The Dentist’s chair.

The Dentist’s chair.

Mr Godfrey was a dentist

His teeth were crooked and yellow

I wondered at that

What prevented him from benefiting

From good oral hygiene

Was he as frightened as I

Of a rubber mask and gas

Never to be dismissed as a laughing matter

A sickly smell

A numb tongue

A ruinous gum

A bloody retch

An ice cream cone on the way home

Sitting on the top deck

At the front, as a treat

Too late to enjoy

As the taste of blood and rust

Trickling down my throat

Trumped everything.

The dreams were always wild

Scarier than nightmares

As they were so lucid

Lying in a leather chair

Being eaten by a beetle

As a nurse swabbed out the muck and bones

With a fire hose.

The surgery looked the same

With the addition of a shark-infested

Rinse, please.

The dentist resembled

Shelley’s Prometheus

Wielding a road drill

And buzz saw

Which he jammed into my mouth

When the lights changed.

Even upon waking

There was a doubt that lingered

Long after the gas wore off

Perhaps it was not a midday dream

Not all the wild imaginings

Of a stupified child

High on happy nitrous,

Too inebriated to scream

Out loud

When a party pooper

Stumbled into his stupor

And stole his soul away.