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 13,
getting interested in girls.
When CF took you from me,
my heart, like a flag, unfurled.

You fought CF with every breath.
For 13...

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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 did time go?

For some, life is short
for others, long
But the years don't count
Nor do the hours
It's the moments which capture...

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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 - the pipe organ’s steam. 

I understand being born with a genetic disorder, 
Because I have Cerebral Palsy and sometimes...

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ONLY THE DREAMER DIES…

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

At shrines of Lazarus
     Visions
Beckon the faithful
     Silencing
 The wailing discontent:

Only the dreamer dies;...

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AMBER DAWNS APPEAL
 
                    A wish, a dream, from birth til death,
              ...

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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 Fibrosis did her in,
choked her lungs and kept her thin,
poor little child, we knew her well,
spending so much time in...

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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 of tears that they fairly poured down her flimsy nightgown.
Daddy wasn’t crying. Daddy was dead.

When I was six, I had...

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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 rhythm
And palpitating violation
To anxious infarction
 In schizoid arrest

A hepatic paranoia 
of dermal yellow 
And lily liver assault
That feeds a life...

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[ 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 image of a normal kid.
Dealing with internal demons for so many years.

Adolescence was hell,
The frigging dybbuks took control
Internally screaming, “your...

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

Afflicted with Cystic Fibrosis since her birth
contagious exuberance, gung-ho,
     infectious jubilance noah dearth
which eye opening (then tearing)
     podcast link sent tummy 
    ...

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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 to sing the hymn, "Take My Life and Let it Be." But, she wanted to go...and Jesus let her sleep....

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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 Seeds fallen between the rows; statues of clods
Represent still stages shadowing scenes

Deferred.

Ancient ones, rooted by the river, grow
Like their mother...

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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 be his wife

Though it's been 45 years we have known each other and 12 since we last spoke. 
We fell...

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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 the foam.
Finally he burps and says, 
"I'll bet that growth is cystic.
If it were on my nose, 
I'd light this...

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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, 
with eyes crossed,
sipping Guinness through the foam.
Finally he burps and says, 
"I'll bet that growth is cystic.
If it were on...

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