Jury Is Out, Doctor Is In

The other day I found a notebook I've had since I was probably about six years old. It's a faded green spiral-bound piece with only a handful of yellowed pages remaining. On the front is my Grandmother's last name in italic, which is one reason I've kept it for nearly three decades. The other is the contents; simple poems I earnestly scribbled across the lines, then would read aloud to my Mother in a serious little-girl voice. There's one about a 'little seashell in the sand, I pick it up, it's in my hand', and another about a butterfly with a broken wing who ended up in my brother's insect collection. They were the start of the many poems and other things I've written, mostly for myself, throughout my life. Some things stand out as being more significant than others, which is the case with the poem below. It's one of my favorite things I've ever written.

Truth be told, rhyming isn't really in vogue anymore; a common consensus in the modern literary world (at least in my experience) is that the old-fashioned structure is limiting. Free verse is the product of today's muse. While I love the boundless possibilities of free-verse, I've always appreciated the rigor behind a really good poem which follows iambic pentameter. The rhythm and thyme is part of the art, carrying the reader along the ebb and flow of its tide. So, ever since the little poem below came to me, I've secretly adored it. The structure is rhyming couplets which follows the beat of 12-12-5-6 in every stanza. Throughout, there's the jury and the doctor, watching and tracking while the author describes everything as happening in opposites. In all fairness, it's a poem which feels as though it simply happened to me, much more than that I came up with it. Maybe another reader will shrug, untouched, and that's perfectly fine. My secret is that it might be my favorite.

Jury Is Out, Doctor Is In

Well the jury is out but the doctor is in
And he whisks me along and says "Time to begin"
While all of my peers
are fight their own fears

So attendance is up but the average is low
And I'm talking too fast but I'm moving too slow
And everything grand
seems to happen unplanned

It's a pilfered design by an entrepreneur
It's an illness where poison is the only cure
The jury all yawns
while the judge just looks on

It's the dream that I have every time I'm awake
It's the choices and chances and odd-shaped mistakes
I'm giving my blood
in a trickling flood

Keep on trying and breaking and mending again
Though I'm made I'm no puppet of God or of man
Doc points out the stars
as I'm counting my scars

So I'll write this on paper, the sky or the ground
As I swallow my pride, try to wash it all down
Hold hope in a flask
like some elusive task

In the end may it not count when we ran away
But the times that we fought and the reasons we stayed
Before I appealed
Doc affirmed I'd be healed

A meticulous, crashing, mellifluous song
So raw and heartbreaking, how I shout right along
The jury applauds
I believe the judge nods