"inoperable" poems
Sunday, Jim would walk in the Park.
When he was young Mom and Dad would come too, but each
Sunday, Jim would walk in the Park.
Sometimes on Saturdays or Tuesdays they would go, but
Sunday, Jim would walk in the Park.
Sometimes through the rain,
sometimes through the snow,
sometimes through the fog, and
especially through the sunshine, each
Sunday, Jim would walk in the park.
When Jim was 12, his parents allowed Jim
to adopt a puppy from the Animal Shelter.
Jim named named the Puppy Al. Each
Sunday, Jim and Al would walk in the Park
Soon after Jim's parents stopped walking in the park
because Jim felt he was too old to walk with Mom and Dad . Each
Sunday, Jim and Al would walk in the Park and
Jim would think about his Mom and Dad and
carry them in his heart
Jim and Al got older and went off to College in Boston. Each
Sunday Jim and Al would walk in the Park.
One Sunday Jim met Sara in the Park, from then on each
Sunday, Jim, Al, Sara and Sara's dog Charlotte would walk in the Park.
Soon Jim and Sara graduated from College and found jobs and each
Sunday, Jim Al, Sara, and Charlotte would walk in the Park.
Soon Jim and Sara had a baby girl they named Emily, and each
Sunday, Jim, Al, Sara, Emily and Charlotte would walk in the Park.
But one year as Al got older he was unable to make the walk any more
and soon he passed away. But each
Sunday, Jim, Sara, Emily and Charlotte would walk in the park and carry the memories of Al and Mom and Dad in their hearts. And soon, Jim and Sara had another child that they named Bob. Each
Sunday, Jim, Sara, Emily, Charlotte and of course Bob would walk in the Park
And because dogs don't live as long as humans Charlotte too got older and and soon she too passed away. But each
Sunday, Jim, Sara, Emily and Bob would walk in the park
and carry the memories of Al, Charlotte Mom and Dad with them
in their hearts.And the years passed, Emily and Bob got older, but each
Sunday, Jim and Sara and sometimes Emily and Bob would walk in the park.
Then Emily left and went to College and soon after Bob did too, but each
Sunday, Jim and Sara would walk in the park and talk of Bob and Emily
and sometimes of Al and Charlotte and Jim's parents and Sara's parents."
Then Sara passed, Cancer, inoperable stage four, Still
Sunday, Jim would walk in the Park and think about Sara and Bob and Emily and and Al and Charlotte, some
Sunday's Jim would get a little tear, other Sunday's a little smile as he remembered the good times and the bad.
Copyright 2010 Michael Lee Williams.
Apr 26, 2011
Apr 26, 2011 at 11:46 AM UTC
I bought a cruiser bike
instead of a mountain bike
I’m a sextagenarian
not a 30-something
so every morning I pedal
to the corner across from the Ritz-Carlton and the Montage
next to the high-rent Pandemonde Café
and count the Ferraris roaring by.
I never had a Ferrari
but I did buy a ’96 Mustang once
and souped it up with a supercharger
which was around the time
my doctor took me off testosterone
because my prostate specific antigen
was way too high
You have an inoperable prostate malignancy, he said
after the biopsy
You can’t take hormone replacement anymore
It will **** you
And as I lean on my bike
depressed about missing the rush
of another boost of synthetic male hormone
I enjoy watching the Europen speedsters streak by
so proud of themselves
in cars that cost more
than my house.
I used to wish I was them
used to feel like them
when I was younger and charging hard
but now I just utter prayers
for each Lamborghini that goes by
and I say
I hope your car is faster than cancer.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 6:45 AM UTC
for you, we bundle into the car,
the littlest
(half my brother and twice my nuisance)
and the middlest
(14 going on favorite)
the bitterest
(only girl and pen-in-hand)
and the biggestest
(20 years
of bombastic nonsense)
30 minutes and four cornfields later
he'll start.
"i have to ***
"there's a bottle up there, dad."
"dad, i have to ***
"dad."
"dad."
"dad."
and he's going to *** in that ******* bottle
which will inevitably stay in the car for the remaining 8 and a half hours,
sloshing and yellow
too dangerously close to the color of something
you would actually drink.
the two youngest
will get into some sort of argument
some sort of argument that i will intervene in.
"shut up!" he'll say.
"chill out!" i'll shout.
