Cancer

Carved in Stone 44

Carved in Stone
44

The old man, withered,
last house on the left,
leaning on his garden wall,
coughing, spitting up
coal dust and blood.

He’s not old, when you get close,
just grown old, underground,
where emphysema
and pneumoconiosis
devour men and boys.

He spits on the side walk.
Mining souvenirs,
Max Boyce calls them,
and they appear
every time the young man,
turned suddenly old,
starts to cough.

He can’t walk far,
wearing carpet slippers,
soft and furry,
just leans on the wall.

He fell, or was pushed,
into the trap at an early age,
when the coal seams
had grown so thin,
that only a small boy
could kneel before
the coal black altar
of the underground god
and, with a pick and shovel,
he learned to carve and shape
the long, slow death
contained in those seams.

Commentary

Moo’s painting, Coal Face, adorns the front cover of Carved in Stone, Chronotopos II. Coal Face is not the denigration of Black Face, white men pretending to be black by dyeing their faces, although they have some similarities. In Welsh Mining, the coal face is where the men used to dig when, with their shovel and their pick and their little lamp and wick, they knelt to dig out the coal. Knelt, because there was no standing room, deep down underground. Then, when the seams grew thinner, and the men could no longer reach them, the young boys were sent underground.

A day underground left men and boys with coal dust seamed into their bodies, especially their hands and their faces. Hence the triple meaning of black face – where the coal is dug, what men and boys looked like after a day’s work, and the blackening of their faces by white men, for the fun of it.

Faces are one thing, coal dust in the lungs is another. The result – emphysema and pneumoconiosis devour men and boys. Black lung, some call it. “And every time he coughs, he gets a mining souvenir” – a black spot coughed up on the sidewalk – Max Boyce.

Child labor, minimum wage, living wage, work that kills, slowly and silently, – what can I say? Forgive me, for I can say no more.

Last Dance

Last Dance

Ten years ago,
in the Hospice for patients,
the shy lady in the corner,
body withered by cancer,
stood up to dance.

She bowed to the band
then floated into movement,
dancing alone.

She clung to the empty air
as she once clung to her lover.

Nymphs and shepherds
played sweet music at midnight
in this room turned sacred grove,
where naiads and dryads
emerged from the shadows.

Her dance-steps
were a draught of joyous water
from the fount of eternal youth
and lasting love.

Commentary:

Moo offered me one of his paintings for this poem. He calls it Keep on the green side. Every Wednesday, in the hospice, a local band came in to play. Some patients danced, others sat and watched, some stood on the sidelines and listened to the music.

I had the fortune to be present at the singular performance recounted above. I never found out that lady’s name and I never saw her again afterwards. She remains a mystery, like the naiads and the dryads, and the hamadryads, who inhabited those mythological woods where so many of us dream our dreams of one last chance and one last dance.

Clepsydra 8

8

… those other faces fading
     drifting away
          their smiles their frowns
               melting away into the dark
                    where no star glows

they cannot return
     nothing walks the woods
          save a silence
               where once they strode

empty the hand
     once held out to help them

silent the prayer
     emerging from pale lips
          and unanswered

where are they now
     those who walked
          this way before us
               glum ghosts
                    hushed their chorus

I promised
     to remember them
          but I forgot them
               as one by one
                    they slipped away …

Clepsydra 6 & 7

Clepsydra 6 & 7

6

… I say I walked alone
     along a long lonely road

nobody could cross that threshold
     nor enter that inner sanctum
          where hungry metal monsters
               lay in silent ambush waiting

nobody could share that sacrificial altar
     the single bed with its iron frame
          on which I lay on my own waiting

uniformed attendants
     locked themselves
          behind their concrete defences
               away from the radiation
                    so dangerous

while I waited
     for those circling stars
          that would burn
               and scar me
                    to descend …

7

… and single beds
     were only meant for one
         
just me
     strapped in
          tied so tight
               lying motionless
                    as I waited for
                         the bed to rise …

upwards
     into that dark night of the soul
          and I the sole sufferer
               under a claustrophobic sky

behold my body
     a mass of red and green striations
          burned by pin-pricks of light
               walking across my body
                    follow the red map
                          painted on my body

burns and blisters
     body and mind scarred
          scared by knowing
               all this suffering
                    might be in vain

others walked this road before me
     some never returned
          empty places at breakfast
               hushed whispers
                    faces turned away

when the tide turns
     it brings with it
          the joy of life
               a spark of hope
                    life’s waters
                         resuming their flow …

Comment:
All that happened to me ten years ago – but the memories are still fresh in my mind. At night, I often watch those planets circling, closing in, those star ships, guns blazing, burning my skin. So many of us have walked that lonely path, lain on that bed, faced those demons. Holst’s Planets – it amazes me that the music still plays in my mind, the celestial dance still goes on in the ballroom of my head, and the memories refuse to fade, though the burns on the skin have vanished and are long gone.

