"palliative" poems
I remember when the chemo failed,
your family asked the doctors "isn't there something you can do?"
they turned to me, like I was guilty,
and said "no, you're wrong, this can't be true".
"palliative care" "hospice" "comfortable" euphemisms fell from my mouth,
they tasted bitter like acid and lies--
I wanted to scream and cry and tear my heart out.
At night I lay in an empty bed,
and when I sleep I dream,
I wake up next to a body bag,
my mouth too terrified to scream.
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 10:14 AM UTC
False memories and track marks pave your arms
Sudden revolt of youth pressurised to fail
Painkillers doubled and stacked for a head to slumber
Soft heads and dead leg spasm attack pillow piddles in *****
Fictitious tesla coil blue breath mortifys mortality
And your goggles won't fog out the underwater current miscellaneous
Digital tectonic pushing ideas you brainstorm
Shadowed reluctance to consume the musk of infrared roses
This romance is one that was jealous of itself
Pre-divorced in its own certainty on incompatibility
Basin top full too top heavy to predict precarious
Living in a shaded sense of erased memory lapses continuing truth
Toward magnificent still life categorised by perdition
Forward thinking ruby gold phong shaded hatred quantum conversate Unthinkable
Nebula of gas
Face first head in hands
Euthanasia between my thighs crush my head
Choked neck
Throat
Strangle me and give me breath
I roll and the conductor pulls apart my mouth
Diseased by euphoria lips separate and teeth show
Pupils land home and iris jumps ship
Perfume gum dry bitter butterfly kiss
Head held back in place tongue falls back into the razor-front of the mouth
Caution held simultaneous irrelevant body load carries my smile
Jump knee deep into the silence of my own lungs
It's been a while
I breath vindictively in time with the respiration of the country
Somewhere out in the hexagon sun I burn candles and whisp
Hold in smoke
Die
Twitch forward in palliative peace motionless and still
Cuspids and lochs
Spread across the grass the harmony touches yours and mine
A hole and whole dream
Conscious and dead
Content
Voices rattle in unified mono-chromidity
Sadness
Carrion
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 2:52 PM UTC
Here hails a huge, long and dragonish snake,
With myriads of dangerous heads on its thorax,
Roaming up and down in a nefarious duty
All over the African streets and hamlets,
Villages and terrains, the abodes of poor folks,
Swallowing daughters and sons of this land,
Swallowing a handful of them on each bite,
They are in a forlorn despair like never before,
Defenselessly succumbing to the dragon once in the grip,
Young and old, prebubescent and all others are cancers’ fodder,
Africa is truly diminishing to the abysmal jaws of cancer,
Forget of initial vices of *** Ebola and leprosy,
Forget of the contemporary terrorism and ethnic warlordism,
Cancer is ruthlessly swallowing poor folks of Africa
Into its inferno of early deaths, rendering many parentless,
A knot for the living to put aside pride and seek genuine help,
For the myriad heads of dragonish cancer violently **** the prey,
I have seen sons and daughters of poor Africa in cancerous agony,
Often with a blocked food pipe when in the grip of throat cancer,
Non-stop vaginal bleeding at mercilessness of cervical cancer,
In the torture of brute pulling weight in grip of scrotal cancer,
On the top of maximum pain in the grip of breast cancer
Humorously desperate before menacing eyes of death,
When misfortunately in the grip of heart cancer,
Deathly starvation condemns many poor folks to grave,
Always when in the unlucky tentacle of intestinal cancer,
In this desperate land of Africa where basic hospital
Stands a luxury, affordable by the rich in the political class,
As the poor without choice die and die and die,
O who will take me out of Africa, this nonchalant Africa?
Before the dragon of cancer condemns me down to its
Inferno of pains and miserably violent death!
I fear death due to punctured lungs without solace,
I fear death due to stunted blood cells without succor
I fear death due to poisoned blood without palliative
When the cancerous heads of ; lung cancer, blood cancer,
And Liver cancer will besiege this land of Africa to hold me a captive.
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 5:42 AM UTC
“My poems are often wiser than me, lean into a more keen universe of understanding.” Joy Harjo
<•>
instant recognition moment, Joy, your words,
(despite the kitchen cooking clanging chatter next door),
spilling into the quiet space of my thanksgiving brain
my wiser poems are insights inscribed inside,
exposed and released all in their own good time,
they, always blogging, leaning out to escape,
asking the Governor for clemency, early release
poems that are my self-defensive explicit explanations,
excuses, convoluted ratinocations, prosecutorial accusations, leveled by my disbelieving, revealing, sworn to silence
not-to-be-trusted-confessor-me against the indefensible
nobody likes a wise guy,
but out they come, under the covers, dem poems
of nighttime darkness, spilling beans and silent screams,
asking you if we remember that time when we...
yes, we.
but writ in the first person personal,
in words summoned from his own ****** deep darkness?
