Written: August 6, 2026 for a contest sponsored by Hiya Sharma
Checked by: HMS.COM: 1 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 8 / 13 / 21 / 34 / 55 syllables
*****************
star
ache
bloom dust
gold sheath sigh
blue dreams sway in dusk
mauve lily hums a revered calm
ruby-lotus aureole threads through memory's web
serendipitous harmony stirs up a mellifluous pot of hush catharsis
amethyst bloom shadows stipple the nighttime memorial, where the endless return breathing pirouette in surreptitious reflection.
stars—maculate, circumspect in their sepalled brilliance—frolicking beyond oncology, beyond every pernicious maelstrom, enticing sapient ache of longing with a wanton yet lucid aplomb that outlasts the night.
Neoliberal psychology
Guess work astrology
Ideology of technology
Not biology or zoology
Climate change tautology
More misled mythology
With plenty of misogyny
So don't be a progeny
Ruining our ecology
Perfidious methodology
Investigate the pathology
Dodgy as any theology
Populist prodigal prodigy
Just wild child kidology
That’s their anthology
Still we tighten our belt
But as we surely melt
Plead need oncology
For hand they've dealt
For everything smelt
Time for a heart felt
On bended knee knelt
Apology..!
My chest once was grand, full and Doule D,
A great weight, now a painful memory.
They felt always too much,
Beyond my light touch,
Now gone, lost to cruel oncology.
The diagnosis brought fear and such pain,
A life-altering, dark, heavy rain.
They were taken to save,
From a disease that did crave,
A sorrowful, permanent bane.
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 most of us.
There was once an opulence to her day to day, that she managed to ignore
and outrun. She was not fancy, she exuded no airs; most would have been surprised at her wealth. Her smile delighted her patients.
She worked a forty-hour a week job, supporting the poor, raising them up, reassuring them. We knew her only as a nurse, a kind co-worker who was
down-to-earth. She would have had it no other way, being as selfless and empathetic as she was.
studiously sterling students
comparing, contrasting, connecting, complaining, conniving
truthfully turning tricky troublesome troubles
into intriguing innovative idealistic ideas
providing peaceful progress
magically, mystically, miraculously meeting marvelous methods
of optimistic overtures overturning oncology.
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 who scrounge in bins
Sing it to widows who wail
Or mothers who mourn
Sing it in the quake and the fire and the flood
To those who got buried in mud
Sing it in the oncology ward
Or the precincts of the prison
Sing it to those used and abused
And to countless slaves who serve
Sing it to those wounded in war
I’ll hear their refrain again and again
As I think to myself
What a wonderful world …
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 Albuquerque sex 10,000 miles away.
I’m walking home from Dane Smith Hall thinking of
Houston - how it’s become a common noun I’ve told
you about while outside the fraternity house
and it’s increasingly proper status
watching us smoke cigarettes. Our unspoken
thoughts vanish. Grey. White. Blue. Oncology.
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 now I’m out of the Army.
Of course, life has its problems. And I often get upset.
But I don’t need the comfort. Of a cancer packed cigarette.
Although I did stop smoking! Over thirty years ago.
When I was aged sixty-eight! Cancer in me did show.
Yesterday was my fifth CT scan. Tomorrow I see those in oncology.
Where I hope if they can, they will say, ‘your cancer has gone Stan.’
Was my cancer caused through smoking? Honestly I do not know!
That news really scared me to death.
So if a smoker and you want to pack it up.
Do so, and I wish you all the best of luck.
The above poem was inspired by today Wednesday 8th March 2017 being no smoking day. Plus of course Ipswich Hospital NHS trust are bringing in a ban of smoking on their premise
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 all felt better
As if they hadn’t another choice
She wasn’t paid to entertain them
She wasn’t doing work for charity
She wasn’t a doctor or nurse there to cure them
She was a patient with one of the maladies
Then, one day, the halls were silent
Into her lungs the cancer had eventually crept
Children and parents were disheartened
Even, from up high, the angels wept
But, the tear drops from angels
Plus prayers from souls down here on earth
Helped to bring about a medical miracle
And her cancer, somehow, did reverse
Her voice rang out again in a soft lullaby
While future angels in their beds slept
Once again hope was planted into patient’s hearts
Once again, on high, the angels wept
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 puncture marks from IV needles
Fifth grade homework shouldn’t be delivered to hospital beds
Last rites shouldn’t be given before her confirmation dress is worn
Parents shouldn’t be praying that they were the ones dying instead
She is too innocent to fear her impending death
She is too young to regret having never fallen in love
Watching your child suffer through this torment and pain
It is easy to lose faith in a merciful God up above
Get well cards shouldn’t have Hello Kitty on front
A last wish shouldn’t be for a Happy Meal
When they remove her lifeless body from this hospital room
They shouldn’t need to prepare it for another sick boy or girl
They shouldn’t need to make caskets only four feet long
Easily carried by just two men
Funeral parlors shouldn’t be crowded with the grade school staff
And a roomful of crying children
For the "One Silver Tear Free Poetry Contest". Written and posted on 7/23/2012.
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 smiles set
against hopeful eyes.
Apprehensions and myths
must be unravelled,
even thoughts deciphered,
delusions dislodged;
so many stories of survivors,
and remembrances of those gone.
The butterfly
has no consciousness of fear,
and sparrows dart without tear.
To man alone,
God's ultimate created,
is the grimness of the grave known.
Yet, there remains on my lips
a boatload of gold,
while I am found, too,
in the shadow of my tears.
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 passes; two visitors at a time;
15 minutes; youthful breaking of the rules
settles in a smile incongruous to
my purpose of sitting here, waiting
outside his room.
The devil is behind this door. They
cannot be left alone. A pair
of nikes motions me in to keep
at moor his boat at river’s edge.
©Kathryn McLoughlin Collins
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.