Revisited Poetry: Selected Haiku Verses

Original Poetry:  

G.A Hurwitz J Nucl Cardiol 2003: Reprinted with permission of the author. 

Verses relevant to Nuclear Cardiology written in classic haiku format.

SELECTED HAIKU VERSES

Such good friends we have:

Technetium-99m

And fluorine-18.

Now a blunted curve –

Toxic doxorubicin.

The sword is too sharp.

Rays spring then scatter 
Within the female breast. Man

Deflects photons too.

Our technologists, 
Long hours the manuals read,

Know what we cannot.

Mrs. Dunn’s small vein –

Injection interstitial.

The first-pass is past.

I click on “Half-Life”
And correct for decay my

Image, not my life.

No symptoms were voiced, 
Yet silent ischemia

Still howls on the scan.

Equilibrium.

Procrustean bed! Beats fit

On some better days.

Esteemed doctors, you

Over-rate dobutamine.

“Please hold the blockers”.

In sorrow I view,

With my platelets restrained, the

Scars of those whose weren’t.

New kidney hoped for.
Could we delve the soul’s resolve

Leaving arms untouched?

Re-boot the network

At your ease. Be fleet-of-foot

Should the patient crash.

Grafted allegro 
Or final ritardando?

 - Delayed thallium.

Old Nukes staff don’t fade
By apoptosis. Our pace

Is logarithmic.

Enhanced by nitrates,
What seems inevitable

Might prove livable.

Cardiology
Is by no means nuclear,

’Til you reach its Heart.