Humor

A Cancer Chronicle

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I wrote A Cancer Chronicle between 2014, when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 2016, when my recovery was complete and confirmed. The book was meant to reach me before Easter, but there were some delays. Last Sunday, when working with one of my writing groups, I saw the first hard copy of the book. A good friend had ordered a copy from Amazon and I was able to see it and sign it. My own copies arrived last Tuesday, late, but very welcome.

It is in the spirit of friendship and comfort that I offer these poems to any and all who, in their own turn, follow me on this long and difficult journey. Many forms of cancer can be beaten. Early diagnosis, good doctors and specialists, optimism in the face of difficulties, faith and belief, all these positive elements will help pull patients and fellow sufferers through the ordeal of diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.

I would like all sufferers to know that they are not alone, even on the darkest of nights. I would like them to know that others have walked this way before them and are there on the path ahead to offer their advice, comfort, and help. I call this A Cancer Chronicle because that’s what it is: the chronicle of one man’s journey from sickness back to health. My thanks go to all of those, too many to be named, who helped me along the way. I dedicate this book to them and to any who, like it or not, follow in my footsteps.

Pax amorque: may you all share peace and love.

A Cancer Chronicle is available online at Amazon.

Brain Drain

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Brain Drain

I do the daily crosswords,
first on the computer,
and then in the newspaper
when later it arrives.

My wife does the Sudoku,
but I hate numbers
though I adore
the restless energy of chess.

Online games of point and click
deaden my brain and kill my eyes.
I lengthen my winning streak of patience
every day. Twice I have climbed
to fifteen hundred wins, then wiped
them out to start again.

Boring? Not at all.  Anything to keep
the old grey matter ticking over;
anything to keep me
lively and alive.

Three Bears Wood

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Three Bears Wood

Nobody has seen them,
those three bears,
nor naked nor clothed.

So who now walks
in
Three Bears Wood?

Who now stands
where he once stood
in
the shadow of the trees?

Sometimes
he walks there
in
his dreams.

What magic power
puts him back there
beneath the trees?

What ghosts does he see,
what words does he hear,
what dreams does he dream
in
Three Bears Wood?

Hollow

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Hollow

I am a hollow man,
my heart and soul scooped out
by worry, wear, and care.
Water fills my bones.
My muscles shake like jelly.

Hope?
I abandoned it long ago.

Faith?
In these changing times
it’s a series of corks
bobbing their apples
in a party barrel.

Charity?
Love grows old and cold
and loses its charms
as we shiver in each other’s arms.

For now, I’ll dodder
my dodo way
towards extinction.

As I shuffle
from room to room
I’ll rest for a while
upon this chair.

My mother went this way.
My brothers and my father too;
I soon will follow,
just like you.

Algorithms

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Algorithms
Wednesday Workshop
26 April 2017

I want to begin by confessing that I don’t know what they are. Algorithm: it sounds like a word pulled out of a lexicographer’s top hat or a question from a Grade 9 Spelling Bee.

“May I have the definition?”

“Certainly: it’s ‘a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer’ …” (Merriam-Webster).

Before we go any further, please watch this brief, very explicit (self-explaining, sorry) video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ

So, if I understand the video correctly, an algorithm, applied to literature, is a program that (a) analyses the structure of texts and (b) establishes whether or not a specific text follows the necessary steps or procedures for that text to become (b.1) a best seller or (b.2) an acceptable potential book in which an investor (aka publisher) could or should invest his / her money.

Where does this leave us as writers? We have spoken before about the Guardians at the Gates and the Judges who determine our fate when we enter literary competitions (see below)

https://rogermoorepoet.com/2016/05/31/winning-not-whining/

Suddenly, these Guardians are no longer fallible flesh and blood but infallible wires, nuts, and bolts joined by electronic circuits.

So, we have a story. Right? Right length. Right theme. We think it is good. We submit it to an editorial house. What happens next? Well, it depends. A major house won’t touch it unless put forward by an agent. No agent? It molders to a prolonged, slow, very slow death on someone’s desk. Electronic submission? Wait a minute. Some secretary may read the first five pages and find them good. Then, your submission may be sent to Death by Algorithm.

How is that algorithm prepared? Thousands of best-sellers and classics are fed into the computer program, analyzed, sorted into lines and curves, highs and lows … then your manuscript is fed in. If its computerized profile matches their computerized profile (the algorithm) then BINGO … you may have a foothold on the first rung of the lowest ladder that leads to winning the literary lottery!

Or not.

What can we, as writers, do about this? Absolutely nothing. We must believe in ourselves. We must believe in our writing. We must keep on writing. We must publish where and when we can … and, above all, along with Albert Camus and Sisyphus and his rock, il faut imaginer l’écrivain heureux / we must pretend that, as writers, we are happy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen and others, is a pretty sorry state of affairs and a pretty lousy (but very interesting) piece of translation.

