Bad Rhyming Syndrome

by Charles C. Cole

My healthcare company promotes a wonderful program where volunteers reach out by phone to chat with homebound individuals. I never ask where the names come from, likely from our doctors or nurses. Anyway, I was feeling sorry for myself over a recent breakup, and my therapist recommended a low-commitment way to giving back to society, focusing less on myself.

I picked a funny-sounding name at random. The man had suffered from a life-altering stroke and was moved into assisted living. He now endured a rare condition that compelled him to rhyme, all the time. Prepared for the worst, I called him.

“Dunston? This is Charlie Cole. I work with your doctor’s office. I was given your name as someone who doesn’t get out as much as he used to and might not mind a welfare check. Is this a good time?”

“You work with my doc? He’s quite a crock.”

“Same company, but I’m actually in a different building. Is this a good time?”

“I’ve got nothing else; just living beside myself.”

“You might be in the middle of a movie or a gripping book.” Listening to myself, it sounded like I was making excuses to cut the call short.

“I mostly sit by the window and stare. No, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sounds like my career,” I said. “Maybe you can offer some advice.”

“Charlie, don’t let life slip away. Sooner or later, you’ll be dead one day.”

“Good advice. And very true. But today we’re alive. So, what do you see out your window? Squirrels? Chipmunks? Somebody walking a dog?”

“Lots of visitors in their cars. None for me, because I’m from Mars.”

“You talk in rhyme.”

“All the time.”

“Maybe you should use your powers for good. Write poetry. I bet you’d be great at it, a natural. Does the senior center there have a newsletter? Do you know?”

“I’m kind of a shy, stick-to-himself type of guy,” he said.

“Would you write something just for me? You could email me. I won’t criticize. The truth is my mother, no longer with us, always wanted me to be a poet, like James Whitcomb Riley and James Russell Lowell. But the discipline, the metaphors and the language scared the hell out of me.”

“I guess I could. It might do me some good.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. And, maybe, you could inspire me to give another whack at it, though I think limericks are too sophisticated, if that says anything about me.”

“Let’s say I might, about what would I write?”

“Your life. You. Being you. Somebody once said everything we write is somehow about us anyway. You don’t have to be so subtle. Just let the words pour out.”

“In my case, words rarely flow. Everything HAS to rhyme you know.”

“I hear that. It’s like speaking another language. That makes you bi-lingual, I guess. Write me a short poem about you and, in return, I’ll have my niece draw you a picture. She’s really good. She actually went to college to draw for animated movies. Crazy, right?”

“Talking with me is hard on the ear. You’ve done well, let me make that clear.”

“A long time ago, I held a door open for an elderly lady leaving a store. I thought I was being gentlemanly. She said, ‘We all have our foibles, some more politically correct than others.’ I think I was being slammed for doing a good deed.”

Dunstan laughed. It was a lonely, lovely sound that made me shiver to my soul.

“So you’ll send me a poem? Is that a yes?”

There was a pause. I could picture him looking out the window at the life that continued all around him but did not include him.

“I promise to write my best, if you promise this is not a jest.”

“This is not a challenge and not a joke,” I promised. “We’re just two people connecting the best ways we can. I think you should do it. I look forward to hearing from you. This has been a great call; y rou haven’t been intimidating at all. Oops, sorry about that. I hope you’re not contagious.” I gave him my email address. Below is what he sent.

* * *

I had a little accident when I lived in “normal time,”
And ever since the accident, I speak and write in rhyme.

They think it was a fever. Perhaps it was a stroke.
My wife and kids think neither, just their father’s endless joke.

It takes enormous strength for any conversation,
When talking’s efforts are more like constipation.

I wish I were a children’s author, prolific at writing books.
This might encourage toleration instead of dismissive looks.

You might think not rhyming’s easy. At least it is for some.
But, for me, it makes me queasy. And then I suck my thumb.

My doctor prescribed I mix it up and try my hand at free verse.
But my throat gets tight and I don’t feel right; in fact I feel downright worse.

If the meter on the page feels from a writer with little training,
I agree, you see, so pity me, but I’m coping with “rebraining.”

Foreign Accent Syndrome seems akin to this gift I daily fight.
Take some time to look online and appreciate my plight.

I meant to write an essay of the truth of my two “me”s.
Instead, alack, looking back, I’ve trivialized my disease.

I cannot keep this effort up so I’ll set my story loose.
You must admit God has a wit to mimic Dr. Seuss.