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
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What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

A simplistic question in so many ways as so many definitions are needed. How long is long? 100 years? 200 years? Back to 1066 to watch the Battle of Hastings? 1588 to see the Spanish Armada sailing up the channel? 1815 to see the Battle of Waterloo and talk with Wellington and Napoleon – why not? I am Anglo-Welsh and New Brunswick is bilingual, French and English, so why shouldn’t I – or anyone else who wants to live such a long life – have a talk with both of them?

And does living a very long life include the concept of being healthy, and happy, and wise, and not living in squalor or poverty or in a permanent war zone? How about being kept in an incubator, or an iron lung, or on permanent life support? How long is long under those (or similar) conditions. And what about friends and family? In the Celtic myths, men who visit the fairies in Ireland and live and eat with them, come back to reality [now define that word in this day and age] only to find their friends and families long dead and gone. So what would the conditions of the ‘return’ be like if a long life meant watching the passing of everyone and everything you know or returning to a world you no longer recognized?

And change is so rapid nowadays. AI is developing so quickly, how can anyone keep up? I know that as I slow down (mentally and physically) I understand less and less about the machines I use, including my Nexus Rollator. Does a ‘very long life’ include sipping from the Fountain of Youth? Or does it consist of an enlarged old age – post molestam senectutem, nos habebit humus – after a troubled old age, the earth will have us. I am sure we all recognize Gaudeamus igitur, in Latin, and its theme of Ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere – where now are those lived in this world before us, and if we don’t, then how swiftly we have forgotten the power of Latin is with its memorable phrases and omnipresent seeds of memento mori .

For me the question is a clear one – do you wish for quantity (a very long life) or quality (a very happy and successful one, even if it is a bit shorter)?

A close friend of mine, one of the most honest and courageous people that I have known, suffering in a horrific way from terminal cancer, asked for, and received, MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying). It was a long legal and medical process to get MAID, involving famiy members, lawyers, doctors, and many other things. As the Romans used to say mors omnia solvit – death resolves everything. My friend and his family preferred to shorten life – on their own terms – rather than prolong it under such prolonged suffering and torment. My friend, I salute you and your family and commend you for your bravery.

So, define the terms within which that very long life would be lived – and then ask yourself the question once more. Because as it stands right now, with no further understanding, the answer should only be “depends”. And remember, lives are like swimming pools – they have shallow ends and deep ends. All too often when you talk about life and the end of life, so much depends.

Comment:

I must thank my friend, Moo, for his depiction of the fireworks from New Year’s Eve. Sky Flowers, he calls it. The fireworks have gone already – but – vis breve, ars longa – his painting still survives.

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
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What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

Covid changed the world and my outlook on the world. Since the first rumors in 2019, I cut my own hair and stopped eating out. I avoided crowds, left home as little as possible, wore a mask everywhere, and maintained as much distance as possible between myself and other people. I stopped inviting people around to the house, and, as a result, we have hardly had a visit or a visitor in the last four years. We got regular shots and boosters. So far, with those precautions and a little bit of luck, we have avoided Covid.

My health care deteriorated during the Covid period. I had very few visits to my GP’s office, and most business, like prescription renewal, was done over the phone. Consultations were by telephone as well. I missed out on the regular blood tests that my urologist / oncologist had been scheduling for me, after a bout with prostate cancer. These picked up again in late 2021, and were resumed in 2022 and 2023. Things seem to be moving well currently. Thank heavens.

I interpret well-being as my state of mind, rather than my state of body. I would say that my well-being suffered from my lack of human contact, although I have slowly developed a series of online support groups. In this way, I was able to continue my writing, for example, in Zoom sessions. I also missed my family visits. I no longer travel well, and due to Covid restrictions, I did not see my daughter or my granddaughter from 2019 to 2022. Clearly, we all missed the family closeness and we were all affected. However, we are used to isolation from family. Boarding schools, travel abroad in the summer, emigration to Canada, saw our family connections broken. That said, the advent of social media, Skype, Zoom, Messenger, texting, free phone calls, have all lessened the miles between us and maintained a contact that we never had, post migration, with our parents and grandparents, and extended family. The isolation and loneliness have been hard. They are hard upon all ageing, isolated people. We have suffered less than most.

