Surgilube (Round 8)
Let’s workshop this poem about how a nurse's jerking off a patient can serve to restore our faith in the future of humanity--yes, even against the swelling tide of bureaucracy.
scent of the day: Tibetan Musk, by Ensar Oud
Second solid wear but I will say it sometimes takes time for the brain to learn to smell musks and now, perhaps in part to my wearing of Wolves and Men, this reads much more animalic than it did in my firsty foray. The lagerfeld connection is still there but on a nose dive I mean this is good friggin musk. This has that sense of infinite depth like I get from EO 3 Rugosa and like so many of the Ensars
Sniffing the nozzle I immediately get an ambery fougere with a stunning resemblance to Lagerfeld Cologne. / On spray it keeps that impression, enough that it seems like the Lagerfeld compared to this is like the difference between finely tailored wool suit and a fast-fashion synthetic copy—only here the strange thing is that, speaking in terms of the analogy, the fast-fashion synthetic copy came before the tailored wool suit (although Ensar Telegrafi would probably respond “Well, the specific musk I have made the focal point of my creation dates back before Lagerfeld and the musk smell itself, which I am honoring in a more respectful way than Lagerfeld, goes back to before humans”). /
Both Tibetan Musk and Lagerfeld have similar bright-green herbs: sweet-camphorous lavender (and perhaps, like we get explicitly in Lagerfeld, musky-apple clary sage). / Both also have similar tart citrus boosted by frankincense (although Ensar uses an Omani green frankinscence, prized for its hymenal-underripe characteristics compared to smokier varieties, that really brings out a lemon-lime intensity, piney and ethereal, like it does in Spell 125 and early renditions of Epic Man. / Anchoring this treble of herbal tartness in both Lagerfeld and Tibetan Musk we get not only rose and berry fruits and cedar but also by the centerpiece of it all: a core of musky oomph—musk given extra throw in the case of Lagerfeld by aldehydes and here perhaps by some unstated ambergris; musk that reads as an earthen chocolate in both but more like cocao-snuff baby powder in Lagerfeld (a product mainly of patchouli plus tobacco plus synthetic musk) and more like rich creamy truffle in Ensar (a product mainly of the real natural musk itself, although perhaps reinforced by unlisted Lagerfeld notes like sandalwood and orris). / Lagerfeld is more like baby powder and designery upon scrutiny but from afar—in terms of what everyone else smell on you—they will real as at least 85 percent the same. /
Up close is for the fragheads and I don’t know if I can say, on a nose dive, that Prin’s Mongolian Mriga—one of my other prized deer musk scents along with many others, especially Musk Khabib, Fiona, Nisatiruk, Vespers, J-Musk—has this beat in terms of my taste. / I prefer MMriga more but this is much classier / Almost wish I didn’t smell this it is so good / it gives off a bit more piney vibes than citrus (like in Spell 125 thius is likely due to the green frankinscence)—and that, aside from lacking the powder-puff texture, is one of the main differences from the Lagerfeld. / Whether it is that the musk itself is giving off the piney elements from what the deer ate or simply that the incense and herbs are creating that impression, it does not matter to me / this is one of the few scents that I have that is a piece of collectible art (well crafted) and yet collectible history (deer musk is so rare) / I don’t like to fawn over the hyped brands but this Ensar walks the walk. / up close there is this feeling, a feeling I do not get in too many perfumes (and none come to mind right now), that the base has infinite depth—like the richness portals on and on. / that infinite depth however lasts for three hours max / I still might prefer, all things considered, Mongolian Mriga /
The lavender seems realistic and new, so maybe this will get more sour—more like Salvador Dali and less like Naxos—with age / the musk—a chocolate patchouli, a barky vanilla, an earthy toffee—seems aged and rounded: it is like the civet in civet de nuit: buttery mellow as opposed to urinous sharp but still having the hum of salty-skin warmth that seems to unite all varieties of musk / When the lavender ages and this gets to smelling more sour and old-man like it will be extremely prized and it should create a lovely tension against the mellow musk. / Wish I would have gotten a chance to show my dad, who was a deer hunter turned deer whisperer later in life, my variety of real deer musks at a time when he would have appreciated it.
