Terminally Poems | Examples

Hospice

He blinks in and out in a wingchair,
overhears what visitors say
when patients
can be talked about
as if not there.

People speak well of the dying,
even of dying strangers,
to him their words
prematurely shovel earth.

The terminally sick
must be accommodated,
penciled into time slots,
eased gently into oblivion.

He listens as he slips downstream
on a raft of morphine.
These last trips are scenes taken
from childhood books.

His own life story has become
absurd, it is almost as if
he is a character in someone else's life,
a Huckleberry Finn
whistling through Dantes Inferno.

What he really wants
is a rocking horse and ice-cream.
A nurse brings him ice-cream,
but it's the wrong flavor.

He wonders if anyone can see
the horse he rides upon,
his ten-gallon hat is as white
as a flying nun's Cornette.

The occasional visitors
watch the dying in dreadful relief.
Hypnotic minds drone like trapped bee's.

Frank Sinatra jets in from wonderland,
hands him a coloring book.
If only he had crayons
to fill in the blanks.

The Confessions of a Tormented Soul

I poison myself to endure the torments of my clairvoyant mind,
A journey littered with catastrophes and irreversible scars.
I chase nightmares I will find in hell,
My face drowned in the fleeting vanities humanity sanctifies.
I am in no rush to honor my appointment with the reaper,
Like a terminally ill patient who still dares to dream.
I am trapped in an asylum where appearances and masks
Are the mirrors of madness.
I burn my neurons with cannabis
To find beauty in the ugliness of my surroundings.
My indelible scars are searing reminders of my insignificance.
I have tamed the violence of silence
To anesthetize my demonic urges.
I trust not in human frailty,
Like a bipolar paranoiac.
The darkness of the furnaces of the bearer of light
Shines deep in my eyes.
I am a solitary soul, persecuted
By its demons and ghosts.
The melancholy of my heart has chained
My mind to the depths of bitterness.
My life on Earth has been infernal torture
Since the day I let out my first cry.
I am compelled to sow the seeds of chaos
In this dimension, to unlock the gates of immortality.
A symphony of blasphemies, to discover every fragrance of freedom.

If It Wasn't For Poetry

Things that I alone see would remain unseen by others.
Things that move or touch me alone, none other would bother.
Clouds with color and form, are not just a repository of water,
but demand more than a stare and invite an inquiry further.
Who would SEE our Master's painting if it wasn't for poetry?

A vast domain in an opened canopy filled with awesome beauty
and so often unobserved would go undetected of wondrous mystery.
Who would otherwise reveal the workings of God's magnificent symphony?

As I sat at the bedside of one who was ill terminally,
a poem of comfort was born and given to the family.
Who else would listen to the beats and tones long enough to hear the
faraway sounds of the heavens or the whispers of the wind so near?
Things, that I alone hear, would go unheard by unkeen and nonpoetic ears;
Who would LISTEN and record orchestras of the universe if it wasn't for poetry?

Some places, times, and seasons from long ago years;
Things deep in the heart's core, that I alone feel, birthing tears;
Emotional and hurtful memories; mental abuses locked in cells of fears.
Who would FEEL the myriads of life's meaning if it wasn't for poetry? 

120323PS

Hidden In Plain Sight Virtually Unable 2 See

Surely it is virtually impossible

To hide and disguise

In plain sight

Of curious mind eyes

The quite patently blatantly obvious

Unless that is of course 

Those they who are

Looking and watching on 

Are so terminally stupid

And utterly delusional

In the end it all makes

Perfect sense

As we only see

What we want to until 

Everything else becomes somehow

Somewhat superfluous 

If we do not like what we see

Reserve In Thee

Love is not always reciprocated

Seeming some hearts terminally
constipated – 

unable to relieve themselves
and others, 

to make lighter many burdens,

the long suffering of less fortunate sisters
and brothers – 
                 yes, love is not only 
tender petting, 

it is also to help stop daily
fretting – feeling hopeless smothers

love is sinking
wells and tilling fields 

giving an extra helping hand 
when Nature poorly yields

it is lighting a furnace of warmth
for the aged, by themselves too weak
to battle late hour’s bitter cold

it is seeing gold as not mere glitter
but a wealth that could make life desperate
fuller and fitter

Seek out those children abandoned and forgotten!

