Best Sick Poems
your labored breathing
called out to me
and in my soul I knew
what needed to be done
I reached for the drum
to summon the spirits
called out to ancestors
and anyone who’d listen
gently tapping to the rhythm
of our beating hearts
united as one in a prayer
released to the universe
filled the silence of
your labored breathing
drumming for hours
till the pleading was done
everything had been said
the prayer consummated
left in the hands
of the universe to respond
then it did in no uncertain terms
in an exorcism of sorts
draining the passages
to free your breathing
and so it was
in tune with the universe
the healing power
of the drum
Read on air by invitation ~ February 11, 2021 'LATE NIGHT POETS'
Read on KPBX called Poetry Moment by Kara Bowman 2022 [karabowman.com and griefpoetry.com]
AP: 2nd place 2026, 2nd place 2022, 2nd place 2021, 3rd place 2022, Honorable Mention 2022, Honorable Mention 2022, Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2021
Submitted on June 13, 2025 for contest YOUR BEST AUDIO POEM sponsored by TOM WOODY - RANKED 2ND
and on May 28, 2021 for contest ALL YOURS (MAY 29) sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - RANKED 1ST
Sitting and gazing at the world through the window.
Silence is broken with whistles of wind,
rustling through lifeless leaves.
As specks of rain trickle down panes of glass,
charcoal clouds add to the misery of memories,
slowly drifting away, like trees losing leaves.
Petals of roses, you have forgotten,
float along the garden path, you no longer know.
A garage full of tools collecting dust,
your cabriolet seems lost in stillness.
Like me, they are things you used to love,
but we are all obscure, as you seem secure in your bubble
I try to show you light, but all you see is darkness.
Forever we wander in the mist.
My affection for you still lingers, as I look at you,
but your blank expression looks through me.
My intimate aroma remains anonymous,
familiarity of my voice triggers no response.
I would give up everything for you to recognise me,
turn and look at me in your own special way,
embrace me in your arms, watch me whilst I sleep
but all your senses have become a stranger to me.
Helplessly I watch, you waste away,
as dementia gradually erases our memories.
The pain burns a hole in my heart,
which will never heal.
If only you would turn around one last time,
with an impression of love and smile at me,
so I could see that special glint in your eyes
and for you to tell me that you love me.
The Silent One
19 January 2020
Finally
Doctor, it's been 7 months
The MEDs aren't kicking in
My dreams are getting stronger,
The blood remains to run code red
It's getting harder and harder to get out of bed
Dark images keep taking place inside my head
The voices - The voices, are not all right!
I no longer lay laughing
The screaming never stops
In irons, my mind rattles
Theses thoughts are all I got
In slow motion, my mind plans the perfect plot
Finally, I realize the sanity of this is perfect
Counting every single second on the clock
At first, I could not breathe
I felt, I was left alone,
Broken down --- Incomplete
In your eyes, the schizophrenia spoke loud
In my eyes, everything is dark and gray
Doctor, now listen closely, open your eyes
While the walls slowly close in on you
I have my hands around your neck
Finally, I feel my arms, the needles are gone
Finally, I realize the sanity of this is perfect
The tightening of the chest is clearing
Today I possess a little more than yesterday
Knowing exactly what needs to be done.
DOC YOU AREN'T LISTENING!
Was it all for nothing, the bloody wrist?
The faucet constantly dripping every night
The voices I call my friends
Deep, deep down,
I'm still a child, painting bedroom walls
Setting fires after my mother's death
A crazy peril in its most threatening state
Doc, here you are again,
No longer will I allow you to waste my time
With your fetish lies, trying to make me better
The problem is not me, it was always you!
Painting pink butterflies and white skies
Finally, I realize the sanity of this is perfect
Don't you understand she's dead!
Pills aren't going to bring her back
Padded rooms aren't going to help me,
Help myself --- grieve the proper way!
Straitjackets aren't going to restrain me,
--- from wanting to hurt badly!
Psychologically, I'm perfectly sane
Expressing my emotions a different way.
Doctor, you're not saying nothing
You're not moving,
You're just sitting there pretending to care.
Doc, I hope you aren't mad?
The voices explained it had to end this way
How else could I make you listen?
