Richard M. Berlin, MD

I’m sprawled in the back, . . . riding out swells and storm tides . . . that toss this ship like a marriage.

Another day-glow orange morning . . . of jack-hammering men in the street, . . .their steam-shovel coughing black fumes

with enough juice to jump-start a heart . . . back to the Bo Diddley beat . . . We don’t amp ourselves up to sing the body electric . . .

While she curses and cries . . . I imagine I am the pilot . . . who ditched his Airbus

The scar on her sternum is a zipper . . . opened once to reveal her heart,. . . . the smooth arc of her breasts

But I still have bottles of pretty pills . . . I throw like life rafts to keep them afloat . . .in choppy seas, me passing my doctor-days

“If you were a ship, where would you sail?” . . . “What is your favorite hockey team?” and “What will you do if you don’t get into medical school?”

I don’t like to use the worn out word . . . “bruise” in my poems, but this morning . . . one appears on my inner thigh

their silver bodies glinting in the twilight . . . like shards of broken glass, wing-tip lights . . . flashing like towers on tall buildings

The viola section hears her first . . . Then the conductor tilts his head

Early June, cumulus clouds building...in a mountain sky, the lake filled...with kids, their shining, half-naked

"Einstein’s happiest moment...occurred when he realized...a falling man falling...beside a falling apple..."

Long ago, when I became a doctor . . .I heard the sounds of pheasants drumming . . .in our chests, studied our eggs, our courtship

Richard Berlin, M.D.: “There is something about the condensed pressure of poetry that feels very natural to me.”

Richard Berlin, M.D.: “There is something about the condensed pressure of poetry that feels very natural to me.”

Wall, echoing their grief. . . the tall green willow. . . rooted beside a stream

Richard Berlin,M.D.: “There is something about the condensed pressure of poetry that feels very natural to me.”

Mist rises from the Mediterranean and fills the black folds of mountains like incense . . .

When did my colleagues grow so old? When did the women and men I’ve known for thirty years start to stoop and tremble? When did all the old Chiefs die?

AUDIO A good apple pie fixes every pain. Your grandmother baked them to be sure you’d know- Cinnamon for heartbreak, cloves for shame . . .

One September morning . . .

The moon comes up like a melody . . .

I can still hear the click of clue tiles

Today when the ground was no longer...

Hear the story of wood...

They read sonnets for patients...

Years ago I wrote, “I love my patients,

-after reading about a health insurance company CEO’s $19,000,000 paycheck

When I was young, I believed