Long Oncology Poems

All I remember is going into the garage to get the snow shovel.
 
I am not even sure how much of the driveway I managed to shovel.  Apparently, I was lying in the snow...

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Metaphysics is - a division of philosophy that is concerned with
the fundamental nature of reality and being.
It includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.

THE METAPHYSICS OF MY MUSE

While my muse dances a minuet,
She sings of doctors...

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Five years ago he joyously visited the maternity ward;
now it is the oncology floor.
Kindergarten will not be in the cards this year -
just lots of tears.

She has the same bald head she bore
when he coached...

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I am absolutely disoriented while I wait.
I am unable to reclaim the time I have lost.
I was entirely sure of my counterpoint.
Being warned led to her bewildered epithet. 

Something odd is going on in this...

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She always sang a bit way off-key,
She couldn’t hit a single note;
She mixed up words from different songs,
Some getting caught down in her throat;
She sang songs from our favorite bands
That I didn’t recognize;
When she told...

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They shouldn’t need to make caskets only four feet long
Pediatricians shouldn’t have to specialize in oncology
Scarves shouldn’t be worn by ten year old girls
To protect their bald heads as caused by radiology

Little arms shouldn’t bare...

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Smoking at Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust
By Stanley Russell Harris
The new mad author
& A Poetry Soup honourable mentioned poet

Once I smoked like a trooper.  As that’s what I did be.
Now I do not smoke. As...

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Her voice echoed through the hallways
Of the pediatric oncology hospital ward
When people saw the young girl who sang these songs
They were stunned and they were floored

She sang unaccompanied
But there was music in her voice
The children...

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How quickly
vanity will undo a man
sitting in an outpatient ward,
his, no minor ills
yet feeling worse
for the treatment
than its need.

Aware the ticking of the clock,
exchange of amiable words -
they never wear solid colors
in oncology,
always gaier prints
and...

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The young R.N.'s humility was almost noticeable.
No one knew how lavish her life had once been. 
She had survived luxury which might
have spoiled others into sloth-like ways.

The grandeur of her childhood home would have intimidated...

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The lyric rings true
But it’s hard to sing it through
What’s left are glimpses of glory
From the original story
The canvas now tarnished and tainted and twisted
Sing it to children who sleep on the street
Or to beggars...

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for Jessica

Orchards recurring: Two twenty year olds 
on dissimilar paths undaunted by love’s 

tapestry approaching exclamatory 
yields of apricot musk and peach marmalade 

their unified voice.  It was you.  Tonight you’ll take
me in...

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Oncology 

waffle-soled Nikes travel by at
a good pace and I think of chalky
lace-ups and starched white caps,
the apron-tied uniform 
of benevolent angels so gently
shushing visitors.  

a memory collection of sneaking up stairs
with no cardboard...

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