illness (Remove filter)
Resilient Soul
The past is haunting:
heartbreaking memories,
unbearable loss,
scars, seeping wounds.
The present is daunting:
deadly viruses, illness, disease,
affecting everything - livelihood,
relationships, life.
The future is uncertain:
climate change,
conspiracy theories,
political upheaval,
civil unrest.
We ask why:
amid confusion,
gleaning truth from ...
Sunday 27th December 2020 7:38 pm
Malignant Love
I can feel you,
thick in my throat,
threatening to consume me,
slithering through my mind and body,
wielding your alpha power,
making me weak.
I curse you, drown you,
in sunshine and sweet elixirs,
but you refuse to leave.
I am stronger than you think.
I order you and your invisible army
of pain, heartbreak, misery,
away from my cosmic energy.
I did not manifest you.
You...
Wednesday 25th November 2020 4:28 pm
Black Ringlets
It seems yesterday the house was full
Nothing seemed beyond our reach
We dashed about with endless brio
Spent days on end at the beach
I recall how you laughed and cried
The endless smiles adorning your face
Years have brought changes to our joy
Now life seems such a different place
I loved your black ringlets
That brightened every day
Your hair grew old as ...
Tuesday 11th August 2020 10:53 am
Geezer's Lament
I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair. *
She’s so sweet and loving.
I’m good looking for a man of my age,
with handsome gray hair – what there is of it –
that girls like to pat like they pat a pet dog.
I can’t wag my tail like a dog,
but I can flash a sweet smile.
My wrinkles portray character
and the wisdom that comes with age.
Skin cancers between wrinkles
betray my time ...
Thursday 2nd April 2020 9:42 pm
Ascend
Today has been a better day
I wasn’t a mardy bitch
I didn’t cry when something went wrong
I ate food without nausea or gagging or that awful washing machine feeling in my tummy
Today was an easier day
I could talk without the lump in my throat strangling me
I walked through university enjoying each rain drop falling onto my cheeks
or dripping through my ey...
Sunday 1st December 2019 12:56 pm
Scars
My scars have piled up like leaves on Autumn grass.
My knees are a testament to lake pollution
and MRSA.
My hands tell the story of a rambuncious youth
yearning for adventure.
My thighs are a roadmap of mental illness
and a fondness for razor blades.
My face bears the craters from a begone allergy
My mouth is the magnum opus of a poorly trained dog,
whom I miss everyday.
...Monday 21st October 2019 3:57 pm
Find the Light
The deal we get dealt
Can be heart felt.
It can change our lives,
Create nose dives.
The way we face our pain,
Is not for personal gain.
It steals our health,
Affects our wealth.
It breaks our spirit,
Pushes us to our limit.
When we walk in the darkness,
It’s hard to raise awareness.
We may feel alone,
Lost in a friend zone.
Feeling judged,
Tears s...
Sunday 29th September 2019 9:41 pm
Mortality
Mortality stalks me
like a jealous lover.
Breathlessly follows me
wherever I go, incessantly
banging a gong,
chanting,
it won't be long,
come to me, let
the pain end.
My eternal soul sees
this game of mortal gods
and challenges me
to go where mortals
fear to tread...
Meditate in silent space
past the black hole,
beyond illness,
depression, despair
to that ...
Tuesday 9th April 2019 5:35 pm
ENDINGS
A series of 11 short poems
End of a Galaxy
A blink
In the silent depth of night
As the last leaf of the beech tree
As the silent tear of my love
End of Harmony
I see her dancing on the sands
I see her as she sees me
and in that moment
sand, sea, sun, surf
vanish in the vortex
until
...Saturday 14th July 2018 7:59 pm
Can't Escape
You try to escape the demons
But they latch on way too tight,
Their claws digging into my body
And mind, with all their might.
Fighting is exhausting,
It physically and mentally drains.
But still I endure it, hoping
One day I will finally escape the pain.
Tuesday 19th June 2018 10:05 pm
Writing Through Illness and Grief Group
While mourning his daughter Tullia, Cicero took to writing a book of self-consolation. Thinking himself the inventor of this type of self-help, he said, “Why, I have done what no one has done before, tried to console myself by writing a book.” (This is quoted by Han Baltussen in the Nov. 2009 issue of Mortality in an essay titled, “A grief observed: Cicero on remembering Tullia.”)
I certainly d...
Wednesday 23rd May 2018 10:27 am
Failed Pills
Failed Pills
I took pills all my damn life to cure this and that
None of them ever fucking work
So I write about my ailments instead
The way only I can words on the page
Putting my ills into them to free me
Who am I blooody kidding eh?
Myself to give me some backbone
And MAN IT UP NICK!
But that doesn't change how I feel
Nor take way the illnesses that rest inside
Waiting to get me li...
