Long Diagnosis Poems

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...

Read More

I know I promised
 no more ‘Make you Cry Poems’
I said I'd never write another 
‘Wipe your eye poem’

 And for three years 
I tried not to retract, 
but after so many tears 
I have...

Read More

On this day 40 years ago in 1978 my mother, Jacqueline Anne Trestrail, left this world after a relatively short battle with cancer - she was 46. Jimmy Carter was President and Annie Hall won...

Read More

~  You  Are ~ 
( Diminished Hexaverse Reversed ) 
 




~O~




A 

True  Friend 
You  are 

You always 
Help me no 
Matter what. 

You are my Life 
You're my Sunshine 
My Inspiration...

Read More

...cont

Breath...
You once said to me,"I'm a man of extremes," and I understood immediately what you meant.  When you drank, you drank hard.  When you worked you expected perfection, in yourself not others, because...

Read More

TRIGGER WARNING this piece features active addiction, the struggles etc 

I Can't stop screaming, sobbing the pain in my stomach is excruciating,
Eventually Im assigned a bed to be left in whaling, waiting, 
Finally a nurse...

Read More

You know when I think about it now and what I have to do,
a lot of you folk out there would have a bit of envy too;
you see I'm a 'lacky' for a vet, well...

Read More

(Seems that these days a whole lot of people suffer from anxiety and depression. Now whether that's a reflection on our world and society, whether there's actually greater incidence of it or if we just...

Read More

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...

Read More

1—Milieu

Unique construction of body and mind
My niche in human pack not quickly found 
Raw young heart of a curious design
The empty mirrors for my soul abound

Subjectively a bit odd to myself
A jangled, disconnected kind of...

Read More

STOLEN ILLUMINATION OF THE STAR

This journey has not been a fanciful adventure, 
we're all settlers in  these dynasty of neo-colonialism 
united only by what divides us. Victims, yes 
victims of civilized inducement, 
terms of...

Read More

COMPARISONS

I sit here now back on my bed
Bandaged and still quite sore
I think back to my Mum and Dad
And all they both endured

My Dad he died of cancer
My Mum of MND
Both were unpleasant ways to...

Read More

Date  October  2049

It was a cool Saturday evening.
Desharah was on the video phone
With Dolly. "Ma me and the kids
Are coming for a visit and Ame is
Coming too and he's bringing his 
Family. DJ...

Read More

Young and Strong

She was young, she was strong
Working cleaning all the day long
So much to do, but she carried that load
So concerned about everyone, at Kenmore road.

Then we moved, to Strandfontein we came
A new challenge...

Read More

"go on" I dared myself
So I did
Booked an extra ticket for my Mum
"She'll love it" said my brain
"What if people break bones, you crash on the way, you forget the tickets, someone wears the wrong...

Read More

Fraught With IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome...

today – late morning of November 4th 2022
sudden onset experienced whereby
whooshing waste naturally flushed out
ala mine body electric performed colonoscopy
diarrheal gangbuster instigated
maybe Machiavellian microbe
with powerful rectal surge
analogous to invisible plunger
forcing...

Read More

I was an irrepressible and happy young woman, and graceful ballet dancer,
Who lived for twirling on a world stage, as red berries are shrub laughter!

I had practiced for so many years, striving to become the...

Read More

She was eighteen
Graduation Day
Valedictorian
The Girl got Straight A’s
Mother says, 'I’m proud of you.
Your hard work is gonna pay.
I know it's been a long road
But you've carried your load."
The girl looks over her shoulders
And scans through...

Read More

Creative cerebral craftiness coaxes...

Childhood campy chimera curtain call
subsequently hinting (based on accuweather)
the approach of blizzard squall
so burrow under quilted cover y'all
until warm temperatures arrive when springtime
ushers social media platforms 
buzzfeeding earthlinked instant karma 
jump/kickstarting linkedin...

Read More

Across figurative and literal blackened white board...

Where death of democracy writ large,
nevertheless psychological strength predominates
unlike earlier chapters of mein kampf.

Mine hardscrabble existential debacle 
spelled losing game
swept me up in malevolent mindset 
far adrift from harbored...

Read More

I heard the universal sound of aum (pronounced ohm)...
while being quarantined inside our own invisible bubble

Transcendent meditations
while athwart oblate spheroid
allow, enable, and provide
deft capability deciphering
snap, crackle and pop
accepted as mere static
to the untrained ear.

Each inaudible...

Read More

Harriet Harris circa November 13th, 1935 - ~ May 4th, 2005

untimely death sentence ordained 
approximately six months prior 
to mother dearest celebrating 
her seventieth birthday,
though the last three years of her life
impacted courtesy hysterectomy
to remove...

Read More

Harriet Harris née Kuritsky circa November 13th, 
1935 - ~ May 4th, 2005
(untimely death sentence ordained ~ early February 1935)

I trot out a poem acknowledging birthday
of dear ole mom, who succumbed, 
lost lease on life
nearly...

Read More

Him, he’s so dangerous but so safe.How can someone like him be so broken??His smile oh my gosh it’s so priceless I swear he doesn’t know his true worth.To me no mental diagnosis would be...

Read More

Oh my dog, another yesterday (May 23rd, 2020) spent inside

Anomalous earthling inhabited 
mancave quarantined
cocooned gamesomely 
knowingly protected travesty
impossible mission sidestepping, 
thwarting, zapping
eventuality, inevitability, 

opportunity utilitarian death
crowning glory fêted within 
netherlands immortality
granted courtesy biological 
proliferation offspring...

Read More