Monday, November 29, 2021

Bad Poetry Monday

 Reduction
by [REDACTED]

I want to boil it down
Get to the heart of the matter
Distill the flavors
and
Accept the essence of what is

Only all that's there is
Fear and doubt of
Growth and spread
What if this is all there is
Until all there is 
Is gone?
Wings clipped
Horizons narrowed
Marrow poisoned
One foot in front of the other
One foot from the grave?
Heads you win
Tails I lose
Too many metaphors because
Avoidance is key
How else to get things done?

Monday, October 11, 2021

Bad Poetry Monday

 Symbolless

by [REDACTED]


There are three cables
No, four
That appear intertwined
but aren't
Each one runs under or above the others
There are no knots
Signals and/or power 
are what pass through them
And they make no noise of their own
but somehow they can tell the 
collection of parts connected to one end
of themselves
to play music
or voices
to show me a pixelated image
of my dog as he looked last year
All plastic and metal
nothing more

Wednesday, October 06, 2021

Bad Poetry Wednesday

 MUG

by [REDACTED]


When light seeps down 
And noiselessness boils up
You find yourself staring softly at
The wonders of the world.
All seven ancient wonders 
And each one falls quicker than the last
Oops. 

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

March 23

I guess I'm going to use this old space that no one reads as a way to record my unedited thoughts. So here goes. 

On March 5, 2021 I was officially diagnosed with stage 3/4 indolent B-cell lymphoma, which is a type of cancer of the lymphatic system. It still sends my mind reeling to talk about myself, my own body, and cancer in the same sentence. Cancer, of course, is so quotidian and unremarkable that it barely bears mention. You hear people saying "my aunt had cancer, my grandma, my dad, my cousin, my friend" and on and on. Everyone has at least known someone with cancer. It's stultifyingly normal. But so then apply the word to yourself and everything changes. What's normal becomes a cruel betrayal. My body has betrayed me at a fundamental level, and now I know it. My lymphatic system, which is supposed to protect me, has turned on me and become the enemy. But even then, framing this cancer as my enemy, as something foreign or alien growing inside of me, isn't right. It is my body. It has my DNA, albeit mutated. Lymphoma isn't the xenomorph that will burst through my stomach and devour me whole from the inside. No, it's just simply me run amok. There's still nothing here but me, my own body. Only now, in an irrevocable way, it has turned chronically against me. A betrayal so deep that there's no bottom to it because it's just me all the way down. 

There's no way to know how long this cancer has been inside my body, growing. They, the oncologists and doctors and experts, call it a slow growing cancer. This implies a fast-growing kind, and yes that's true, it's real and thank god I don't have that. But how slow growing? Was it with me when my daughter was born? What about my son? Was it there, slowly getting bigger when I got married over 20 years ago? It's dizzying to think about how things are exactly the same as before and also completely different. Was I already betrayed before I knew my children? Or perhaps "slow-growing" is a relative term? Perhaps it's recent, or at least recent-ish. It feels like it must be. It feels like a physical extension of the past year, a metaphor for disease growth and spread that takes over our lives. It is disease growth and spread that is now taking over my life. No metaphor needed. 

And it all feels so unfair. I'm sure all who live to see such times feel the same. I'm in the prime of my life, or should be. I'm happy in my marriage. I'm happy as a father. I'm successful enough at my job to provide my family with security, a home, luxuries that neither of us, my wife or I, had as kids. My life was, for lack of a better word, good. I drank with friends. I traveled for work and pleasure. I met so many people. Things felt, if not unlimited, than at least bountiful. And now it feels as if my life is measured out in coffee spoons. Just a little bit at a time. From now until my next appointment. From then until my next treatment. And on and on until it ends. And there's the crux of what is so unfair. The end is suddenly in sight. The doctors think it's still a long ways off, and they're probably right. I could be in remission for decades. But but but. This will probably be what kills me. If not, it will still be there when I die. The only way to rid the world of my lymphoma is to rid the world of me, a thing that seems so much less abstract than it used to. I am not ready yet. Probably I will never be. I'm not even really ready to look at it yet, so I am thankful for the coffee spoons to keep me here in the imminent present. The hole that fills my life a decade hence is too much abyss for me right now. It was so solid, so secure, so much to be looked forward to until March 5, 2021. Now it feels like pit I'm walking toward, and I just want to keep my eyes on the ground one step in front of me so that I don't have to look at it. Ignorance certainly isn't bliss, but it seems better than the alternative. 


