Small Battles: Big Wars
We
would rather f-bomb
or recite angry litanies
of forbidden witchery
than speak the word: cancer.
It’s when few of one’s
trillions of cells run amok,
it’s a war fought with
knives, rads, and poisons.
Look both ways to see your own beginning and end.
Mind the gaps, fight the battle, die with dignity.
John Updike, best known, perhaps, as a novelist, was a poet. This short poem of his is one of my favorites regarding life and death. He died of lung cancer in 2009.
Have a Cigar
Okay, boys and girls and everyone:
come close—closer—and listen to this.
The odds against us, you, or me,
being viable, of being born, of living on for years,
make it nearly impossible
to have happened at all. Statistically,
the chances that any of us exist is virtually zero.
Therefore, god or no-god,
each person living is by definition
a feckin’ miracle. Existence is miraculous.
We are, each of us, marvelous.
Let’s start acting like it.
Congratulations! Here. Have a cigar.
Look both ways and take in all that is seen.
Mind the gaps because in the game of existence,
their enormity is incomprehensible.
If you are interested, click here to read all about your chances of being.
And, finally, a bit of music: “Have a Cigar” (Pink Floyd) as covered by Elephant Revival.
Neverending
It’s how I remember the year that she died.
I watched for weeks while she suffered, and I cried.
It made a big impression on me although I was still a young man.
Her life was over—suffering ended. I still do the best I can.
Look both ways year after year.
Mind the gaps as we try to remember, and we try to forget.
My inspiration:
Today, I was to write a poem where I muse on the gifts I received at birth.
Forbidden to Miners
I call for my childhood muse
to whisper of the child, to
remind me, as Mnemosyne, goddess
of memory, me within and without,
of sorrows and gifts and that I am
a coal miner’s son, given blessings
and burdens, Irish Catholic (then),
yet named for mother’s father,
a Welsh Presbyterian, a coal man; me,
youngest with three half-blood sibs.
First of family raised by both parents,
by father’s discipline tempered
by mother’s love; I, imperfect in this
less perfect world, a boomer now,
some say a most hated gen.
No special gift, proudly average,
a boy being a boy, some friends,
learner of the hard way, too afflicted
by others, not an unhappy child,
but happy to have survived to 75.
Kismet, space dust, late bloomer,
they gave me life, what happened after
was up to me. Made good and done bad,
but here I am writing about it. A poet?
That was neither planned nor expected.
Look both ways. Try to remember.
But, above all, tell your story.
Mind the gaps and fill them as best you can.
Today’s NaPoWriMo assignment completed the first two weeks of writing a poem each day during April. Also called the “optional” daily prompt, it was (“a fun one”) to write a poem in the form of the opening scene of the movie about my life.
I contemplated possibilities and searched for ideas when I came upon the opening scene for the movie, My Life Without Me. It inspired me to shed self-awareness and identity with confused limited personal pronouns, to message with metaphor and simile, and to use immature grammar while maintaining context.
Cinematically, the movie would open with fuzzy, abstract, calm, overlapping, multiple images of a young child standing in the rain, eyes closed, oblivious to life and environment (but not in the poem). A faint heartbeat would be heard as the narrator recites the poem. The ellipses indicate that the poem does not start or finish (neither begins nor ends).
Page One Opens
…we are standing alone
in the wet warm rain,
an unashamed adam and eve;
my bare feet floating in sultry green grass
feels the soft spongy muggy earth;
your small, young hearts hear; your body
without clothing is not naked;
i am shielded by water;
they are you,
i am they without knowing or caring
for anything but the feel, sound, and
taste of innocent rain; i am new taste;
comforting sounds; our blind eyes closed;
neither night nor day; just warm
moist comfort and muffled senses
in neutral emotionless rain…
Look both ways and mind the gaps later. For now, just be.
Our Literary Journey 