"you chill out!"
and my father and my stepmother
will eye from the front seat
until one of them turns around
("relax, madeline!" sharply).
and then the oldest
like clockwork
will act like he knows more than he does about something
(my father will just chuckle, but i'll begin, "bullsh-" i'll begin, but my stepmother will hiss,
"madeline!" as if i've killed somebody
even though the 8-year-old curses even worse than i do).
he'll make a face at me
and i'll make a face at him.
the littlest will
inevitably
stomp on my seatbelt about 30 times a second
which i will not be able to stand,
and we'll get into an argument which will turn into me
versus
the whole car
(afterwards, much stewing,
and resentfully cranking my ipod up as loud as it will go).
9 hours and 12 thousand cliff-faces later
we'll get there.
we'll make it.
we'll only be
a little worse for the wear.
we will be swept up by our twelve billion aunts
our nine billion uncles
and our three billion cousins,
like we always are.
someday something will be missing.
first it was your back,
and the postponement,
and eventual cancellation of our trip.
then it was your surgeries
(why weren't they working?)
and then it was a series of words i don't understand
stage
inoperable
3
cancerous mass
lung
malignant
radiation
therapy chemo
you may crumple in
on that blackness inside you,
that's eating you alive
one lung at a time,
pushing,
on your back,
until you can't even stand.
the fabric of our family
is plucked by this
disease.
this is my poem, my plea
for you
and for us,
that you not pull into the blackness,
and that you fight the tumors and the tests
and that you win.
Jul 31, 2012
Jul 31, 2012 at 10:42 AM UTC
The blasphemy
That overtakes my
Thoughts
Was put there by
Demons and
Kept there by
Saints in order
To destroy me slowly.
Demons upon demons
Have entered and left
Without a trace
Leaving negativity
Like tumors on my
Brain
Inoperable
Said the Saints
And they left me too
Now I have nothing
Inside of me
Leading me towards
The banks of the
Cloudy river
I have nothing leading
Me towards the bottle of
Sleeping pills on
My dresser
I have nothing to stop me
I have nothing
I have
Me
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 3:20 AM UTC
majestic adjectives
of contrary harmonies,
adverbs in adversity
that modify our satisfactions,
gut punch our eyes,
scramble the taste buds,
now inoperable,
incapacitated to distinguish
what is disturbed -
what is sweet -
what is impossible.
my days ending is
nearer to my god than thee,
the crumblings of
what I’ve got left
stale panko crumbs,
here come they in
1000 radium-tipped
projectiles of
serious humorous
self-destruction,
gifted to you!
my few
itinerant followers
peddlers brave enough
to offer shelter,
to follow me
into the deeps of
radioactive incomprehension,
of no particular disorders
a thousand times
bless you
richly, eachly,
name announced, pronounced,
we are all proper nouns.*
Jun 12, 2020
Jun 12, 2020 at 5:29 PM UTC
We wreck havoc on one another in the name of love. We leave inoperable scars upon each others souls and leave one another strangled for air, plundered of all vitals. We call this love, and we recycle these events, these feelings onto the next person without realizing that we are generating and regenerating feeble souls, stripped of their ability to love. What a tragedy love has become.
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 6:28 PM UTC
Gauge Symmetry
It was an eminent arrival: to awake in a definite
location in time and space, involving the single
***** with more zeal than the rest. But where
am I really? Staring at these thorny lines engraved
in my palm during an hour I should be asleep.
I can’t help but think that the love of a life
should have spared me.
A caption below the photograph in the times reads
It’s an illustration of a tactic employed by Hezbollah
and Hamas to use their own civilians as human shields.
And somewhere else laying on rubble, once road, a blood
smeared newspaper ruffles in the breeze, then violently
unfolds from a burst of wind, never to be read, a stray dog
licking a wound pauses and perks it’s ear.
Earlier, in the library I walked the spiral staircase
and traced my fingers down a dusty spine:
“How
we
became
Post-Human”.
It must have been an artificial insemination.
My skull throbs from an inoperable legion
of fractal thoughts which I developed upon listening
to the sounding tremble in Pathetique, too immature
to know the power of what it heard like that time
I foolishly laid my eyes on a carnivorous
tulip, it spat me out alive.
Moon is no comfort, only an aperture. The day
is overexposed and my eyelids clasp
down like a shutter, I try to fall asleep
to remember where I really am and where
I've always been.