Restore a World order that nurtures its vulnerable fold – 
Dear God, if love
could only be bought and sold, I would
earn to buy all

give all away free... 

My own reserve entirely in Thee

A Terrace Full of Flowers For Our Anniversary

Oh! No. I won’t wait until you’re seriously terminally sick
Or to expire in order to send you bouquets of ritzy flowers
Today is indeed the time, the hour to stand above the big brick
To show my love amidst the hubbub of seasoneless showers.

You are profoundly loved, dear colorful and calm princess
You are always on my mind, in my guts, my heart and my soul
You are always on top of the unbiased poll, on my pole
And I love you with an incredible passion since you are the best.

I want to give you a garden jammed full of exotic flowers
And invite gobs of colorful rainbows to dazzle you daily
While exposing my love despite of a series of uneventful hours.

Oh! It’s rewarding, classy and marvelous to celebrate joyfully
Under the pristine blue sky. It’s our anniversary, let’s enjoy life
To the fullest. Let’s move on, forget the sad past and the vile rife.

Copyright © August 2023, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.

Bones Ache Yet Heart Sings

A revolving door of visiting friends
 Old and new, at the hospital, day by day.
     Stalked by death's brooding shadow;
      Cancer-stricken and terminally ill,
   Yet faces his mortality with courage.

     His bones ache yet his heart sings
        As he lay dying without regrets.
        A man of faith, he feels no fear 
   As he embarks on his final destination.
       His journey from stunned denial to
        Acceptance of his fate, complete.

        What a life! He had a good run.
    Loved ones surround his death bed.
   His wife of more than half a century
         Keeps round the clock vigil.
          His bones ache yet his heart 
       Coos along to her farewell song, 

           Softly sung into his right ear.
Hand in hand, a goodbye kiss on his brow.
        A stream of peacefulness flows
       Through the clearing of his mind
      As he slowly slips away; his bones 
                       Ache no more.

Struggles of a Teen

"You have it easy," 
is what they always say.
"Are you starving and not breathing,"
they ask.
"You have no right to complain,"
they mock.
Then why does my life feel like I've been living in vain?
Sure, 
I'm not homeless, hungry, or poor,
but I'm not happy.
They don't understand the way I stand by the mirror.
Looking at myself,
wishing I was thinner.
They'll never know how I strive for perfection.
But with every failed attempt,
I get a lack of affection. 
They won't understand the pressure I've been through.
Perfection, or you've failed,
but they haven't got a clue.
So sure, 
I'm not thirsty or in poverty.
I'm not dying or terminally ill,
but you don't know what it takes for my shoes to be filled.

Knowing the Answer Even Before Asking the Question

My heart is beating so fast I can not 
say for sure 

If it may not at any moment go into
cardiac arrest and explode out my 
chest cavity 

And my hands are so sweaty its like
they are raining confetti at a vegan
wedding 

In the hope you will submit cease to resist 
and eventually say yes

To my simple request to take you out
on a date

Because at the end of the day I am
just a boy who is terminally shy and 
dead coy

Putting both myself and my heart on
the line

Internally hoping and praying you will
see through my imperfections and outwardly
displayed insecurity flaws

So as to offer me a chance to enhance my
confidence and enable you to see me for
all that I can be rather than what I am not

Because there is only a certain amount of
rejections a person can take before they
finally run out of hope and eventually give up

Trying already knowing the outcome and
answer before asking the actual question 

So for the umpteenth and probably last
time fingers crossed 

Wish me luck this is the 1 who will agree
and kindly say yes

To going out with little old me

And if she does I'll be sure to let you know

How it goes

111 Months

You were diagnosed with Leukemia and sadly, you didn't survive.
If you hadn't died 111 months ago, today you would've turned 75.
You were born on October the 18th of 1947.
But 111 months ago, you went to Heaven.
Your hair grew back when chemotherapy made it fall out.
When you were told you would die, there was no doubt.
It must have been terrifying when you learned that you were terminally ill.
You had to battle cancer and it was not easy to go through such an ordeal.
Today would've been your 75th birthday.
But 111 months ago, you were taken away.

