SPOTLIGHT -
May 3rd 2024
“The fundamental act of medical care is assumption of responsibility.”
April 26th 2024
"Otherwise it's spring, and everything looks frail; the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves are full of infant chlorophyll, the very tint of inexperience."
April 22nd 2024
"I pulled my scuffle hoe hard through the clay’s crust and heard the blade scrape metal and earth."
April 19th 2024
"And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold."
April 12th 2024
"I shall forget civilization, I shall forget color, caste, I shall move in a fantastic world of raceless men and women..."
X-Ray Vision
Under the V of her cashmere sweater, sacs of silicone sag in tangled scar, their arc of cleavage a triumph...
Doctor Dumpling
If I could be edible, I would want to be a steamed vegetable dumpling, pure white like my doctor’s coat…
Modern Medieval Artist Poetry
While I watch the artist paint, I imagine him in the time of plague crafting a portrait of a Medico della Peste, a Plague Doctor wearing an ibis-like mask...
Suicide Rates
In the graph, bands of color recede like mountain silhouettes drawn by a child...
Royal Blue
I never take calls when I'm with a patient, except today when the phone rings from Boston-liver mets on his scan, biopsy tomorrow...
Fathers of Only Children
After all the encores at Tanglewood, the only music left is September’s song of crickets scraping their legs for mates...
Moonrise, Tanglewood
The sharp steel wall of the concert hall encloses the melody and wounds the summer sky, a soft yellow glow gathering before moonrise...
Late Last Night
Outside, the bluestone patio warmed my bare feet, and I smelled Casablanca lilies and honeysuckle we planted last spring.
Favorite Patient
Before I knew much psychiatry I met his angry stare in the ER, a homeless man with a three day beard...
Prayer
We climbed concrete ramps from the subway’s underground world, up to the grandstand and my first vision of heaven...
Assertiveness Training
spring-time territory, raucous and free as a New Orleans . . . trumpet, my patient locked-in to the wild tune
Atheist With a Poet’s Heart
But old colleagues said . . . the holocaust made him an atheist with a poet’s heart, . . . a Jew who loved to stand and chant David’s psalms
Ape With the Bone
I pictured him at his waiting room door . . . clutching a chart, catching eyes, . . . calling out a name, bewildered
The Trees of New Jersey
Here's to the lovely trees of Jersey, my home . . . town streets lined with linden and larch, . . . poplar and elm, flowered locusts scenting
Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy
I'm reviewing a left ventriculography from a man with chest pain, MI ruled out, his wife dead for a post-crash hour...
Einstein’s Happiest Moment (Podcast)
Einstein's happiest moment revealed.
Occupational Hazards
Needle sticks and night call, Hep B burrowing skin, bad smells, deep wounds, death, dying, dead wood...
Sharp-Shinned Hawk
Two yellow feathers and a skull. . . drop from the sky and fall on the brown . . . scar of trail, a sharp-shinned hawk
Wounds (Podcast)
Each wound speaks its own language.
A Headlong Act of Love (Podcast)
A poetry reading by psychiatrist Richard Berlin, MD.
Anatomy Lab (Podcast)
Our identity as physicians is the foundation for our careers as psychiatrists and the first step in our transition from layperson to doctor takes place in the anatomy lab.
If You Ask Me My Name (Podcast)
Listen to Richard Berlin, MD, recite one of his poems.
After the Party
Wild Night, after the cops came to shut the music down, after friends and family were headlights pointed toward home...
Einstein’s Happiest Moment -for Susanne
"Einstein’s happiest moment...occurred when he realized...a falling man falling...beside a falling apple..."
Advice From Moody’s Diner
AUDIO A good apple pie fixes every pain. Your grandmother baked them to be sure you’d know- Cinnamon for heartbreak, cloves for shame . . .
The Garden of Eden Poem
Today when the ground was no longer...
Good Fathers Poem
Poetry of the Times--Good Fathers.
Our Medical Marriage (Original)
Poetry of the Times Our Medical Marriage
St. Vincent's Hospital ER, 9/11
We waited for the broken and the burned.
If You Ask Me My Name - 2001
If You Ask Me My Name - Poetry of the Times