Crab-Like Concealed

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Tags:
  • Dying In Pain And Fear
    • ,
  • Bright Loved Life
    • ,
  • Deceptive Death

    Crab-Like Concealed
    Cancer lets you feel great,
    At the beginning of your fate.
    It lets you walk in the sunshine,
    And feel the light of life on your skin.
    It lets you see and love the light.
    It even lets you enjoy eating, with a hearty appetite—
    As if sickening treatments will never make you lose too much weight.
    Cancer lets you feel so good, at first, that you can dream
    Reality is real, and that your deep life is not a mere smoke-stream.
    For a term, you can have all you want and need, all without a clue
    That the cancer, like a feeding larva-worm, is becoming fat and fierce,
    Developing teeth and claws with which to tear and pierce.
    Your cancer, hidden like a beach-crab burrowed beneath concealing sands,
    Let’s you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, hold life within your hands;
    You feel happy and healthy—unable really to believe, if you have been told—
    And if you have not been told, then having no way of knowing—
    Your cancer, like a well-watered weed, is growing.
    -----------------------
    Different kinds of cancer
    Will be initially kind, and eventually cutting and killing, in different ways.
    To the question, “Is there a cure?” there will be a different answer;
    And different kinds and stages of cancer
    Leave you with a different number of days.
    -----------------------
    If you’re lucky, advanced prostate cancer lets you have kisses and love,
    Before the male hormones you took for always granted drop too low;
    If no one tells you what the injections will do, how can you know?
    If you do not know, you may not take advantage of the loving time still left.
    For a while you are allowed to love, belying with love’s happy smile,
    The time when all your romantic tenderness and sweet erotic love
    Will be paralyzed like a broken-necked dove.
    If you are not told in time, when the time is gone, you will be forever bereft.
    -----------------------
    Even when you find out you have cancer real bad, you still cannot see
    How bad it is eventually going to be.
    For a time, you still feel okay; you feel like maybe—maybe it isn’t really true;
    Maybe this isn’t really happening to you.
    Cancer can let you hope that a second biopsy just might reveal
    Someone made a mistake before,
    Or you are the beneficiary of some blessed power to heal.
    Cancer lets you feel like light, so bright, as if you were quite all right—
    Until the dreaded day, or fearful night,
    When it digs in deep, engrossing nerves, and begins to bite.



    ==========================================
    Written by Michael LP
    aka MLP, aka Mr. Poet, aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC
    (I'm just me)
    Copyright © 2011 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved.

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    MindNumbing commented on Crab-Like Concealed

    10-26-2010

    **sigh** This leaves me breathless in the wake of your despair, Michael. I know just how deceptive cancer can be. I've watched it take several family members from me, each and every one holding onto hope until the last days. It grabbed my dad without the slightest warning, and he was taken from us only days later. It makes no apologies, and it has no friends. It's an ugly monster that should be eradicated, yet we are inexplicably powerless to it. You've done a brilliant job breaking it down to its core, and you've done it from a point of view that few people see. Thank you so much for sharing this.
    Reply to Comment

    abuelita1 commented on Crab-Like Concealed

    10-22-2010

    This reminds me of what my mother and brothers would have felt and thought. Through my tears, and fears you have brought healing to me. Thank you, once again Michael.
    Reply to Comment

    abuelita1 commented on Crab-Like Concealed

    10-22-2010

    Another beautifully written piece of imagery.Thank you for sharing this Michael.
    Reply to Comment

    arronpalmer commented on Crab-Like Concealed

    10-22-2010

    Absolutely stunning Michael, and I shall tell you why. It is such a refreshing way to write about cancer. Of course, it is all too easy, and justly so, to write about the hardships and battles and despicable aftermath it leaves once it has gotten hold. But this is different, this is great. A truly great piece. I hadn't eve really thought about how initially hearing you have cancer, the initial hope and optimism they have found it early enough to beat, and so whilst the treatments win and lose a few battles along the way to winning the war, you can be left to calmly enjoy your new perspective and grateful love for life. But of course, if the treatments begin to fail, to become overwhelmed, to retreat, to be wiped out, the cancer slowly comes from beneath to "bite". That final line, with its agonising imagery and alliteration, almost made me cry. Truly, truly great piece. I want this to win, it is seriously that good.
    Reply to Comment

    In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

    Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech writer.

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