better in plain english when sharing shadings of universal,
and you leaning in on me from within,
presence of pressure, a plaintive palliative wailing,
ejecting an *********** of joy
when “please release us” is honored with our
collective wisdom
<•>
11/24/17
9:07am
Nov 24, 2017
Nov 24, 2017 at 10:07 AM UTC
will I put lipstick on you
when you lay still and silent
as the last morning
or will you pull the sheet
over my face gently
with a surprised sense of relief
when my final breath
marries the gray air
will it be in the room
where we slept
under the watchful eye
of children and grandchildren
their timeless images nailed to the walls
ever present but mute
while they navigated worlds
with horizons we would never see
or would it be in the
hallowed house of hospice
where palliative words like
“we will miss you”
“not long now,”
“you can go, it’s OK,”
float above the beds
like birds stalled in flight
riding unseen currents, but
soon to swoop down
to perch on mystic memories,
briefly,
before flying into
the karmic night
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC
Some days the sky is a glass chalice we hold between our lips to take a sip
The palliative qualities divine in nature are seeping through the subtle splits on the surface of our palms
Fleeting textures suffuse through our quivering hands
Various hues illustrate the wrists as they coil upon the cadaverous structure
Outlining our internal scaffolding with diverse shades
Colours ricochet within our human receptacles
Our bodies are prisms allowing the light of the sun to shine
Beams break forth from the orifice that rests upon our undistinguished faces
Reminders of what is within splintering through every available opening
Wandering rays rendezvous at the core of the chest
Exploring uncharted paths on the geography of our physical selves
Transcendent roads vague to our periphery
Slowly defining their forms on the outskirts of our wearied retinas
Our illuminated minds, embodying the sun
candescent stones fortified by layers of bone meant to hold their fluorescence
Our organic beams of light, such tender arms, lingering in the punctured sky
are using the clouds as paintbrushes, pieced together bits of mosaic already at their disposal
Our backs resting on abstract clay with shifting pastels, whispering clarity into our cartilage
leftover laments torn apart to bits with the newfound realization that we are whole.
Like unearthed clairvoyance, we survey the translucent waters before us
peering into the stillness our bodies disrupt like the pillars of beautiful dissonance they are
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 12:39 PM UTC
TLC!
Black night sky stippled with lights.
Falling in showers of passions delight.
Forest deep where lost dreams do live.
In the forest there can be found a treasure chest.
A golden chest.
Wherein dwell a collection of hearts.
Ripped out, but tied in sinewy *****
Encased by perfect vessels.
Sent there for a spot of palliative care.
Abandoned by souls of lost lovers.
Romeo and Juliet's both stuck in there.
Still captured in love's young dream.
Maybe the souls of poets trapped.
We are a weird bunch.
Stranded inside the land of words.
In the land between light and dark.
Somewhere lost along the way.
Within our play on words.
Summed up in a pun.
Such fun.
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 5:24 AM UTC
Life as a high school wallflower served me
without any budding female friendships
until lo…
a gent tulle mandate from my late mother uprooted me
from mine kempf familiar bedrock level road terrain
which venue offered a groundswell
to blossom forth into golden sterling resplendent rod
of natural equipoise (this an unbiased opinion) and balance
with freestyle improvisational swinging motions
unchained from the moors of formality
and lit figurative saint elmo’s sesame street fiery dance
allowing, enabling and providing this shy awkward self
during his young adulthood
to cast away four ever
thy self embroidered handsome
straight as an arrow
naturally high as a kite young guy
buzzing like a yellow jacket
thus liberating spontaneity that je nais sais quoi joie vivre
clamoring headlong toward venus
from healthy pistil packing overflowing bin
laden well nigh testosterone erupting *****
toward opposite gender
whereby bravado donned as key
to *** field of whet dreams
fostering initial albeit late blooming
roll in the hay hormonally rooted rutting squeal!
Feb 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2018 at 2:15 AM UTC
We are weary at the end of the day
Behind our closed doors it is quiet
Except for the roar of silence in our ears
We unwind like tight spools
The tension melting from between neck and shoulder
We wrap ourselves in comfortable cottons
Our faces scrubbed clean and tight
Palliative lotions rubbed into our hands
Teeth like minty stones
Eyelids heavy, washed with relief
Swallows of warm milk or merlot
Fuzzy socks and all things elastic
To fall into bed with our dreams
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC
he chose to return home
to the familiar sights, sounds, smells
to leave the silent antiseptic Medicare paid
vacation suite behind, for some other sinking soul
he chose to deny the “in home palliative care”
for he said it would be like a door to door peddler
you allowed in , one who would never leave
hocking her wares as if he got to keep them
when she would give the same calming commodities
to a stranger, the very day he was gone
they all said, he would be in pitiful pain,
peeling his skin off pain without the magic potions
of modernity, the ones that brought on Morpheus' sleep,
and lapped up miles he had left
he knew though, he had no miles left
only a few steps, to the bathroom, perhaps,
if his old soldier’s legs held out, perhaps
he could make it to the yard again one time,
to see the ivy he planted in lesser numbered years,
the cool soft vines he watered and ignored,
until the sun turned them a yawning yellow,
then a brusque brown, perchance he could make it
to their home one more time, before the last speck of green
vanished in the dying light
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
You should have listened to me.