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM UTC
Rumblings
Tummbling
Pain
Insane
Pendulum
Swings
Graves
Enslaved
Lust
Prevention
Corruption
Autonomy
Interdiction
Craves
Plenty
Flickering
Selection
Benighted
Intention
Equivalence
Quivering
Slithering
Impingement
Claws
Causes
Crippled
Laws
Unbalanced
Inoperable
Unrequited
Injustice
Rain
Moon
Falling
Low
Control
Space
Lovers
Standing
Under
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 7:58 AM UTC
Our bodies
Together
Attached at the spine
Inoperable
Our supplies are but one
Ourselves
Separate
Opposite
But, our supplies are but one
We want
Togetherness
But apart
We want
Two different
But equal halves
Of a whole
Separate but equal
Independence
What we want
Dependence
What we have
What we want is
In
What we have.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 9:45 PM UTC
When life's going well and our health is good,
We've got the drive and means to go far,
And we seem to have the world by the tail,
Do we appreciate how lucky we are?
My thoughts are on a particular person:
Brittany Maynard--a daughter, a wife--
Young, vivacious, compassionate, caring,
Full of dreams, at the prime of her life,
Until she found she had brain cancer--
Glioblastoma--an aggressive assault--
Which turned Brittany's life upside down
And brought her dreams to a sudden halt.
Given six more months to live,
She pondered her options and moved to a state
Where she could decide to die with dignity
Before it ended up being too late.
Terminally ill Oregon residents
Who are mentally competent can make use
Of the Death with Dignity Act of Oregon.
Established safeguards prevent its abuse.
Verbal, cognitive, and motor loss,
Possible morphine-resistant pain,
Major changes in personality,
Paralyzing seizures--hard to contain--
Were what Brittany had to look forward to.
Such an existence, so grim and so bleak,
Was not what she wanted her family to experience:
Her constant suffering, week after week.
In her last months, Brittany had traveled.
She'd shared her feelings; for example, she'd say
It's important to do what's important to us.
In other words, we should seize the day.
To her family in November 2014
Brittany said her final good-byes
And peacefully went on the final journey--
The one that transcends both the earth and the skies.
I wouldn't wait around for a miracle
If I had to deal with what Brittany went through:
Inoperable brain cancer!
I'd hightail it to Oregon, too.
- by Bob B
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 7:51 AM UTC
This summer day
is terrible,
My body is
inoperable.
The temperature
is 78.
Sandals or shoes?
choices I hate.
The sky is too
bright a blue,
The suns cruel rays
burn right through.
And those few clouds
take no shape-
My imagination they
do ****
Oh the flowers
bright with bloom
All the colors
a painful flume.
Bees buzzing
a hellish tone
Within my kingdom?
so near my throne?
I loathe the children
and their cheer,
The slightest thought
so hard to hear.
Yet to be *******
by the sound-
of people running,
No solace found!
For no one cares
no, not for me
Bound to chair
while you are free.
My body is
inoperable,
This summer day
is terrible.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 10:22 PM UTC
no longer a poet
or a muse / simply
an inoperable tumor
/party tattoos and
crushed cigarettes
one/ done / fast /repeat
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022 at 5:50 PM UTC
This need I have
for unidirectional movement
will **** me.
For all the windows to fall shut against the wind in one long line like prttttpptttt.
Cards being shuffled.
Dominos clack’d together on a gray kitchen floor .
This need I have
for hidden meaning of the most obvious kind
will **** my street cred.
A painting of a puzzle piece, a puzzle of a peace sign. Getting cute
with your words can get you killed out here.
I am buried under
all the pressure of having blood.
Of being an body owner. Like here, this is yours now ;
Make a home for the body.
Being born is like having a child
beside yourself, another one inside.
Pushing out, in.
But I need the pressure, baby. Turn me back into
the shape of a man.
This need I have for object permanence,
is killing the suspense. What if the ball
doesn’t exist behind the couch?
What if I didn’t have this need for
storytelling voice, telling the story I’m only living.
Because the story needs a teller
like a hat needs a feather.
Like a cat needs another reason to eat..
This need I have for control
is inoperable cancer.
Gravity in the bones, nothing left for me in the stars,
the unbearable weight of barely anything at all.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 3:06 AM UTC
It seems a scant few weeks ago,
as the leaves turned red and gold,
You left us for retirement;
at the Jersey shore I'm told.
Envious co-workers wished you well,
with cards and gifts besides.
We did not know, nor did you know
that a tumor lured inside.
Inoperable, the Doctors say,
radiation will be tried.
When cancer has metastasized
time isn't on your side.
I'm grateful that you had the chance
to see your girl a bride.
Your doting husband doubtless hoped
to spend years by your side.
We're still hoping for some miracle;
some treatment yet untried-
To counter a prognosis grim
so Death may be denied.
