Best Cystic Poems

Gary, you are my little soldier boy,
who died on Veteran's Day. ('83)
My sunny, golden-haired soldier boy,
that I still miss in every way.

You had just turned...

Read more of this work...

it seems in just the twinkling of an eye
life passes by
and one's left at the brink
with time to think
before the fall 
into the great abyss
where...

Read more of this work...

Disability, Illness and Fundamentalism

My brother died of Cystic Fibrosis, 
When I was twelve and he fourteen, 
It took away his ambitions, 
To study at Oxford...

Read more of this work...

ONLY THE DREAMER DIES…

The arid winds steal
     Our tears.
The sterile dust tease
     Cystic hopes
Of dreams deferred.

At shrines...

Read more of this work...

AMBER DAWNS APPEAL
 
                    A wish,...

Read more of this work...

Haley gave up the ghost today,
all we could do was cry and pray.
She'd suffered so long, her whole life,
disease had wracked her body with strife.

Cystic...

Read more of this work...

[ edit poem ]
Life Is What Happens

What a long, strange life it’s been.
Childhood and adolescence were close to normal,
I never felt quite right,
Never fit my...

Read more of this work...

I was just four when I discovered that some grown-ups cry.
That’s because I saw my mommy dragging my daddy down the stairs,
Her eyes so full...

Read more of this work...

Hypochondrial Delusion

A mind corrupted canker
Of cystic self failure
Even gastric anorexia
And fluttery throb to alight the fear
An adrenaline generated tachycardia
That matches respiration
And causes hyperventilation
With invasive pacy...

Read more of this work...

I remember years before her death, my mama would pray, "Lord, take my life." I would try to make her forget her misery by continuing...

Read more of this work...

FAITH BRINGS THE HARVEST

			Although they go forth weeping
			carrying the seed to be sown,
			They shall come back rejoicing
					Psalm 124

The furrows of our beginnings lie barren: cystic...

Read more of this work...

(whose video powerfully, profoundly, and
positively affected this southeastern residing 
Pennsylvania papa)! 

Afflicted with Cystic Fibrosis since her birth
contagious exuberance, gung-ho,
     infectious...

Read more of this work...

in a pub in Ireland



So this Mick on the next stool,
who's as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me, 
with eyes crossed,
sipping Guinness through...

Read more of this work...

This Mick on the Next Stool

	in a pub in Ireland

So this Mick on the next stool,
who's as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me,...

Read more of this work...

He reignited my creative passion when he reentered my life
His can sense to the core how I am feeling and asked me right away to...

Read more of this work...