal glass, half full of five-dollar wine..."

"...Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist, and falling out of heaven like soft dew..."

"I’ve told these war stories for decades, made them tales of friendship, savvy, good luck, and brotherhood’s strength..."

"The moon drops one or two feathers into the field..."

A true war story is never about war...

"Until then, every forest had wolves in it..."

"I want a god as my accomplice..."

"...couples become capable of 'cognitive feats' beyond that of a single individual."

"She takes them gently from my hands, scrunches her brow, studies their loneliness..."

"Down valley a smoke haze, Three days heat, after five days rain..."

"I can still hear my patient shriek..."

"While I watch the artist paint, I imagine him in the time of plague..."

"...now i forget what day it is and still feel i’m running out of time..."

"...Night is a room darkened for lovers..."

"I stood shivering in the dark kitchen, thinking about that word, ventilator..."

Reading books and journals, charting treatment plans to help patients find an Eden of their own.

"You’re a poet, aren’t you?"

"...So far the days keep coming. Seize the day gently as if you loved her.”

"My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams..."

"My love, I am pledging to this republic, for however long we stand..."

“...sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source.”

How do poetry and medicine interact and relate? One doctor shares his journey.

"... unconscious as hope that we sense around us now borne back into the earth..."

Reform school, a place where workers smoked with the boys, a place where fathers were AWOL and mothers begged us to save their sons.

A bear under the snow turns over to yawn. It's been a long, hard rest.

So I sit on the edge, wagging my feet above the abyss. Tonight the moon will be in my lap...

"The world was immaculate, new..."

As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me?, you are completely screwed, because the next question is How Much?