As for strategies, I really have only three: 1. to adapt 2. to survive 3. to create beauty via my writing and my painting. Painting, prose, and poetry – these I can share with my friends. Vita brevis, ars longa – life is short, but art endures. Pax amorque – peace and love.

Modern Society

Daily writing prompt
What would you change about modern society?
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What would you change about modern society?

Good question – what indeed? First, define society. It’s not as if a single society dominated the world. Do we then distinguish between the world, this geoidal planet on which we live, and the multiple societies that inhabit this world? If we do, then what right do you, or I, or any other individual have to change any or all of the world’s cultures and societies? And how do we change them?

Many ways have been tried in the past, very few successfully. The Spanish Inquisition burned many books and censored others. Other book burnings and spurnings have taken place, and in some places, they are still happening. But are they effective in the long term? Good question. Short term, maybe. Long term, I am not so sure.

Do we limit education, and by extension, knowledge, to a few , limited people, who believe what we believe, and do what we want them to do? That has been tried as well. Short-term successes, but long term disasters. As well as depriving people of education and books, we can also enslave them. This is still happening in many places.

So, another definition: what do we mean by change? Change for the better? Change for the worse? Change for change’s sake? Change for the betterment of our own selves and the devil take the hindmost? And what do we mean by modern? So many questions – so few answers.

Albert Camus once wrote that he was ‘optimiste, quant au monde, pessimiste quant a l’homme‘ – an optimist where the world is concerned, a pessimist where humankind is concerned. Personally, I am not sure that this particular thought stands up any longer. Is it still possible to be optimistic about a planet that we are capable of blowing to smithereens, a planet, moreover, that is currently suffering from wind and rain, fire and flood, famine and war, pandemic and a pollution like none we have ever seen before?

How can I change the world? I am just a single human being. Well, I am a married one, actually. But I only have one vote. I rather fear that single vote (votes don’t marry and produce offspring) will have little effect on my ability to make any change at all to modern society.

Pass the soap and a towel, please, as a certain person said a long time ago. I want to cleanse my hands and purge my soul. I am too old a dog to try and learn new tricks.

Old Man Sin Drome

Old Man Sin Drome

Damn! He’s done it again.
He must pretend it hasn’t happened.
He struggles out of his jeans,
runs the hot tap in the powder room,
removes his underoos,
and places them in the basin.

He adds soap and watches the water
bubble and change color.
He rolls up his sleeves,
places his hands in the hot suds,
grabs the nail brush,
and starts to scrub.

Cancer. He is washing it away,
removing its stain, the smell,
the pain of its presence.
He drains the water and wrings
his underoos, twisting them this way
and that in an effort to purge.

More water now, no soap.
He waits for the water to discolor.
When it doesn’t, he knows that all
is well and the evidence destroyed.


He wrings out his underoos again,
then hangs them over the air vent to dry.
He keeps a spare pair in the cabinet drawer.
He puts them on, struggles back into his jeans,
and hopes that nobody will ever find out.

Swings

Swings

They told me that one day
my feet would be up in the air,
and the next they would be stuck
on the ground.

A roundabout, they said,
a merry-go-round,
with all the fun of whatever fair
happens to be around that day.

Someone, not me, flicks a switch,
music plays, the carousel horses
move up and down, slowly at first,
then faster and faster as day, music,
and horses all gather pace.

There are no reins. If there were,
I would heave those horses
back to whatever reality I left.

But what is reality now?
These hot flashes that warm my flesh?
Those cold flushes that make me shiver,
then turn up the heat
until I am sweating again?

Shadows grow. I pull less strongly
on the swing boat’s ropes.
My journey slows. The showman
raises the bar beneath the wooden hull.
 
Wish it or not, my journey grinds
to its inevitable end.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Movember

Movember

When we men threaten to grow moustaches,
walking unshaven, amid the leaves
that crackle and pop as they rustle,
wind-blown, against our feet.

But pity us, poor hairless ones,
whose youthful skin still bears no beard –
can we we force a moustache to our lips?

That said, a chain of purple lights
adorns the wall in front of me
and I type to its imperious, flashing
bulbs, a constant reminder of bygone days

when the biopsy proved cancerous
and my prostate threatened my body
but was prevented from entering my bones.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Movember

Comment: November is prostate cancer month. My heart goes out to any and all who are suffering from this form of cancer. Caught early, it is curable. Get checked out, as quickly as possible. The sooner you catch it, the sooner your medical team can be formed to inform and advise you as to your choices. And YES, you have choices. I will always be grateful for the help I received, from my own medical team, back in 2014-15, when I was first diagnosed and then cured. Cured, yes. But the nightmare of a possible return always remains, ticking away like a time-bomb at the back of my mind.