Beautiful sounds of nostalgic music fill my ears,
And carry me through time, through those past years,
Fleet, and flown now--fallen through time's trap door,
Marked by Poe with a grinning raven croaking
"Never--never more."
Yet the elongating shadow of the past,
With its treasures of laughter and tears,
Lives, and enlivens the present with its great store.
But even the past is snipped at last--
When the future disappears.
And when you can see and feel the future disappearing,
The present becomes piquant in all its wealth, sifting like sands
Fleetly and completely, from out of your hands.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I feel all this now, listening to music from across time,
On PBS--men and women who were grown when I was a child,
Still alive, and singing songs and playing music--mild and wild.
Their faces lined with years of life that I will never have.
I'm glad they got those years; I do not begrudge them that.
I only wish I could have had all of my years, too,
Before my life must be through.
And I wish I could have continued to be a real cool cat,
Loved by the ladies, liked by guys, and singing and performing.
The songs I wrote, and all the songs I sang--
Back with the old gang--
With several old gangs, actually--now living in my memory,
Which also, too soon, shall be stripped away from me.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have been told by some, that I have lived a full life.
Because I did not die like Hendrix and Joplin
And Morrison and Cobain, at twenty-seven.
I love and mourn for those bright stars, each so brief a candle;
I mourn for so many others--my heart has too much grief to handle.
I mourn even more for John Lennon, killed at forty--
Bright brief candle, too.
But I also love my life, and I mourn for me.
I have not had my fill of life, despite my striking strife.
I do not feel either filled, or fulfilled.
I do not feel willing to be killed.
I do not feel I have lived fully or well enough that I
Should not burn to live more, and wish I did not have to die.
And, certainly, I would have preferred to live forever;
Failing that, at least to have died peacefully, painlessly,
Of old age--in the middle of a good dream, in sweet sleep.
Instead of being like a living dead, groaning and moaning,
Aching and hurting, and knowing that much more pain
Is on the way, before I am wrenched like a tooth out of life.
Even now, and more and more, I see my life's blood bleed.
I find this kind of dying to be ever growing suffering.
With fading flowers and flowing tears, as all the fears unfold.
I never said, like the Who, that I hoped I'd die before I got old.
No, my feeling is more like that song that bemoans brevity:
"When you've only got a hundred years to live."
Human life at its longest is brutally brief.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To have even that small time cut short, is more bitter grief.
I have not tasted all the kisses I wish I could have tasted;
I have not made love as many times as I thought I would.
I have not made up for all the time that I have wasted;
I have not made nearly all my dreams come true,
Nor all of my self-promises made good.
I have not read nearly all the books I had expected someday to read.
I have not smelled all the flowers, seen all the sunsets,
Felt all the rain,
That my heart yearns for,
As my days dim toward disease-caused death,
And my present passes into the horror of fatal cancer-pain.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Afflicted Job endured his tormenting comforters, and I have mine.
Such words are not helpful, but sting and hurt like Job's comforters.
They would have told Job, too: "You've lived a full life.
You've lived longer than many: Even children have died.
You once had great wealth; you used to have good health.
So go ahead and die; and don't wish wistfully that you could wait.
Now you are in pain; and if you have to die in even worse pain--
Well--then that is your fate."
I have grieved for many.  I feel sadness also for strangers who lose.
To feel less grief for my own pain and loss of years of life, I cannot choose.
I'm caught in a spider-webbed maze, wandering in dark with very few clues.
Each has a fate of love or hate, varying glad or sad in no one else's shoes. 
No one but me feels my pain; nor knows the tears of sorrow I have cried.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I will go out now, and look at the sky--stars peeking between clouds--
And I will breathe deep the air--
Sweet and fragrant with a rain yet to fall.
I am young, not old;
I have not yet lived a full life, despite what I've been told.
But I will not give in totally to my boxed canyon of deep despair.
I will not let pain stop me from gleaning the remaining gold.
For I love life. And, right now, I have life.
Right now, for me, this moment is mine--
I will make it meaningful, I will make it shine.
Before I must fully answer cancer--
With its loud call to pain and death--
I will live and love life to the end.
I will answer life's last call.


==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka PoetWithCancer
aka (thanks to my dear friend, Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Monday, December 5, 2011 10:55 PM PST
37 degrees F. Humidity: 26% Forecast: fair
Copyright (C) by Michael LP. All rights reserved
(Copyrighted for my estate)