Glass Man

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Glass Man

“I am made of glass,” I said.
“You can see right through me.”

But the harder you looked,
the less you saw.
You claimed
there was nothing there,
just empty air.

“Your glass is an illusion,” you said.
“It’s not half full
and it’s not half empty.”

“Glass is fragile,
I break easily.
Drop me, I shatter;
hot and cold will
make me crack.”

“Your fragility is in your mind,
not in the fact of your existence.”

“When light passes through me
I break into a million colors,”
I said.

“You are a prism,
the colors that you cast
change you and rain
rainbow  lights
that change others
too.”

 

Sous-Chef

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Sous-chef

“I’ll be your sous-chef,” she said,
with a twinkle in her eye,
and she was as good as her word.

She brought me all the ingredients,
laid them out in the right order,
peeled potatoes and carrots,
sliced onions under cold water
to ensure that neither of us cried.

She added crushed garlic into hot
oil, measuring spices and slicing
the chicken into chunks.

I extracted the cork so the wine
could breathe. We sipped sherry
and talked of wind and weather,
of our time together, and how
we would grieve when, early next
day life would force us to part.

Later that night, after dessert
and liqueurs, we climbed up
the stairs and she joined me
in bed, in a sur-chef adventure

that went to my head, with me
as the sous-chef, her as the head.

Comment: Very rare, raw, naughty poem. I wrote it in the garage this morning, waiting for my tires to be rotated. It was cold, I was bored, and I needed warming up. This is one of those poems that I might regret later. I certainly hope not. The rhythms aren’t quite what I wanted, so I may re-do it, and possibly sharpen up the recipe. Your comments and advice will be welcome.

An Old Man

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An Old Man and His Memories

Me and my broken-record memories,
like a vinyl disc going round and round
on the turn-table, and the needle stuck
in a groove, as I repeat myself endlessly
like any old man with his stories and jokes,
told and heard so often that his old lady
knows the endings before he clears his
throat to start the tale, and the ancient
mariner who lives in his brain stops
people in supermarket and street to tell
them, again and again, about life’s doldrums
where no winds blow and the ship is stuck,
like a gramophone needle in a one-track
groove, no moving air to fill the sails,
and life’s albatross lies heavy on this old
man’s neck, and bends his back so he leans
on his canes, and points with rubber-tipped
stick at the falling snow, never as thick and
heavy as it was in his youth, when he climbed
Mount Everest and ran a four minute mile,
though that’s about the time now for his
one hundred stumbled meters, as he leans
on a grocery cart, like other old men who
grin and wink and nod “Nice cart, eh lad?”
and back in those days, every game was won,
except when the ref was biased, and look:
he still walks lop-sided from that collection
of chips off the old family block that he carries
around, like a slow snail carries his house,
always on the move, from face to fearful face.

April Ducks

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April Ducks … in Spanish … Patos de abril. Patos … because the double two of 22 look like two little ducks … and April … that’s the month we’re in … so Patos de abril … the twenty-second of April, or 22 abril … aka today … though you wouldn’t think so from the photo … taken today … just a few minutes ago …

Nice weather for ducks we say when it’s raining. But what do we say when late snow falls and we have between 4 and 6 inches of fresh snow down on the ground … on April 22nd … and it’s meant to be spring … and yesterday everything was green … and this is meant to be a color photograph … would you believe it? … and yesterday that Mountain Ash was full of birds … a downy woodpecker, creepers, purple finches, American Goldfinches, chickadees … robins were patrolling up and down the garden and juncos gathered with the early morning mourning doves beneath the feeders to pick up fallen seeds …

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Patos de abril … and winter has returned … we know the snow can’t last too long … we hope the sun will emerge and take it all away … I was late changing my snow tires this year … was that an omen? … I go in on Monday and get them done … we haven’t changed the garage around yet … the snow-blower sits by the garage door … a lion in winter in waiting and ready to roar … soon we will banish him to the back of the garage and bring out the mowers … soon … but not just yet … and certainly not today …

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Patos de abril … our indoor geraniums have survived the winter and defy the snow … they are sure the sun will return and the snow will emigrate somewhere … we don’t care where … if only we could build a wall … a great, big, expensive wall to keep winter away … an enormous, gigantic wall … a beautiful wall that unwanted snow storms wouldn’t cross … a wonderful wall … for which, of course, someone else will pay …

Chaos

Chaos

Chaos

Chaos theory:
it states that we don’t know
what we’re doing and
it wouldn’t really matter
anyway, even if we did,
because life lacks meaning,
chance rules, and Lady Luck
with her lusty locks attached
to her forehead and she,
all bald and hairless
from behind, must be caught
as she arrives, because later
is much too late, and when past,
she’s gone for good and
our good luck’s gone with her,
and we’re left for ever,
sitting there, head in hands,
bemoaning all that milk spilled
before we ever had a chance
to actually taste it.