Bad Poetry Tuesday

 The IngĂ©nue

by [REDACTED]


Pleased to meet you
This is a fine day, don't you think?
I've been here for years
Waiting for my time in the sun
Waiting for you to see me
Am I old enough now?
Hope you guessed my name. 
Have I gripped you fully?
Here, I hold your liver in the palm of my hand
I won't give it back.
My other hand is wrapped around your neck.
I won't let go.
Not until you are ready to let go.
What's troubling you is the nature of my game?

Friday, January 22, 2021

Bad Poetry Friday

 Interstices

by [REDACTED]

Life is in the gaps, they say
And what do I know that can contradict?
Each little pause a world unto itself, they say
And I must nod along
Listen now for the words he doesn't say, they say
And I can only hear the ones he does
The earth is always full of holes like these, they say
And I suppose my job must be to fill one in.
It's nothing personal, they say
And I heard the dirt rain down and saw their faces
Paper-white masks of evil.

Monday, December 21, 2020

Bad Poetry Monday

 Insulation

by Redacted

My home is warm and dry
The elements are all controlled by us
Air in the ducts
Water in the pipes
Fire in the flicker of the candle
And Earth stacked on earth to protect me from the dark
I want to tell you what I think about 
When I eat my food alone
I want to tell them why I'm here
And why I always save my bones for dogs
That died a long long time ago.
It's habit
And it protects me from that other element
That I fear most.
Time. 

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Bad Poetry Tuesday

 Before it was Cool

by [REDACTED]


I used to know a place
We called it The Moon
And only we few
We band of others
Outsiders and dogs
Only we
Knew where to find it
But we have all grown old
Kids wear the bottoms of their trousers rolled
And only we few
We confederacy of ancients
Remember the Moon and what it meant
What it showed us all
Waning crescent

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Bad Poetry Thursday

 Enigma

by [REDACTED]


I am a pile of ivy

pulled from the ground

and waiting to be bagged, taken, shredded

My tendrils used to firmly grasp the earth

I've come untethered from my roots

Home is where the heart is

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Bad Poetry Wednesday

 Fingertips

by [REDACTED]


I walk along darkened corridors
And hands reach out for me
To grasp and pry
I want to let them
To feel the fingers probe
and grab 
To give in to their pull
And float away

Monday, August 17, 2020

Bad Poetry Monday

 Malign

by [REDACTED]


Hello there again
I thought it was over
but here we all are
together
Because you cannot get rid of me
You cannot escape what you've become
And you and I 
Our fates are tied
together
It's nyquil driving time.

Wednesday, August 05, 2020

Bad Poetry Wednesday

Highlander
by [REDACTED]

The rocky crown of Arnestine
Sits atop the hill
It looks down on all who gather here
All sick
All ill
With despair or
gout or
ennui or
doubt or
cancer or 
worst of all
hopelessness
I am here
among the others
waiting for a sign from on high
A message that says
"you are not welcome here,
but you can stay"
A respite
A relief
Until another day
Until the crown decides that we should go
Until the powers and the principalities tell us
"get thee to a nunnery."

Tuesday, August 04, 2020

Bad Poetry Tuesday

Meddling Monkey, Busy Ape
by [REDACTED]

He hangs
Simply
Hands around a branch
As though it were the most natural thing in the world
Because of course
It is

Monday, August 03, 2020

Bad Poetry Monday

Vapor
by [REDACTED]

I saw us wandering
Deeper into the smoke and mist 
I watched as we stumbled
On the roots exposed by the storm
You looked back at me smiled before
Disappearing in the vapor 
And I went with you. 

Sunday, August 02, 2020

Bad Poetry Sunday(?)

An Answer for Us All
by [REDACTED]

You and I
We want to know
All the whys and hows
The wherefores and whos
It will change us
Knowledge is power
More data is always better
Non-linear regression
Multivariable 
Can we backtrack far enough
to see the moment
The moment where this all began
The moment when you and I first crossed paths in the dark
Eons ago when the first human 
Took our first step
When the first day dawned 
And life began its horrible toil 
And our destiny was locked in stone
Already fossilized and immovable?
What then?
Do you take me for a sponge?