The One No One Wanted.
It was the one no one wanted
The last one on the shelf
The one no one wanted, I didn’t
Much want it myself.
But there were no others
So I had little choice
The one that all had shunned
I purchased myself.
And Oh it fitted the bill
To the nth degree
So the one no one wanted
Was the right one for me.
*pic pinterest
.Shameless.
Part of me recoils.
What are you?
Shameless?
Milking sympathy.
No, I say, I’m not.
Though I’m doing something
just as shameless,
using the disease as grist
to the mill.
Isn’t that what writers do?
I am ferocious for new material,
for keeping the old war horse fed.
Should one take advantage of an illness
or submit meekly to it.?
*pic courtesy of Wiki Commons
Indolent.
I’m going to lounge around like the old ginger cat
the rest of the afternoon,
‘Indolent’ is not a bad descriptor
for the disease.
makes it sound almost amiable. good natured,
like a lazy, but lovable work-shy relation.
Other cancers are hares.
This is a tortoise.
In the afternoon it takes nana naps like me.
The Warrior Princess
You shouldn’t have done that, I say,
flushed the wee down the toilet.
Sorry, she says. I didn’t know.
It is one in the morning.
I can’t sleep, I say.
No wonder, she replies.
There’s too much light in the room.
But I’m claustrophobic, I say.
But it’s keeping you awake, she says,
drawing the curtains.
Sometimes you have to ride through your fear.
Get to the other side.
What’s your name? I ask.
Zena. I’m your nurse for tonight.
It’s a lovely name, I say. Xena, the warrior princess.
She smiles.
She’s Greek. I’m Filipino. Besides my name
starts with a Z.
Goodnight, John. Remember what I said.
I will. I’ll try.
I sleep for four bountiful hours.
I wake up at 4.38, bounce out of bed,
write three poems, including this one.
To me, she is still Xena, warrior princess.
Locked between his headphones
the scraggly haired beachcomber
scours the beach with his detector
its one perfectly round ear
listening to talk-back from the sand
music to his ears :
dollar coins , gold ear rings
or bottle tops , tin cans —
relics of summer’s empire .
On and on he goes
in his hand a miniature red spade
and a blue bucket of hope
The Things I’ve Heard about It.
It is a cancer.
It is not a cancer.
You will not die from it.
You will die with it.
It is the cancer you want to have
if you have to have a cancer.
It is indolent. Lazy.
And that strange name.
Long as the name of a Welsh railway station.
Waldenstrom macroglobulinaneamia.
Try saying that in one breath.
Whew.
Maybe it was the Meds.
Maybe it was the meds
but I felt a little trippy
so when the nurse leaned over and said.
we’ll give your cannula a good flush in a minute
I said, O wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve had my cannula flushed
& the room broke up.
Rhianna and Jacob joined in the fun.
It was that kind of treatment room.
Don’t worry.
We all have our heads screwed on
but with the lids a little open
to let the silly in.
John Malone 