Mind of a Star

A poem submitted anonymously by a Trainee Paramedic living in Glasgow.

Glass crunching under foot;

   police warning notices spread like paper

Ply board instead of windows;

   silence from inside, at first.

Darkness envelops us that bright winter morning

  in a home lost to preventable despair.

Hunched, broke but persevering. Just.

  sits a man with the name of a star.

Gashes to his face,

  echoing those in his mind.

Eyes; kind and too knowing

  not that people would meet them in the street.

The drink, a curse that can't be shifted,

  the upbringing harsh and too commonplace

A man victim to nothing in his control,

  reaching out to steady himself.

Thick hands, fingers stained brown;

  grasp at sleeves of a trusted leather jacket.

Slow moving, more sure with each step;

  the star hovers at the edge of that darkness.

Laid down under soft blue ambulance blankets,

  colour returns, a joke about Belfast is told.

Laughter; deep, characteristic of loud pubs,

  the man below the sickness shines, if only breifly. 

His last words to us at A&E,

  place on a chair with nurses tending at his side

"Thank you for the basic civility"