Tuesday 8th May 2018 4:50 pm
Danse Macabre
Too much was lost in silence
too long the time that winds
between our words of love and passion
with communion only in our minds
Too much assumed in union
of our two souls' mute desires
but I did not see her inmost needs
or hear how quietly pain suspires
I should have peeped inside
while she nightly dreamed in peace
to glimpse her mind's apparel
as it dan...
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 2:14 pm
Words
words
no man should know
or say
words
no child should hear:
parent, pray
to be spared.
as he sat with his sons at home
and struggled to find
words:
he knew
she will never return to us
he knew
she is too ill
In a time when she was strong
for them
as her body weake...
Wednesday 20th September 2017 3:36 pm
Passing
Time stretched as she faded;
Lengthened, folded in on time
Extended, never ended.
Eternity must have seemed
An earthly hell
Peopled intermittently by friends:
A nightmare dream of pain and daemons
What superhuman will
Kept her through those summer months
What need, desire or wish
Held death's sad end at bay?
In the end, fading faded
Light left, sy...
Thursday 3rd August 2017 9:42 am
Revelation
The shock was solid as a punch
That left me breathless, faint, unmanned;
So obviously lost that chair and water came
And it was I – so very briefly – nursed
Until my mind began to grasp the truth it had shunned.
How could I not have guessed or known
The woe, the pain, the destruction?
After all these many years, my failure to feel –
My hiding from the very possibility ...
Friday 21st July 2017 12:07 pm
Sick
Sick
An illness is vicious
Any can be frightful from pneumonia to cancer
It’ll make all of your loved ones suspicious
Now the worst isn’t the goodbying
Losing your roar as your fire burns out is
Or never being able to kiss your beautiful wife once you’re dying
Smoking your last cigarette
Your lungs fill with smoke and doubt
Your chances of living are to those of Rus...
Monday 19th December 2016 5:31 pm
The Mother.
The day that she was told that she would die
she did a big shop for the family
and made the kitchen smell of baking bread.
she labled and then ladled into pots
then all went in a freezer fit to burst-
as meals that they could eat when she was gone.
Then, going up into the children’s rooms
she took some time to sit upon each bed
and chancing on a scattered shirt or top
she held them close ...
Saturday 16th April 2016 4:09 pm
By the light of the local Spar
Eyes snapped shut in the street-facing bedroom
lit up by the light of the Spar
that floods it's white plastic windows
illuminating each passing car
In her curled up hands a faded old photo
crinkled,yellowing,torn,
but the hands,once so gentle,that hold this mementoe,
are as cold,are as granite, as stone
In came Sister with a meagre tea tray
barging in,past...
Sunday 31st January 2016 6:01 pm
Morphine
All the faith carried in your soul
all the morphine lightening the load
they play a strange sad game
they lie in bleak dark ways
I listened to the doctor speak
while you read some ancient tome
and, yes, you know your body well
but pain isn’t the cause
This belief takes its small toll
the colour and the hope both drain away
defeatedly you feel you’re fading
But you’re not fading
y...
Wednesday 26th August 2015 5:39 pm
HOLLOW HALLS
She drags tired heels
across a tainted floor,
poise slightly bowed
and her back is sore.
She holds on her face
a cold marble stare,
a hard life engraved
upon cheeks once so fair.
Her faulting movements,
once graceful; divine,
her aching limbs now
with guile, defy
her final performance
on this dark empty stage,
memories fleeting
of a much better age...
Sunday 28th June 2015 9:36 am
BRAVE FACE
How brave, in reality, is a ‘brave face’?
A facade shared, it would seem,
by the majority of the human race.
Beneath the flaking paint of a painted mask
lies a truth too long and painful to explain
no matter how oft you care to ask.
How long before the cracks become too wide
to conceal with powders and creams
and the crimson smile starts to slide.
How long...
Tuesday 9th June 2015 10:49 am
DREAMS OF A LIFE
As a new day dawns and I open my eyes
I look upon a world in painless surprise.
A smile creeps across my hopeful face
as I lie in bed, my comfy place.
A tentative move; a testing stretch but
then comes a cough and my face is etched
with pain, like a stalker in darkened streets
as I grudgingly rise to my unsteady feet.
Reaching to grab at the windowsill and
hold...
Thursday 4th June 2015 1:35 pm
Afraid Of The Dark
Afraid Of The Dark
what you can’t see
cannot hurt you
ghouls and ghosts
things of the dark
things you don’t understand.
close your eyes go to sleep
think of happy things and places
let your mind move on
be at peace child
the thing that scratches at the window
you know it’s just a branch
the creak of a floorboard
late at night
a cold chill that drifts
through a warm house
the un...
Tuesday 21st October 2014 6:59 pm
Simply Time
Simply Time
With Crystal Ball, I might have found
Some way to weave my way through time
Instead, I played without the rules
Did it my way throughout the schools
Meandered free from guides or maps
Ate my meals from plates on laps
Camped and rambled, cycled too
My only aim - my love for you
Single till I sang your song
Wed while we were still so youn...
Tuesday 21st July 2009 2:38 pm
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