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.
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.
Comment: I wrote this after reading the section entitled Quilt in M. Travis Lane’s book A Tent, a Lantern, An Empty Bowl (Windsor: Palimpsest Press, 2019). Poems that could double as paintings, proclaims the paragraph on the back cover. I have no such talent. My own poem is more of a memoir in the form of a narrative sequence. To each his or her own, or, in the modern parlance, to all their own. And a poet must do what a poet can do, each of us adding our own little offerings to the great sea that is poetry.
“When I stand still and contemplate the path that led me here.”
I see purple arrows painted on the corridor floors their sharp ends pointing to the treatment room where the machine’s stark metal throat waits to swallow me.
I shed my Johnny Coat and lie on the bed. I mustn’t move as they adjust me tugging me this way and that, in accordance with the red marks painted on my belly and hips.
Then they raise my feet, place them in a plastic holder, cover me with a thin cotton sheet, and leave the room to take refuge in the safety of their concrete bunker.
With a click and a whirr, the bed moves up and in, the ceiling descends and claustrophobia clutches.
The machine circulates weaving its clockwork magic: targeting each tumor, scrubbing me clean, scouring my body, scarring my mind.
Comment: It all happened a long time ago now, but one never forgets. The desire to reach out and help and comfort any and all sufferers is still with me. This is the link for my book, A Cancer Chronicle.
Some have it, many don’t. Some find it floating one morning on their pillow, short or long, all gone, a dream faded in the light of day.
A woman’s crowning glory, or so they say yet I admire the bald skull, its stiff stubble stubbornly growing back beneath head scarf or cap.
The lucky ones wear wigs, often made from another person’s loss.
The bravest flaunt their baldness, battle flags their shining skulls, blazing like badges of glory, shiny medals awarded in this never-ending war against our own fifth column and the enemy who devours us from within.
Comment: Yet another of my friends is suffering from cancer. When will it ever end? This is my tribute to all who fight, or who have fought, the enemy within. Meet him head on. Never surrender. D o not give in.
“I met a traveler from an antique land who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.” [Percy Bysshe Shelley]
Comment: Not my poem – I only wish it was – but certainly it expresses some of my sentiments at the current time. What on earth is happening? Who do we think we are? What do we think we’re doing? Where do we think we are going? ‘Vanity of vanities – all is vanity.’
What is it about generic greens, their power of growth, renewal, resurgence? In the Auberge, Moncton’s Hospice for cancer patients, sufferers wore green clothes, shirts, blouses, skirts, trousers. Green for recovery, for hope, for the persistent belief that nature mattered, more, that nature could be omnipotent, ubiquitous, everywhere around us. The patients planted a small garden, almost an allotment. They walked in it, sat beside it, watched the flowers grow, grew their own cells anew, hoped.
Exercises are easier, more fulfilling, when done in green surroundings. Go green for improved moods, better self- esteem, growth beyond the muscles of cold iron pumped indoors by hot, sweating bodies. Never underestimate the healing power of walking barefoot on grass, your toes curling into the early-morning coolness of fresh, new dew.
Focus your attention on the here and now. Forget the past. Let the future take care of itself. Your most important therapeutic tool is this moment of awareness when you and your world are one. Erase loneliness and isolation. Don’t pander to the pandemic. Talk to your plants. You may not think they’re listening, but they are. And you must listen to them too. Learn the languages of tree and shrub, of butterfly and bee, of Coneheads and Cape Daisies. Bask in beauty: sunflowers, hollyhocks. All will be well.
“Verde, que te quiero verde. / Green, how I love you green.” Federico García Lorca (!898-1936).
Comment: I have been discussing Mindfulness with several people recently. Whether it be the Covid-19 outbreaks or the necessity of staying apart from friends and family, some of my seem to have become more isolated and more introverted over the last couple of years. As a result, the theme of mindfulness has arisen, often spontaneously. So, this poem is dedicated to all of us who feel the need to live in the moment and to concentrate on the development of our inner growth and being. It is taken from my book The Nature of Art nd the Art of Nature (pp. 134-35), soon to be available on Amazon and at Cyberwit.net
I remember pushing my father around the ward. Two weeks we had together. He sat in his wheel chair and I wheeled him up and down.
“Cancer, ” they told me. “But it’s kinder not to let him know.”
In those days, it was better to die, without knowing why. Did I betray him by not letting him know what I now need to know?
One day, he begged for help and I lifted him onto the toilet. He strained and strained but couldn’t go.
“Son,” he said, sitting there. “Will you rub my back?” How could I say no?
That strong man, the man who had carried me on his back, and me standing there, watching him, trousers around his knees, straining, hopelessly, and me bent over him, rubbing his back, waiting,
I remember pushing my father around the ward in the hospital. Two weeks we had together.
