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    PoetWithCancer

    PoetWithCancer

  • Happy Veterans Day, Brian

    Happy Veterans Day, Brian [For my lifetime's best friend Brian, on the first Veterans day he isn't here: Friday, November 11, 2011] This special day, to honor those who serve to defend, Is your day, Brian; you too served, and you are a veteran. I almost wrote "you were a veteran": but you still are, To me; Even though your life was made to end. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I have read the commendations you received, During your army years. You were an excellent medic, and you trained others. ...

  • Thanksgiving

    >Sight. I can see the fallen, and the sparse tree-clinging, golden brown leaves. >I can see the orange and gold light-fretted clouds of another sunset. >I hope to see the bouquet of beams of many another sunrise. >I look up at the sky at night; and then the sight of the once-believed eternal stars >Fills my heart with mystifying questions and moody magic, through my eyes. >I can see the dew-jeweled web that a life-hungry spider weaves. >I can wonder at the wonderful wild world the spider simultaneously gilds and scars. >And in my mind, so many images of things I've seen, I'll never forget. ...

  • User Post: Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life

    (a Minute Poem)

  • Brian's Special Smile

    Actually, every smile of Brian's was special. If he was smiling because he was happy, It was like sunshine breaking through clouds. If he was smiling because he had done something right-- And was glad to know so--his smile was especially bright. If he was smiling because he was happy

  • Mr. Brown, You've Got a Lonely Best Friend

    Mr. Brown, you've got a lonely best friend. I couldn't even give you one last hug. But it's sad--the hospital killed you then; It was a sin--but, then--there's nothing I can do. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The ER doctor thought you wanted hospice. He argued with m

  • The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian

    (This was written while Brian was still alive,back when we didn't know which one of us would go first.I presented it as an early birthday gift to Brian.He was very moved and pleased. He liked this poem so much,he folded up a copy and carried it with him in his wallet,so he could take it out and read

  • Missing Brian

    Almost four months now since you were ruthlessly killed. Precious Brian, the brother of my soul. How horrific for me! The only dead body I ever saw--before The undertaker's work--had to be the body of my dearest friend ever. My lifetime's very best friend. - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  • Focus: Today, Happy

    Brian had a very happy birthday in September. Surrounded by good friends, in a big party, Festively festooned, and filled with joy and merriment. He sang so beautifully--so hauntingly beautiful--that song I most loved to hear him sing: "Aubrey" by Bread. I never heard of that song, let alone heard it, before My best friend Brian sang it at almost every karaoke we went. He sang it so well, at his last birthday party--which, he told me, Was the best and happiest birthday party he ever had-- His heart was happy, his eyes full of love of life, and I was glad. Four months later, Brian was dead. ...

  • Grief

    "Grief, too, cannot last." --Albert Camus, *Caligula and Three Other Plays*

  • I Love You, Brian

    I have a photo of Brian on my computer screen. It was during his last birthday party. He wears a parti-colored cone hat, With big bright stars on it, as if to remind us all There is a cosmic Power above us, great and tall. Behind him are colorful cut-out letters stretched out to spell: Happy Birthday!!! And Brian smiling broadly and brightly into the camera, With his left hand lifted to wave. Oh, God, it breaks my heart to know, That just four months later, My precious friend Brian would be in his grave! Away from me, away from all the world. ...

  • Easter

    Brightly colored eggs and little yellow plastic baby chicks, And chocolate eggs with bands of color, and brown chocolate bunnies, And green shredded grass-like plastic, filling up the basket; I see it in my mind as clearly as I saw it as a very small child. The Easter egg hunts, when fin

  • Shakespeare's Birthday

    Today is Shakespeare's birthday; born 1564. He'd fully be four-hundred forty-seven, If still alive--not passing through death's door-- No fate of void, return, or hell, or heaven. So sad, that even such a brilliant brain Was made to die, degrading into dust. That each of us, with a

  • Friends During Need

    Should old acquaintance be forgot? Should that only be asked on New Year's Eve? And afterward, all through the rest of the year, Treat living friends as though they are not. Even those who face some great horror-movie-like fear. Time is racing by me so fast, as fast as weavers weave.

  • Moods

    Sometimes I wake up and I sing; and then I say: "This is the day the Lord has made." And I rejoice in it, and I am glad. Other times I wake up and I weep. Then I say: "There are too many terrible things in the world. Too many things that can't be explained away." Then I am full of

  • I Was Worried About You

    Before Brian's life was lost, My life was almost cost; I was physically hurt--in despair and grief--and so much pain. I lay in a hospital bed. I wondered how close I had come to being dead. Because of that sudden accident, when our car was hit. My neck, my back, my leg, were hurtin

  • Song of Life

    I do not wake the way I used to wake, With sunshine stretching far; And all fulfilling time for me to take. I wake up in the middle of the night; And gripped by night, I look, and love the light of every star. Time is not a watch-band wrapped around my wrist; Time is not the pap

  • Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011)

    I was your little boy. You taught me to love learning and music and poetry. You taught me how to read at a very, very early age. Here I am, still reading, still loving the printed page. Here I am, still recalling my childhood joy, As something inside me moves, and moves me closer to e

  • Tree Clock (haiku)

    (Today, April 3rd, just happens to be my dearly missed mother's birthday. She passed away years ago, but she is remembered and loved still.)

  • Poesis

    In memory of Henry Mancini and Kurt Cobainwho--each one in his own way--rank among those people who expressthe depths and heights of the human heart's yearning and sufferingin the rapidly vanishing days of joys and sorrows,gains and losses,pleasure and pain,love and futility,triumph and tragedy--in

  • A Last Look at the Moon

    The walls of the train were hard wood--too hard to break free.But harder still were the guards that would have pursued, and beaten,And brought back would-be escapers to the fate that soon would be.The bitterness was too deep for religious hope to sweeten;Skating on the raven rim of strange eternity.