Gave me that gown split in the rear.
Always left me chilled back there.
That liquid diet they put me on:
Juices, gelatin and LUKEWARM tea—
Two days later, my body gurgled!
Gave me a sleeping pill at ten.
Awoke me at midnight sharp,
Just to take those vital sign tests.
Again, at two, four and six o’clock.
Why did they waste that sleeping pill?
They Xrayed me so often, I wondered,
Can I be a photogenic X-ray one?
With all the needles stuck in me,
I felt like I might be a pincushion.
Each time they changed my linens,
They rolled me about like a bag of clothes.
Probably with just as little concern.
Finally, good old “Doc” saved me—
Signing me free to go home.
Now, isn’t my wife the lucky one?
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2025
HOSPITAL STAY
Gave me that gown split in the rear.
Always left me chilled back there.
That liquid diet they put me on:
Juices, gelatin and LUKEWARM tea—
Two days later, my body gurgled!
Gave me a sleeping pill at ten.
Awoke me at midnight sharp,
Just to take those vital sign tests.
Again, at two, four and six o’clock.
Why did they waste that sleeping pill?
They Xrayed me so often, I wondered,
Can I be a photogenic X-ray one?
With all the needles stuck in me,
I felt like I might be a pincushion.
Each time they changed my linens,
They rolled me about like a bag of clothes.
Probably with just as little concern.
Finally, good old “Doc” saved me—
Signing me free to go home.
Now, isn’t my wife the lucky one?
SOLITUDE
Stillness wrapped around me close
a silent flame
and consumed me heeding not my cry
of loneliness
And ever more far away its echo
at last became
a part of that wavering fire of my
own quietness
A DOOR OPENS
The destroyer waits in all of us.
Some never know the black night
When all of joy and love is lost beyond remembering.
Yet some wander into that murky darkening,
Never to return.
Others, blindly searching
From some other world, more perfect,
Stumble into that abyss of ever hate and fear
Only to quake, shivering into sanity shuddering?
When kind fate lifts twilight mists
To reveal the mirror of hell—
The image of what we can become.
If we have seen the hell we are,
If we find hell within ourselves,
Can we not perhaps find here, too,
The door to paradise?
May we not find there, perhaps.
The door to paradise?
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“SOLITUDE”was never published, but found among the author’s papers.
REFRACTIONS –the poetry of Robert Roxby
“HOSPITAL STAY” is the author’s description of his near death experience.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“A DOOR OPENS”is included for August 8, National Happiness Happens Day. It touches of the author’s own experience with depression.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2025
THE INDIAN’S LAMENT
As he sat there upon the mountain top
Looking out at the native lands below,
The GREAT WHITE SPIRIT strode across the sky,
Trailing a great cloak of fleece-white clouds
Shedding tears onto the desolated lands below.
Oh! How great be his sorrow
With lakes and rivers poisoned by man,
With mountains and plains denuded of trees—
That leafy expression of His great love.
The buffalo no longer stomp over the plains
Filling the sky with a thunder of hooves.
Never again come the great flocks of birds
Darkening the sun with an abundance of wings.
Prairie grass no longer grows high enough
For a man to hide himself within.
There are no quiet woods in which to walk a mile.
No clean, sweet stream from which to drink,
Is the mournful cry of the wolf.
And the upland plains are now turned to dust.
Oh, GREAT SPIRIT, is this how it is to end?
FOR JESSIE
Chilling, wailful
Screaming
Railroad distress
Call—
Its fateful rhythm
The fused, muted sounds
Of the valley drifted
Up to the top of the hill.
Jessie
The icy, cold
Of the little hill streams,
Sparkling over sometimes
Sharp-edged,
Sometimes rounded rocks
Jessie
The unbelievably sweet laughter
Interrupted calls of the voices
From far across the river.
Jessie
Pure, warm, sunshine
Days—lying on the pebbly beach
Listening to the haunting call
Of the ghost-like, toy-like
Trains whistling mournfully
Of their endless pursuits
Jessie