Finally, the impulse is gone
Finally, I'm going to be alright
by: Pd
The Power of One
Slowly shadows devour the day’s light,
The silhouette of fear draws breath
From the soul left gasping,
A firestorm of fury gathering,
Like mists of plagues escaping
From an ancient land of sand and tombs
With locusts warning of hope’s starvation
To escort the darkness rising
Turning pleas into ashes – weeping into stone -
Pounding on the mountainsides where sweetest spice
Withers beneath lullabies
Robbed of serenity’s grace -
Flowing furious on fevered winds
Pushing reveries and faith out on a ledge -
Not knowing right from left
Or up from down -
No words of clarity in
In the whirlwind’s barren chrysalis,
To hem in - to constrain -
With invisible shrilling waves of crisis
Whipped up by anguish
That binds the wildly beating, frantic heart,
Like a captured sparrow;
To scoff, to jeer, to overlook,
The single bloom standing up,
Trembling like new leaves on thinnest branches,
Scanning galaxies of prophetic possibility,
Then lean on visionary stars
That shatter with the speed of light
The hovering shadow of inertia’s darkest enchantment,
Sending out the solitary song of meadowlarks,
Still caroling through deafness, not silenced,
Not bending to the ill winds moaning
And the chaos screaming,
To scatter seeds of spring not born
Like unseen winged flyers;
To see beyond and past descending doom,
Into that far and sheltered arbor
With dreams of wisdom and young visions -
Outside the grasp of calamity,
Beyond the dark horizon -
Enticing with an alluring fragrance gather back
Into the benediction of the ever circling eternal seasons
Promising….
Silence is deafening
Like a dungeon dark hallway.
Door after close door of bounding
Moans and groans, and painful
Yelling gasping for air.
I sit in this cold
Dark cell shivering with my
Blacken thoughts.
Am I the only sane one?
Am I the only healthy one?
They come in and out
At all hours to poke and prob.
I, a human, a pin cushion
Ready for use.
Trying someplace else to delve
Madden hunger for More pain.
In isolation with no touch for comfort.
They in hazmat suits
Because they cannot breathe my breath
Or touch my tainted skin.
Claustrophobic in these four walls
Lord, please save me
From this darkness and pain;
Meet my exhausted lids to rest.
All I see are the haunting eyes
Of the ghost that had passed
Veiled in fear white sheets of snow.
12/15/2020
Dare to dream
See beyond the limitation
Of useless legs, fasten them with care.
Join your heroes in Olympic wear.
Nothing beats imagination.
Dare to dream
Dare to dream
See yourself in winning gold,
With your multi-coloured wheelchair.
For once revel in the crowd's stare,
Where surprise in eyes unfold.
Dare to dream.
Dare to dream
I don't see my able self restrained
My future shines perhaps less brighter light
But I never will go down without a fight
I am proud, aware, well-trained
Dare to dream
I close my eyes and let me
Allow myself to see
What might not even be
Because my dreams are free
***
9th place in Olympic Mania contest
Lying silently on my bed, eyes open wide.
Watching as darkness moves in like a heavy fog.
My breathing seems to echo against the cold walls
And my heart beats rapidly as I’m plagued with thought.
Prayer like questions, if I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take, will he take me?
Instantly thoughts go to grandma, surely she’s there,
Surely her open arms will be there to greet me.
Harbouring such thoughts bring to me a peaceful smile.
I start counting all the loved ones I will soon see.
I count them as others count sheep in darkest night
They have become like soft comfort blankets to me
They make my nights less scary, should it be my time.
Soon my weary body gives way to pure darkness
I slip into a place of total nothingness
Time stands still and now I am neither here nor there
I am nowhere, floating helplessly forever
Then far off I see a light shining so brightly
Now I feel once more as my aching body hurts
I moan and roll toward the window lit with sun
Realization sinks in, I’ve made it……one more night.
Written by Brenda Meier-Hans
11.01.2014
Anthony Slausen’s Contest:
Near Death Experience
5th
"Who's woods are these anyway'.
Who's woods that I dwell?
The house of Usher I know so well.
I seek to skate on the frozen lake.
These woods are deep, dark, and weak.
Though I would dance like a swan if I could.
The lake is always frozen this time of year.
How I love the night woods that cover me.
Under the bulging night skies of death.
Beyond the place of wrath and tears.
I would dance upon the lake till not.
Alluring, always caressing in a gentle touch.
I would be remembered as " The Great Swan".
Though here I sit in my bed chamber of death.
And wait for God to call my name.
1 pm wed. 7 / 24 / 2013, " House of Usher" stands for death, " right" the woods are a metaphor for the sick body.
Night of the Dark Soul;
shadows infiltrate
the gap between self
and oblivion.
You're in a scary
dysfunctional place
under constant siege:
where there's no escape.
As reality
morphs into a dream:
sanity slowly
starts to slip away.
A part of you is
lost to dementia:
and confusion lurks
behind every thought.
Memories vanish,
time's all that exists,
and your frightened heart
cries out for a friend.
