Hi well I have been writing again. This has been quite satisfying, however the poems are a little thin. The poems are about what has happened to us as a family over the past five months. For those that do not know I have had a serious disease that has become very active. As a result I have had both my legs amputated. The left above the knee, the right below the knee. I have also had some difficulties with my eyes. I am at a rehabilitation centre where I hope to be able to walk again. So much has been destroyed for us over this period and we are trying now to pick up the threads of our battered lives and make a new life for ourselves. I put together a brief selection of poems in a booklet as a thank you to all the staff at the hospital who were involved with my care. The hospital is called St Georges and my booklet is called Slaying a Dragon.

Here is a recent poem

Making Connections

I sit at my bed,
all Tooting is laid out
in 3.00 am
humid neon glare below.

With me, in the shadows
of the ward
the restless stirrings
of strangers sleeping,
wrapped up in their own darkness.

Last night,
- the first night for months -
I lay beside my wife,
retraced the shape of her body
and stared into her river blue eyes, again.

And in the morning the children came
running to our embrace.
His arms surrounded me,
her head leant into my shoulder
as I adjusted to their new height.

Lightening fractures the stifling night
and my pages lie exhausted
longing for the morning and home.


© David Loffman