My father sat in his wheel chair and I wheeled him up and down.
“Cancer,” they told me. “But it’s kinder not to let him know.” In those days, it was better to die without knowing why. Did I betray him by not letting him know what I now need to know?
One day, he begged me for help and I lifted him out of his wheelchair and placed him on the toilet. He strained and strained but could not, would not go.
“Son,” he said, sitting there, “Will you rub my back?” How could I say no?
That strong man, the man who had carried me in his arms, on his back, and me standing there, watching him, his trousers around his knees, straining hopelessly, and me bent over him, rubbing his back, waiting,
for him to go.
Comment: Thank you, once again, Alejandro Botelho of Diverse TV. This was a great reading. If you, dear reader, are interested, you can listen to it HERE. Alejandro’s reading of my poem begins at 40.52 and ends at 42.33. But remember, the other poems are also well worth listening to and Alejandro has a great voice and wonderful interpretation. A further comment: first there is the text. Then there is Alejandro’s excellent reading. Then there is my own reading. From each of these the observant reader and / or listener will extract a slightly different emphasis and meaning. In my own case, following Alejandro’s reading of the original text, I have added some minor changes, to add to the intertextual rhythm of the words. Tolle, lege et vade mecum. A Cancer Chronicle is available HERE.
Teddy Bears’ Nit-Pick Friday Fiction 27 August 2021
“So, Teddy, how did we all end up in here like this?”
“Kicked him out, she did, just like that, Freddy. Told him to sleep in the spare bedroom. She couldn’t take it any more. She couldn’t sleep. He had to go. It was the diuretic that did it, mind, the diuretic. After the radiation treatment, they gave him hormone injections, told him he’d put on ten to fifteen per cent of his current body weight, but not to worry. It was quite natural. It was the hormones, see? He told me all about it. Told me how he used to stand on the bathroom scales without a care in his heart. Watched his weight rise, five per cent, ten per cent, fifteen per cent. When he reached twenty per cent, he started to worry. Swollen ankles. Swollen knees. At twenty-five per cent, he was really worried. Socks no longer fitted. Couldn’t put on his shoes. Couldn’t bend to tie his laces. Had to wear sandals and slip-ons. At thirty per cent, he started to cry. He told me he was ugly, so ugly. He was down to one pair of shoes and one pair of sandals that fitted. He went to the pharmacy. The pharmacist took one look at his feet and gave him a long list of Latin names. Told him he’d need a prescription, from his doctor, to get pressure socks, and medical shoes that would help him walk. ‘It’s the feet, see, the feet,’ the pharmacist told him. ‘Once they start to swell, you’re in big trouble. There’s nothing we can do. Go see your doctor.’ ‘I’ve seen the doctor.’ ‘Go see him again.’ So he did. Told me he broke down crying when he entered the surgery. ‘I’m down to one pair of shoes. You’ve got to do something, doc.’ So the doctor wrote him out a prescription for pressure socks, medical shoes, appointment with a psycho-something, attendance at a clinic, everything the doc thought he needed. Then, just as he was about to leave, the doc stopped him. ‘Hang on a sec,’ doc said. Sat at the desk. Checked the computer. Wrote out another prescription. ‘New tablets,’ he said. ‘Take these brown ones. Stop taking those white ones.’ He went away happy. Stopped at the pharmacy. Got the new pills. Went home. Took them. And straight away started to pee. Told me he’d peed all day and then I watched him as he peed all night. Every 15 minutes. That’s when the missus kicked him out of bed. ‘Go. Sleep in the spare room,’ she said. ‘You’re peeing every fifteen minutes. I can’t sleep anymore. I can’t stand it. And take that teddy bear with you.’ So he went. Grabbed me, his faithful Teddy Bear, tucked me under his arm, and we went to the spare room with its cold, lonely bed. Except he had me, his Ted. Lost four pound that first night. Twelve pound the first week. Twenty pound the first month. ‘Ted,’ he said to me one morning, ‘I feel good. Time for us to go back to the old bed.’ We tried. But the missus wouldn’t let us back in. He’s looking pretty good now. Back down to ten per cent body weight up. Says he can live with that. Likes sleeping with all his Teddy bears he tells me. Says we don’t snore. Unlike that missus of his. It’s the first anniversary next week. He told me to gather all the bears, Rosie, and Blanche, and you, and Blueberry, and Basil of course. And that French bear, Pierre. ‘We’re going to have a midnight dormitory feast and a Teddy Bears’ Nit-Pick.’ Sorry Fred, I don’t know what the missus is going to say about that.”
rogermoorepoet 