In novels, love is the obstacle overturned by the ardent swain
In song, love is a grandiose solo in melodic chains
In poetry, love is fervent rhyme in syncopated refrain
In movies, love is a monologue in the rain
In real life, love is made of little things
Of scraping burnt crust off the grilled cheese
Of putting his favorite soda in the fridge, to be cold when he gets home
Of giving up the comfy chair to his aching back
Of putting ice in plastic bags to sooth the shocking jolts of pain in his spine
Of slipping his shoes on and off because he can not bend to do it
Of sleeping alone in the king-size bed upstairs because climbing steps is too excruciating for his weakened legs
Of driving him through rainy rush-hour traffic for his physical therapy
Of watching his face contort when he walks and knowing there are no words of comfort to abate his agony
Of smiling at his goofy jokes, just to have an instant of relief
Of linking fingers while waiting for what the doctor will say
Little things are the cushion
When the world comes down.
2/7/19
The folly of the fight
These four walls; such contemptible and wretched creatures-
mock me, taunt me, deride me as weak and worthless.
I am shackled to the two evil twins-Misery and Myalgia.
As I wrestle with my afflictions, I throw tantrums-like a feral beast
charging towards the drawn sword.
However...I succumb to the inevitable.
I sense the folly of the fight and submit,
although-unwillingly to this intransigent,
auto-immune disease.
How do you fight an enemy entrenched in your marrow?
This enemy is urging me onward on this death march,
and it is unrelenting in it's insistence.
Death, at times, feels like a release of sorts,
but I could never indulge myself in such disgraceful folly.
The pain is intractable, inscrutable, but...
I soldier onward... until the end.
August 07, 2020
John Derek Hamilton
Antlers as walking trees
Grass as stabbing knives
Hands as waving chestnut leaves
Books as building blocks
Thoughts as ideas in the wind
Words as cutting pain
Letters as dust whirling in the sun
Twigs as skinny limbs
Wheels as softly spoken o's
Teeth as stabbing swords
Tongue as venomous snake
Eyes as crazy marbles
Nothing, nothing is what it seems
In my feverish mind
***
September 27, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
there he was
in his white coat
afraid of our reaction
as he dropped the C word
we watched it bounce off the floor
and hang there suspended
no one reaching to grab it
we all sat there with a blank stare
pretending to be deaf
frozen in disbelief
biting our tongue
holding our breath
limp arms down our sides
it couldn’t be
how could it be
wanting to unhear the word
but there it was
in all its ugliness
in the middle of the room
while the coat made its exit
that throbbing C word
loaded and sobering
resonating in our ears
leaving us in shock
Published in my 24-page photo/anthology ~THE POWER OF TWO~ 2020
AP: 1st place 2026, 1st place 2020
Submitted on October 21, 2025 to the contest 2025 POETRY MARATHON MILE 23 sponsored by MARK TONEY - RANKED 7TH
He tried to fly
flapped his wings
High above him
a dark duvet
drizzled sadness
Only yesterday,
or was it last week
his wings and feet
carried him
little raven
didn't remember
Carry me
carry me
he squeaked
to his sorrowful parents
We have to go
they said
hipping hither
and thither
He hid his head
under his useless wings
and waited
and wailed
***
September 17, 2017
7th place in contest: In The Dark
sponsor: Russell Sivey
Broken last night,
I woke up
Precious problem,
picking up
every part.
I want to fix it.
This
I've tried to mend
by shooting it into my vein,
getting in and going,
by another lover,
carving the love into my skin,
by sleeping away
the black out.
Useless things are poison to the temple.
It’s either one cigarette after another,
or lots of chocolate,
the sad tale goes on and on.
But the fragile heart is broken.
What do I do?
They tell me to,
Rely on Thee
It's hard for me
I can't see,
Although I know
and have been very close before.
I was expelled from Hell, thank God.
Entered into the sunlight.
While the whole world
Is in agony.
I'm feeling happy,
my heart feels healed,
but this is a deception....
it is still broken.
Just like a peculiar disease,
there's no cure.
Fill it,
and deal with all its cuts and bruises...
but then all you have are scars. .
My medicine for the bleeding within...
Is to await love to call me,
and say that everything is ok. Not to despise my needs...
Inside, there is a little girl screaming.
And some times...there's an old lady whispering
that she is utterly tired, and can't bare it anymore.
Do you shut the door on your heart?
I can't seem to do it.
It's too powerful and pure,
this instrument that passionately pounds within me.
All its pain...
I have no control.
Creatures
Do you have a broken heart?
Do you have a heart at all?