Songs and Poems about Dizziness

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Damaged

By Anna Jean Mallinson

The shambling creature
who has lurked in me since childhood
--the one who has no language but a bawl--
now lurches in my shoes,
stretches her legs in mine
weighs down my feet, trips me up
as I stagger
through a swaying world:

The landscape seems fractured
by a demented animateur
who makes the sky's plates shift
on one another, as trees, buildings,
the horizon, tilt like items
on a surrealist canvas,
and I myself am the lonely puppeteer
who dangles this listing tableau vivant
from my peripatetic eyes

This poem was written by the author during the early days of her adjusting to gentamicin ototoxicity. Posted 2-2-04.

"OH MY VERTIGO" by K. Kuspa

(sung to the tune of "Oh Suzannah"...)

1.
Oh, I spun so hard, the other night
I thought I was a top
I laid my head and tried to rest,
But it just would not stop!
---
2.
Oh, the doctor said it was my ear,
The next said it was stress
Another gave me happy pills
He said I was depressed.

-------------
[CHORUS]

*OH, my vertigo!
*What have you done to me!
*I have left the land of sanity
*And am spinning endlessly!
-----------
3.
The fourth said my neck was messed up
The vertebrae were skewed
So I went into traction
Just to please this fancy dude!
-----------
4.
Another doctor saw me
She said it was migraine
and then she plainly told me
not to come back again!
-------------

    [CHORUS]

------------
5.
Another said I'd had a stroke,
Another said, "AMEN!"
The eighth, she said, "A PLF!"
The ninth, he said "MM!"

--------------
6.
My HMO is sick of me,
but "they'll do what they can;"
But then, I heard--it was a joke!
I was not in their plan!
----------

    [CHORUS]
----------
K. Kuspa, c.1997

UNTITLED-1

why did my head start shaking that day
and why do all the doctors have nothing to say
left with so much dizziness all i can do now is pray
and wonder if im going to live to see another day

this dizziness has made my life one big mess
its even got me stressed and depressed
it has taken total control of my life
and i cant get away from the pain and strife

i think the dizziness is making me go insane
and i feel like theres something seriously wrong with my brain
now i think i might be mentally ill
because i have to see a psychologist and take some kind of pill

suicide is a everyday thought
and now i will never achieve the goals that i sought
i dont know how much more i can take
i hope this dizziness ends soon for my sake

J D, 1997

Vertigo from the inside.

I have eyes but I cannot see

I have ears but I cannot hear

I can touch but you cannot reach me

I am lying down but I cannot rest

I have food in my belly but it does me no good

Without the armchair of balance all else is lost.

Tim Keeping, Bristol, England. c. 2005