Journal Entries
Dying haiku
Posted Nov 1, 2003
This body will die.
When that time comes I intend
To be somewhere else.
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Latest reply: Nov 1, 2003
The Laughing Gods
Posted Aug 22, 2003
THE LAUGHING GODS
When you're really down,
The gods will show you how to
Give yourself a kick.
Don't think you've been kicked,
Or that the gods are against
You - until you've checked.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Aug 22, 2003
Poem: Parting
Posted Aug 19, 2003
PARTING
I'm waiting for a miracle, you see.
You say the cards said I must learn to trust.
In what? Some angel looking out for me
Between the prior void and future dust?
Don't think I'm paralysed, inert because
I'm waiting for a miracle. You see
An older man who's finding that his flaws
Have led directly to uncertainty.
Don't think I haven't prayed that I might be
Allowed to leave in peace, not pain. That's why
I'm waiting. For a miracle, you see,
You must have faith enough to let things die.
Have I that faith, to swim into the night,
To plunge into this torrent knowingly?
Where there's a promise of some future light
I'm waiting, for a miracle. You see?
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Latest reply: Aug 19, 2003
Poem: Helen's Funeral
Posted Aug 18, 2003
HELEN'S FUNERAL
(Helen, aged 50, was prescribed Interferon for hepatitis C,
despite a history of severe depressive episodes. It probably
led to her suicide. Her body was found, after a month at sea,
on the Isle of Man. Her funeral was last Saturday.)
Don't say, "He went the way he wanted to,"
Or, "He had a good innings, didn't he?"
The last thing I want to hear, if I hear,
Is cozy platitudes. I'll cease to be,
And that which you knew well will not be here
To challenge you. The trouble being dead
Is that you can't reply for good or ill,
And the living get to choose what is said,
Or worse, left unsaid at your funeral.
Who chose the hymns for Helen's final rites?
Who thought of "All things bright and beautiful?"
She drowned herself. She challenges our light
With the dark edge of her sharp clarity?
Or did she just fall into an abyss,
Tripped up by the lethal disparity
Between sweet belief and the toxic kiss
Of arrogant medical certainty?
I see her clearly, smiling broadly still,
And happy, though I didn't know her well.
At last she chose to swim out into death.
Did the drug drive her down the cold green swell
Suck out her soul and inundate her breath?
She'll live, remembered. Bright and beautiful.
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Aug 18, 2003
Realisation-awakening
Posted Aug 18, 2003
Look! You have two hands.
Realisation is that
simple. See who sees.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Aug 18, 2003
chaiwallah
Researcher U219914
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