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Cancer Poems | Examples of Cancer Poetry

My Spirit
My Spirit Beneath the sunlit waves where my dreams drift and dive, A silent shadow glides—a force both fierce and alive. The great white shark, my silent kin, moves through the endless blue, Its power and mystery mirror something deep and true in me, too. I feel its wisdom echo in the restless tides of my mind, In the hunger for...

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Categories: cancer,
Form: Free verse
Ocean's Embrace, A Warrior's Heart
Ocean's Embrace, A Warrior's Heart Shattered news, a whispered word, "Cancer," they said, my world was blurred. A mammogram's shadow, stark and deep, A secret held I couldn't keep. My chest, once strong, now felt so frail, A storm of fear, a silent wail. The surgeon's smile, a gentle hand, But fear still gripped this weary land. Yet in this darkness, deep and vast, My...

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Categories: cancer,
Form: Free verse



Cancer
Cancer, a six-letter word that doesn’t mean much to most people. Then the word suddenly has more power than a shot to the chest. You think, am I still breathing? You go to the bathroom to try to pull yourself together, to share the pain with someone else. As the phone rings, you think you...

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Categories: anxiety, cancer, care, deep,
Form: Free verse
Any given moment, any given time
grief is a complicated feeling; it doesn’t always hold the loss of something. But in some cases, in my case, it’s the quiet ache of dread, the feeling that encapsulates quiet certainty of impending loss, something that means more to you than anything, that in the here and now, is still with you. Yes, you may...

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Categories: cancer, death, grief,
Form: Free verse
The 12th Anniversary Of Dad's Death
When Dad got Leukemia, he put up a fight. He took chemo but lost his battle 12 years ago tonight. After months of taking chemotherapy, he died. He couldn't beat cancer even though he tried. He died less than two hours before the fourteenth of July. He was a good provider and that's something I can't deny. When a person loses...

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Categories: anniversary, cancer, dad,
Form: Rhyme



In a Coat of Pain
I’ve knocked on every door of medicine men— doors painted with hope. Swallowed pills of every size and colour. Been told, “This one never fails.” Another promise— fulfilled only in disappointment. The body that once felt mine now feels like a stranger’s— still wearing my name tag. I sleep early, trying to rinse myself from pain, but wake up still dressed in it. The coat I wear? Pain-stitched— by a tailor...

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Categories: anger, anxiety, cancer, caregiving,
Form: Spoken Word
Premium Member CANCER STOLE MY DAD
Sitting by the window and reflecting, on one bitter cold day, The sky cloudy, the weather report predicted snow, The temperature outside 10 degrees, a little low, 33 years ago, it was a sad, life changing day that May. My dad is all I could think of, he consumed my thoughts, The Specialist Oncologist had given us the tragic...

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Categories: cancer, death,
Form: Rhyme
Premium Member Lump
I rub my neck My fingers find something hard I press hard again ...

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Categories: cancer, care, emotions, fear,
Form: Free verse
Premium Member Prodigy
Dear Diary My dog died yesterday. We were playing frisbee in the back yard and it was really hot. I'm not allowed to run so he did the running for both of us and I guess it just wore him out because he fell on his side and breathed really hard and then just ...

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Categories: 1st grade, cancer,
Form: Haibun
Premium Member One Year Before Skin Cancer
We brought a puzzle to the cabin, rented on a Friday-front holiday. Our tween was bored before we passed the first exit. We needed the escape— a break from where we'd been and where we were (or thought we were, then). I bit my lip the whole drive, sucked in my stomach hoping you'd eye me sideways. I was fine-tuning my profile in case it...

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Categories: cancer, beautiful, betrayal, confidence, joy,
Form: Free verse
Premium Member You Make Me Smile
You Make Me Smile the diagnosis came as a shock life altering-all came to a stop several surgical scar forming resections steady course of skin burning radiation multiple courses of poisonous chemotherapy grueling grind of gut-wrenching nausea valleys of deep depression alternate with hills of happiness each day another day of life totally different than the day before through it all you have managed to maintain...

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Categories: cancer,
Form: Free verse
Premium Member The Final Word
I didn’t expect this – it came quickly, without warning I couldn’t hide. It left me with no choice – but to go to war, battling the deafening poison, the affliction feeling like the deafening crash thunder raging, pouring out its fury I didn’t ever imagine this would come to be, silencing the courage that I’d once felt, giving my plans a...

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Categories: age, anxiety, cancer, health,
Form: Free verse
Still, I Rise in Color
for the ones losing hair, light, and hope—this is you. They said I was nothing special. Just a crawling thing, skin too thin, eyes too tired, body too slow to ever matter. I heard them whisper. “He looks worse every day.” “She’s losing her hair now.” “Poor thing.” And worse— the pity in their voices cut more than the words. I wanted to hide. Wanted to leave this skin, this...

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Categories: appreciation, beautiful, cancer, change,
Form: Free verse
Nullspace
Every day I walked by the dead cockroach on The second floor’s third stair. I was out of breath by the sixth. On the eighth I’d stop, And wait until my heart slowed. I'd step out. How was his night? Emesis? Pain? Did he sleep? Evening would roll around. I'd walk by the clock stuck at 4:52. The elevators were faster...

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Categories: cancer, dad, devotion, father,
Form: Free verse
Father's Day 2025
If you hadn't held down a job, we would've been screwed. If you hadn't worked, we would've had no shelter or food. You worked hard for years to keep a roof over our heads. You became ill in 2011 and twenty months later, you were dead. About three years after you retired, you died at the age of sixty-five. Even...

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Categories: cancer, dad, death,
Form: Rhyme

Specific Types of Cancer Poems

Definition | What is Cancer in Poetry?


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry