Dentist Revisited Poem by Paul Butters

They say it’s just the thought
Of going to the dentist’s surgery that makes you fear.
That nauseous, sickly smell.
Remember gas when I was eight.
That sighing hiss,
Wheezing dizziness,
All rippling water;
A bubbling, frothing surge of watery light.
A fierce storm.
Choking as gas pours down
Your sickened nostrils.

Then fillings!
Fantastic bendy-armed metal structure
Holding a spitting, grinding drill
A clumsy horrible shunting thing.

Soon it hits the painful layer.
The nerve!
A shaft of lightning flashing down
Into the air below thick storm clouds.
Later: injections:
Going in, and in, and in, and in.
I cry out with pent up pressure.

Gladly dentists have improved a lot
(Back you come from behind that sofa)
Yet, as they say, an elephant never forgets.


(W) and © PB 22\4\2008 from account (W) 16\2\1969.