In the badlands of the risk-assessed
medium-secure unit dining room cutlery
is a weapon threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s dangerous in them there hills: the Sheriff\u2019s posse patrol the endless prairie of the ward, in pursuit of \u2018Wanted\u2019 cutlery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They don\u2019t want to be scalped in a patient raid, by sharps from the therapy kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every mealtime is a death-defying standoff between boredom and hunger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s staff versus the Cutlery Gang, who plot like ageing shootists in their locked drawer hideout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These old-timers have the edge over us. They define true grit, their wits sharpened by years of wrestling hospital food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are just dude-ranch cowboys with our Spaghetti Western cardboard sandwiches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
High noon and it\u2019s lunchtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Staff are on battle-stations, serving-spoons cocked, as gunslingers swagger to the dining queue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes, shootouts occur; plates ricochet and we retreat behind the serving-hatch in a hail of pea-shrapnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, however, it\u2019s a truce: the peace-pipe is a supervised vape in the town-jail yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the natives are still restless, poised like marmots when vultures circle overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sheriff is on high alert for suspicious E-Cig smoke signals: there\u2019s still tea and supper to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the badlands of the risk-assessedmedium-secure unit dining room cutleryis a weapon threat. It\u2019s dangerous in them there hills: the Sheriff\u2019s posse patrol the endless prairie of the ward, in pursuit of \u2018Wanted\u2019 cutlery. They don\u2019t want to be scalped in a patient raid, by sharps from the therapy kitchen. Every mealtime is a death-defying … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/dstudio-bcn-F3svh7bKb6I-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C486&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Kate Meyer-Currey works in forensic mental health needs a dark sense of humour to survive. This poem is for her Old Timer patients, who can\u2019t stand plastic cutlery (but still might use real metal to scalp the staff).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"