Backbone Practise

(Unpleasant reminder in a subterranean pathology department)

 

We're entering the operating theatre of the familiar morgue:

The student nurses are making a lot of noise,

Their voices echo from the bare tiled walls...

I improvise a fainting fit: "I cannot bare these voices anymore!"

 

The tiny spineless spider, who really is a dog,

Has hurt herself - or did she get hurt? - something 'bout her back...

Oh, does she need a new one?

Torsoless she only does consist of legs...

Much like a [bad word] little cross, a tiny [bad word] 

So cautiously she's stalking now across the palm of my right hand,

Merely a thin branch in the wind,

Touching the wound... where I had cut my finger.

 

I hand her over to the nurses, one of them - directed by the teacher -

Carries out the operation, for which I don't have the knowledge.

One day everyone here must fulfil this very task alone,

As it's the only way to learn... and in the end [bad word] a master...

Yes, this means responsibility,

As it's connected directly to stress and fear.

 

The little spider has her operation on a table

That is decorated like a forest, all with thicket and fir trees...

And right beside the flashing lights and displays of the [bad word] 

So hear now of the very scene that happened right before this here:

 

An elephant stands on the plane roof of a tall cathedral... very close to the edge.

"Climb down his tail, as if it were a rope!

Have faith and confidence, believe that he will hold you!"

But the elephant is not anchored in the ground,

Yes, he might have the will to remain in position,

Perhaps doing everything within his power to hold me,

Not to slip and fall himself...

But in my opinion this is hardly enough.

Can this be a question of [bad word]  at all?!?

 

Looking out of the window,

While the underground moves down into the tunnel...

man, who has already passed the elephant-test, says:

"Fears must be conquered, boy!

Many of [bad word] up are merely old Fears of Death!"

 

"Fears must be conquered, boy!

Many of [bad word] up are merely old Fears of Death!"

  [bad word]  [bad word] soporaeternus