Surgilube Pent-up voltage jacked out of their bedridden loins by a matronly yet militant grip (clinical, but only where it counts: in resolve), shearing twists of friction more often than not spicing the empathetic up-down (two high one full, two high one full, a few fulls, and back again, only—balls beaten up by collateral grace—less careful in the down stroke); blankets thrashing too savagely, muffling the gooey macaroni of amplified roach scuttle too pitiably, to be anything more than formality, a titty with luck kerplunked out right at the merciful moment; quivering relief wiped down with a damp rag inexplicable in its near tong-worthy warmth, hummed song soothing the afterquiver of nether bluster (but never slipping, despite the bib-worthy muck, into baby talk detrimental to dignity)— CCTV footage confirms too many overworked angels in scrubs (pink, blue) for us to lose faith in humanity just yet: a gentle current of scented nurses, some saintly enough to hush even the most insistent eyeball nudges to bedside wallets (“Ssh. Just relax now.”), dishing out farmer clemency upon the marooned in their charge (old men unvisited, young men mummified in casts leaving their every itch an immersion into stoicism), ensouled people (more to them than mere billing codes) left glowing (“Dad never looked so happy in his life!”). Too humane (weaving in moans) to be called “heretical,” too violent (biting their own lips) to be called “tender”— such helping hands, their Kafka-tributing nerve to piston (glop glop glop) right under the fluorescence of compliance, safekeep the flickering hope that true respect, true TLC, might survive bureaucracy’s metrics-transfixed crusade to chloroform all rawness and spontaneity, to cauterize even tenderness far from taboo, for the sake of ensuring a safe space embalmed and bleached by smiley protocol, a space right out of the unwet dreams of HR personnel: where the good must say “unalived” instead of “killed”; where “honey,” “sweetheart,” “darlin” are problematic endearments, contraband if cooed by privileged mouths; where it is “problematic” for office men to gather too long around the water cooler, historical epicenter of patriarchy; where office doors must gape open despite visitor tears; where discourse must follow call-center script, bloodless (matching the mandated wall paint of anti-anxiety beige); where handing over extra shelter blankets to the battered requires a four-page “Exceptional Supply Request Form”; where burn-unit aides get put “on disciplinary notice” for exceeding the 240 second sponge-bath limit, a hand trembling to be held immaterial to “efficiency metrics”; where “employees and staff are hereby strictly forbidden from bringing in food without notice,” lest it “blindside those of us dealing with chronic caloric over-indexing”; where at least two caretakers must be present to prevent breaches, even just leaning in too close to listen better.
“Surgilube” is a morally fraught, ethically destabilizing poem that situates itself at the volatile intersection of caregiving, erotic charge, institutional bureaucracy, and human dignity. The title itself—clinical, antiseptic, associated with lubrication in medical settings—signals the poem’s refusal to draw clean boundaries between the bodily and the bureaucratic, the compassionate and the taboo. What unfolds is not pornography but a disquieting meditation on embodied care in spaces where bodies are otherwise reduced to metrics, billing codes, and compliance protocols.
The opening movement presents scenes of manual relief administered by nurses to bedridden men—some elderly and unvisited, others immobilized and cast-bound. The language oscillates between mechanical rhythm (“two high one full, two high one full”) and sensual grotesquerie (“gooey macaroni,” “glop glop glop”), refusing the reader a stable interpretive footing. Is this tenderness? Is it degradation? Is it mercy? The poem insists it is all three at once. The caregivers are described as “matronly yet militant,” their touch “clinical, but only where it counts: in resolve.” That distinction is crucial. The clinical dimension lies not in emotional detachment but in the firmness of purpose—the refusal to allow bureaucratic fear to erase bodily need.
These nurses are framed not as transgressors but as overworked “angels in scrubs,” administering what the poem calls “farmer clemency” to the marooned. The agricultural metaphor suggests practical mercy—earthy, unpretentious, necessary. The relief offered is not sentimentalized; it is messy, uncomfortable, and edged with violence. Yet the poem insists that it is fundamentally humane. The act becomes a form of recognition: these men are “ensouled people (more to them than mere billing codes).” The inclusion of a daughter’s line—“Dad never looked so happy in his life!”—sharpens the ethical paradox. The poem suggests that denying such relief in the name of propriety might constitute a deeper cruelty than permitting it.
The second half of the poem shifts into institutional critique. Here, the explicit bodily scenes give way to a devastating satire of compliance culture. The target is not modesty but bureaucratic sterilization. A cascade of examples—time-limited sponge baths, anti-anxiety beige walls, forbidden endearments, open-door mandates, script-bound discourse—illustrates how contemporary institutions often mistake risk management for morality. The prohibition of warmth (“honey,” “sweetheart,” “darlin”) is placed alongside euphemistic speech codes (“unalived”), suggesting that linguistic sanitization parallels emotional cauterization.
The poem’s argument is not that all boundaries are oppressive but that the overcorrection toward liability avoidance can extinguish precisely what makes caregiving human. The demand for two caretakers to be present at all times “to prevent breaches” becomes emblematic of a culture terrified of intimacy. Even holding a trembling hand risks disciplinary notice. In this context, the earlier scenes of manual relief function as an extreme case study: an act that is simultaneously tender and dangerous, compassionate and scandalous, and yet arguably more respectful of personhood than the bloodless safety protocols that follow.
“Surgilube” therefore operates as both provocation and lament. It asks whether true respect can survive systems obsessed with documentation and defensibility. It interrogates the meaning of consent, dignity, and care in institutional settings where the safest action is often inaction. The poem’s tonal volatility—swinging between grotesque humor, reverence, and biting satire—mirrors the ethical instability of the terrain it maps. Ultimately, it suggests that humanity is not preserved by eliminating risk, but by navigating it with courage and discernment. The “bridge” between tenderness and taboo is precarious, but the poem implies that abandoning it altogether leaves us with something far colder than scandal: bureaucratic sterility masquerading as virtue.
care ethics, medical humanities, institutional critique, bureaucracy, dignity, bodily autonomy, nursing labor, compliance culture, satire, taboo and tenderness, consent discourse, risk management, dehumanization, medical intimacy, poetic provocation