Being forgotten,
while you are still in
land of the living,
prepares you for
being forgotten,
after you are long gone.
Category: cancer
At the third stroke…
In early life
no need to wear
a watch because
your day is set
out for you. In
adult life you
check your watch a
hundred times a
day, every
minute could be
important. In
old age you lose
your watch. Minutes
no longer of
interest. Just
getting through nights.
End of the road
Old age is
like walking through
a Grimm forest
in a dark night;
branches whip
the face; unseen
carnivores roar;
pits give way
underfoot; trees
fall with a crack;
and somewhere
ahead on the path,
waiting in the gloom,
is the slough of despond
The road taken
I took the road
less followed,
and found
land mines,
trolls, bandits,
potholes, mud
patches, fallen
trees, and then
my car broke
down. Next time
my way is the
highway.
Titled
Perhaps I
could call my
autobiography
“The Old Man
and the C”?
Three absent friends
Death by cancer is:
being pushed to
the lunch table in
a wheel chair when
cancer-riddled
bones won’t
support you;
measuring your
days in teaspoons
of morphine,
carefully counted;
carrying a
rubber cushion
to pad the pelvis
from which all flesh
has melted.
Cabbages and kings
Once we talked to
friends of their
children, their
houses, their
careers, their
plans and dreams;
of the books
they were writing,
films they had seen,
art they had created,
gardens they had grown.
Now we talk to
friends of their
illnesses, their
operations, their
diseases, their
pills and potions
and prognoses,
of who has died
and who will die
soon.
Mindquake
We need a
Richter scale
for major personal
events that
rattle our core,
shake our life,
leave fissures
in our psyche.
Sometimes we
can put books
back on our
mental shelves,
replace broken
windows, rebuild
fallen walls.
But sometimes
the mind is
left all out of
joint forever.
Card Sharp
I think I played
the cards I was dealt
as well as I could,
but at times
it was tempting
to go for misere
Mirror, mirror
When I am gone
no mirror will
ever reflect
my face again.
