All that is left is me

01 Jan 2006

Dawn
A friend was told he had cancer and when offered radical treatment to rid him of it,
 he declined, as his prerogative. I could not come to terms with that then and wrote this in protest 
so that he could see how his death would affect his friends. He did have the treatment
 (though probably not due to my poem) and is now living a full life again, aged 32.

All that is left is me

It is me ... kind of, sort of me
Occupying space where I’m meant to be
Lying on the branch of a gumyum tree
Answering questions I cannot really see.
But not me, actually, not in a sense
Putting on the cloth and making a pretence
Brain wrapped in cotton, peering through a fence
Coming over dazzled, nebulous and dense.
My body then? Could be, I don’t rightly know
Recognise the scars - well, those out on show
The stuffing knocked out like the lumps in a dough
And all those blurry edges between yes and no.
My face, then? Smiling through my pain
Manners I suppose, run deeper than the grain
"Sorry for the trouble, I’m perfect in the main"
Grin and bear, hooded stare, convince them all I’m sane.
Yesterday - was it? - you went and lost control
Someone offered death, you blithely rushed in to enrol
Never mind the left behind, you take care of your soul
Tomorrow I will find a way to climb out of this hole.
Hey! Damn you! (pardon me, I’m doing it again)
I haven’t got the wherewithal to mourn for selfish men
Seems to me the Reaper’s sword was mightier than the pen
But still I would have fought your fight, if you’d said where and when.

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Dawn

Started writing poems at age 14, lyrics a lot later and am still doing both to my astonishment. Along the way I wrote a couple of novels and they are published by Amazon. I am gloriously happy in my marriage, after 50 years and I am relieved to say...

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