Tonight’s selections!
Untitled
~Elisabeth Greenwood
When they asked
that I write poetry
I died.
You see,
the words dried up
a long time ago.
Before doctors.
Before tests.
Before pills
and chemicals
and long vials
of blood.
Before,
I wrote books.
Published poems.
Scribbled madly
on paper scraps.
Spoke
to hushed crowds
and applause.
But something
in my spirit
became sick,
long before I learned
something in my body
was wrong.
So for long,
long,
there were no words.
There were notes
in many scripts.
Scripts
in many hands.
And there was loss.
And confusion.
And sadness.
And pain.
But there were no words.
Then.
Slowly.
Slowly.
There were
different words.
Plain words.
Kept alone.
They were not like
the old words.
Not like
these words.
But the words
slipped out.
A stream.
Found others’ words.
Who shared.
Who knew.
Those words
led to these words.
Maybe the spirit
is stronger than the body,
after all.
*
Tired and Afraid
~Chris Nickson
The curtains pushed aside
Show an old man in bed.
Fear lives in two dark eyes
Staring from his tired head.
His knuckled grip is strong,
He shakes like a sailor,
But his next breaths are long,
Payment for his labor.
Underneath his sun-beaten shell,
Sliding sinews bring bones upright.
What his muscle memory might tell
Given time before the birth of night.
The chart shows no sign of fever
And his heart beats just as it should,
The numbers say he’ll live forever,
All of the peaks and troughs look good.
My gut knows the answer,
But I ask anyway,
I am here to help you,
Why are you here today?
He says, my problem’s this,
Then looks me in the eye,
I’m just too tired to live
And I’m too afraid to die.
*
The fall.
~Impactednurse
And she lifted for a while, her eyes staring out with addled dryness from a place of dust and fallen leaves. Yellow sclera wide. Belly round and hard like an emu egg.
Lips dark as slugs.
Desperately drinking in the room, breathing it in, gulping it down.
The sights, the sounds, grasping at every detail as she grasped at my hand.
No that’s not quite it. She grasped as if at a rope. Like those men I saw in that old black and white newsreel who were holding the tethering ropes of a giant balloon, and held too long, and were carried aloft high above the field,
holding the rope,
knowing the cost of release,
and finally,
inevitably,
dropping. One,
by one,
by one.
Into dust and fallen leaves.
It’s going to be tough for the judges to pick a winner! You have managed to bring out some talented poets.
I believe, my dear Dr. Charles, that you could devote an entire blog to this sort of thing.
Charles, I keep thinking when I read the wonderful selections you’ve posted in these various entries, of other wonderful poems…
Right now I’m thinking of Abba Kovner’s final collection of poems (which in Hebrew was sort of one long poem, but translated very well into a collection) about his life with, and death by, the ravages of throat cancer. The collection is short, sublime, and called simply ‘Sloan-Kettering”. There is nothing self-pitying or maudlin about it– it cuts to the quick, though, and is everything that poetry should be. It’s absolutely beautiful, insightful, and deeply human. As is so much of what has been posted here.
Dr. Charles,
I was going to let my blanket statement stand for the whole contest after your previous batch, but I have to renege on that. First, Elizabeth Greenwood’s poem resonated so much for me. I had a similar experience in that I used to write and publish poetry but it left me for nearly 20 years. Breast cancer became a weird but very welcome muse in that I started writing poetry again, and am getting some things published again. I’m so grateful to have that part of myself back, and glad to see I’m not the only one.
And Bronwyn, thank you so much for recommending “Sloan-Kettering.” I’m going to track that down. And I would like to mention “Divine Honors” by Hilda Raz, who writes about her experience with breast cancer. Raz is the editor of Prairie Schooner, a renowned literary journal. Oh, and speaking of literary journals–if you aren’t familiar with it, check out the Bellevue Literary Journal, published by the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. It’s awesome.