[Dedicated to Charles F. Johnson (1947-2013) who died on July 13, 2013]

The Padded Soft Cell

"The Padded Soft Cell" 

Here they cover their mirrors
with garlands of poésies
to stop billabong reflections 
pooling through

the inmates 
congratulate each other
walking in slow dervish circles
Boston-two-stepping backwards ecstatic rituals

Anti-clockwise, 
I told them to change channels
when words become mute
and mummify themselves 

in the gadaidja’s 
interminably 
terminally blessed loud 
soapbox sermon music

they b**ched their chomping bits 
about it all for a while
I suggested with a pleasant smile
keep on their side of the shine 

twisting their own twine

regulated patients, 
disgraced and racing 
chasing love, love chasing
all intrepid actors underexposed pacing

sometimes we smile here
within our padded soft cells
if the ghosts we read through walls
entertain us from their wells

(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)




"Films" (Remastered 2009)/ Gary Numan
https://youtu.be/6HbIGk6zH_k

Four Corners

man remembers
day at four corners
terminally ill

He Gave Her a Book

In two days, she’d marry the love of her life,
She always dreamed of becoming a wife.

But she was a bit sad; she never knew her dad,
As far as parents go, her mom was all she had.

Lost in her thoughts, she heard a thud outside,
it was a package; she wondered what was inside.

She closed the door and opened the box up,
to her surprise, it was a book and a coffee cup.


The title of the book was “ I Give You My Heart”
the note read, I loved you from the very start.

I'm sorry I couldn't be apart of your life, my child,
I got terminally ill, your thoughts may be running wild.

Immediately, she shed tears for a dad, she never knew,
as she continued to read, she was no longer sad and blue.

In the book, you'll learn who your father is,
you'll see I love science; in fact, I'm a whiz

I also gave you my favorite cup; it's special to me,
live life to the full and may it be filled with glee.







First Place Win
Contest: HE GAVE HER A BOOK
Sponsor: Mystic Rose
05/24/2021

At Trickling's End

As winter brings shortened light,
as famine delivers harvest blight
So does violence yield premature burial gain,
scarlet tears of Noah’s premonition rain
Crimson tidal force,
deluge of cursed, wolf bane rage
Crescent moon dreadfully presage
a permanent lunar retrograde

On the dark side of the bosom, 
sunspot thoughts flow terminally so, err bottomless
Feral feelings blindly comes from
malevolent eruptions,
igneous fears reflect opaque tears of hardened glass

Eclipse hearts 
cast an angry downpour — 
What does the ill-temper tempest send?
Underbelly hourglass
receives not 
another vex overturn at trickling’s end

Rejoice, rejoice
ye peaceful pilgrims 
of quantum hope certainty
The celestial sands of tranquility
will soon pour infinitely

As the last Revolution spins 
identical change,
the mammon thirst for power 
remains the same
Punctuated by perforated voices,
whose hateful noise
stains the grain 


1-30-21

A Last Adieu

The sentence was death, terminally sure,
to pack my bags, adieu

As reds have never looked so red,
and greens, the greenest hue

The wine the sweetest on my tongue,
as birds sing sweeter still

The children’s laughter I embrace,
their joy I’ll keep until…

In thinking back on what I’ve missed,
my mind then draws a blank

Every wish and every hope, twice over,
with my thanks

A hundred days to say goodbye,
and voice my first hello

No tears have I for broken dreams
—as I prepare to go

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: April, 2020)

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