Haibun with MRI & Jazz
In the changing room I strip & slip into a hospital gown & scratchy blue shorts. Some clothes contain metal fibers, the sign says. These can heat up during an MRI & burn your skin. The lab tech, Cody, plunges a needle in my arm & clamps down tight. Had to squeeze it off quick, quite a water hose you’ve got there! The noise in the chamber is gonna be loud, he warns, but he’ll pipe in some music. What would I like to hear? I say jazz singers from the Fifties, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan. He says I got you.
he’s got the whole world
in his hands oh don’t let me
embarrass myself
I’m lying on a slab inside what looks like a high-tech coffin. Cody secures my head in some kind of vise—Gotta be very still—and lowers a hockey-mask thingy like Hannibal Lecter’s an inch from my face. The coffin sucks me in headfirst & the racket starts, clanking, banging, hammering, loud enough to give me an instant migraine. They’re looking for a tumor on my auditory nerve that could be causing my hearing loss & if I’m not stone deaf now, I will be when this is over. In the background, though, Sarah’s crooning Gershwin: Looking everywhere, haven’t found him yet / he’s the big affair I cannot forget / only man I ever think of with regret…
there are several men
I think of with regret all
I have is regret
This damn vise is crushing my skull like a rotten pumpkin. If there’s a tumor it’s probably benign, probably won’t kill me, but this noise might. Clanking, banging, hammering—I wish I were deaf right now—& just then Ella & Louis dance in, having loads of fun. Potato! Potahto! Tomato! Tomahto! Let’s call the whole thing off! Cody comes & pulls me out, shoots me full of dye through my IV, then pushes me back in for another five minutes. Then dead silence—am I deaf already? Then I hear myself asking him about the dye. It’s for contrast, to see if you have any abnormalities.
A tomato on
white bread plenty of mayo
yes that’s the ticket
33 thoughts on "Haibun with MRI & Jazz"
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amazing juxtaposition here between sensation and emotion, machine and jazz, wry humor and seriousness
Thanks, River! This was a hard one.
good mix of heavy and light.
best wishes, to you and
new crush(er)-cody 🙂
Ha! He was nice but a little rough. Some people are into that, of course 😏
Enjoyed reading this accurate depiction of the MRI experience. Agree that the juxtaposition of so many things going on simultaneously is effectively captured. Hope your auditory nerve is free of tumors!
Thanks Chelsie! Sounds like you speak from experience, poor thing.
I think it’s significant you wrote a haibun, not usually you’re style since doesn’t contain much prose. I was absorbed by this adventure (more like an misadventure) and I think you’ve used to form very well. The haiku was well placed and adds to the story.
Thanks Linda! See you & Coleman tonight!
I appreciate how Cody’s calming matter-of-factness tamps down the drama 🙂
Yes! He was solid and calming.
Oh my !!!!
He’s worthy of haibun.
He’s all that and a tomatoe sanwich.
Oh my !!!
I hope you purposefully misspelled ‘tomatoe sandwich.” You are just messin’ with Kevin.
Lol
Haha! Linda nailed you, Coleman!
Kevin. This is so good.
My son has been a MRI tech
for almost 30 years. He’s
a music afficionado and
likes to introduce his patients
to music they’ve never heard
before. I’m going to make sure
he reads this.
This is a great piece in the
complexity of its narrative
and form.
Thanks, Jim! Glad to hear your son does this work. Believe me, the music helped.
You hated the experience, so why did you make me experience it with you! Great piece!
Misery loves company.
Sorry about that, Wayne 😉
You nailed the MRI. experience quite well with humor and music to boot!
Thanks Linda!
Been there too, Kevin! Your word choice, your line breaks, inner conversations ramp up the tension sprinkled with that saving Grace, Humor! Well wrought!
Glad to hear someone else converses with self during these ordeals!
Thanks, Pam! Yes I had a whole dialogue going.
If this isn’t the committee’s choice for your poem in the anthology, then — to quote a very bad ex-president — the system is rigged! The time and craftsmanship that went into this poem is simply astounding, Kevin. BTW, I gravitated to this one because the same thing happened to me. I had an MRI, which searched for the source of my facial spasms. They didn’t pipe in music, but I wrote a poem about the experience, relating those hideous sounds to rock bands I have listened to and loved. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Thanks, Lee! I appreciate this much.
Oh, Kevin. Anyone who has gone through this was right there with you! The complexities and contrasts of this poem are so well crafted! I think this must be haibun day on lexpomo. Your poems this month have inspired/heartened/amused me! Thank you!
Thanks, Sylvia! I loved your haibun also!
I enjoyed this, relate to as I’ve had one also. Well done.
Thanks Melva!
You describe is so well and the use of haibun form itself is jazz. Brilliant work, Kevin.
Thanks, Shaun!
Yes, haibun was the perfect form for this, and you nailed it. I’ve been there in that “high-tech coffin.”
Thanks Karen! Those MRIs are horrible, ain’t they? But I guess they’re worth it.