When golden years are leaden days,
where morphine spells relief
The game of Life in Sudden Death
will likely come to grief.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
Running always round
and round
and round
and round
a' rosies
what the hell are posies?
we hold them to our nosies
sneeze
cough
sneeze
cough
inoperable
3 months
Jesus Doc, I need a smoke.
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 2:02 PM UTC
preface.
majestic adjectives of contrary harmonies,
adverbs in adversity that modify our satisfactions,
gut punch our eyes, scramble the taste buds,
now inoperable, incapacitated to distinguish
what is disturbed - what is sweet - what is impossible.
my days ending is nearer to my god than thee,
the crumblings of what I’ve got left,
stale panko crumbs,
here come they in 1000 radium-tipped projectiles of
serious humorous self-destruction,
gifted to you few itinerant followers
brave enough to follow me into the deeps of
radioactive incomprehension,
in no particular disorders
a thousand times
Jul 14, 2019
Jul 14, 2019 at 12:16 PM UTC
Sitting under a tree
A you without a me
My heart is inoperable
If it is just me
As our hands clasp
We can run from the past
There is no medicine for the pain
Only you can make it go away
We can be inseparable
That is, you and me
We can Fly away,
into the sky
We can fade away
into the moon light
We can sail away
into the ocean
or we can just rest tonight.
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 1:28 PM UTC
these ink stains are like linked chains
i'm engaged in these pages like deep veins
& its making me see things.
like beauty & truth in words
that don't usually sooth...but soon
its a stuttered excuse i don't have the stomach to use.
i envision hopes & goals where
there were wicked open holes
& obstacles so inoperable as i'm getting awfully old...
just a killing fear of a fulfilling career
i've been building for years while welling with tears
but that backwards searching was
a crash course in learning & i'm finally here.
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:41 PM UTC
I sometimes find myself wishing
For something along the lines of
An inoperable brain tumor
Hoping
...Wishing, almost
For a reason to live my life to the fullest
It's silly isn't it
Hoping for death so we can finally live
How we need to validate our being happy,
As if it needs a reason
I wish I had the courage to live my life on my terms,
Without justifying my happiness to others
I wish...
I wish...
I wish.
me.gs
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 6:19 PM UTC
*the fool in love, or the fool
who pines for it?*
have I not sat at the King's table,
for decades of eons, eons of millennia,
the mealy taste of the poverty of loneliness,
made the sweetbitter
and the meaningless
blander still
full surrendering to slow starvation of my
humanity
denied the rise and set,
the watch and the calendar,
the sundial inoperable,
masters of none,
there are distinguishing marks
upon this victim,
who no longer recalls refusing
love
just another dusty bust
of a man tough as
plaster
the mask of
going it alone
so well adhering
no longer masked
but his first skin
unlike him,
love poems
waterfall self-destructing,
suicide by self-erosion
and thereby
an everlasting guarantee
the answer be
he
who pines
and dies a little bit
daily
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 12:38 PM UTC
Your past is a tumor,
Genetically stitched at birth.
An excessive development of cells.
Growing,
Inoperable.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 11:02 PM UTC
They sent you home today.
Doctors with white hair and dark words.
"Quality of life...inoperable...
Nonresponsive to treatment..."
I helped take off that paper gown,
sticky and
red and
crinkling.
Signed the release death-warrent.
We limped home, you and I,
faint has-been wonders.
"Your secrets made you over-think,"
you said.
I wept.
In bed, you'd be gone soon.
But you couldn't go if I held on,
could you?
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 6:53 AM UTC
You watch a movie
About a girl with cancer
Dying in a hospital,
A boy who loves her holding her hand.
You start to cry,
Because that was you,
Sitting in a bed waiting to die.
Sweetie
They call you, the nurses,
You have a brain tumor,
They tell you.
And it’s growing,
It’s inoperable,
Dead center of your head.
Dead.
They use that word.
You are dying,
Because your cells are trying too hard,
Just like you do everyday.
You are crying now watching this movie,
That girl was you.
Dying.
Scared,
In a Boston hospital room.
Numb.
Except no one was holding my hand,
No one is.
Now you lie
Awake at night,
Few years later,
Torturing yourself.
What if it grows back?
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC
There are moments in time when a fool is just what I am.
A fool for love.
A fool for a diamond.
A second hand on a failing clock.
A female clock with inoperable biorhythms.
Falling backwards.
Flicking my left hand over my right.
While blinding myself with the stab of a pointed finger.
Accidentally of course.
All in all I guess I'm just a fool.
Nobody's, fool save my own.
(C) LIVVI
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 11:30 AM UTC