They are not friends,
Never were; never should have let them in,
Look at you!
Now take a deep breath, honey, it’ll pass.
The white lies will keep you up at nights but it will get it shorter,
Like a palliative, but only a palliative.
“Cheers for another unborn child,
Rejoice for another felony.”
Keep crying, keep walking -
But don't look!
We both know one day this’ll all pass,
It's all good,
We're all good.
Honey, it’ll pass – you’ll pass,
So take a deep breath, and keep waiting.
Just
Keep standing still.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 2:00 AM UTC
hum...habit...hic...abbott woozy
celebrating with British Royal Family
and...hub bout red dee
to take a snoozy
sup...par'n...this poet
fur...hib bit..bing a lil oozy.
Now this raggedy man
whilst deep in sleep
this past night what felt like galactic body
fell upon ma slumbering heap
affecting immediate fear
lest worst nightmare,
would crush with might
but lo…just then zee spouse
plunked herself
with unconsciousness deep
unable to recapture pleasant dreams
well nigh past day light.
So...rather than emit shrieks
like some angry birds
the idea arose to attempt poem
to express discombobulated state
whereby grey matter feels
similar to thick whey curds
palliative sans restorative power
per rest will clear muddled pate
thick with grogginess
and marauding herds
of mailer daemons worse
than unsuitable mate
or a world wide web filled with nerds
thus lethargy purged
via catharsis with forming words
that follow rhyming pattern
to convey mood = to a synonym for turds.
respite from a cat nap as tonic no lion here
can spell relief and serve as balm
with pillowed temptress ever near
beckons softly inviting calm
before this human
goes a berserk manic tear
being revisited from haunts
inside head of this scrivener
caught by men in white coats
strait jacketing this maniac
in tattered under wear
whose ***** by the way
oh about the size of an average palm
yet taut for witnessing
deux score plus eighteen mortal year.
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 6:46 PM UTC
you will learn to shift your weight around
You will learn to lean against things
To always clutch handrails
You will learn to rate things from one to ten ten being the worst you’ve ever felt
You will learn loss
You will lose functionality
You will lose what you used to love doing
You will learn not to partake in barbecue games, bowling nights
You will learn to politely decline invitations
You will lose friends
Hobbies
Muscle memory
You will learn to accept it
You will learn that it is unacceptable
You will lose sympathy for others
You will lose track of things
You will learn that there is always something more to lose
You will learn to hold just a few things sacred
to cling only to that which you cannot lose
You will learn that those things too can be lost
You will learn to hate god
You will learn how unobservant most people are
You will learn not to disclose
You will learn what not to say to avoid their suggestions and advice
You will learn to be alone
You will learn the difference between NSAIDs and acetaminophen
between hydro and oxy
the difference between SSI and SSDI
between deductibles and out of pocket maximums
You will learn to cry in hospital parking garages
You will learn the limits of modern medicine for the working and middle classes
You will learn to lower your expectations
You will learn the definition of the word palliative
You will learn to live with it
You will learn to smile for pictures
You will learn to claim a seat early
You will learn to summarize
You will learn good days and bad days
You will learn sorry I know this is last minute but I have to cancel
You will learn to love deeply
You will learn to apologize profusely
You will learn how successful other people will become
You will learn what it means to be a body
You will learn so much
You will learn so so much
Dec 1, 2023
Dec 1, 2023 at 5:04 AM UTC
I.V. tubes and blood,
medicines and moaning.
The dying are all here, together.
A special enduring reunion
of the Cancer Centre gang.
When the priest visits,
we talk about God.
Acceptance, understanding.
These are our topics
of conversation.
What is there to understand?
A question I keep inside...
Father speaks to me in tones
of empathy and support.
He's a nice man. Good man.
Down the hall is crying,
loud and desperately lost.
People walk by my door,
visitors and staff, going
about their business.
We all, on this floor,
are filled with stories.
Lives we've lived and
lives we are leaving.
Outside my window,
I see the tops of trees.
Closing my eyes,
I imagine I am
sitting under them
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 9:18 PM UTC
I have lost my youth's Saints.
They no longer march
For knees bent in supplication.
I prayed to St. Jude
To replace my loses,
Only to lose faith.
I miss ghost stories too.
Haven't heard a hair raiser
Since a generation of palliative patients
Made it to the canopy.
Ogres and Trolls are out
From the closet and
Beneath the bed.
Drains, culls and bridges
Are safe from snatches.
No. We are on our own
As we age in our tactile
Vicarious world.
We pick up the threads
Of old stories,
Collect the pages blowing
Down the road,
And believe the tales
In daily news of ****
Carnage and be-headings.
Nothing too ethereal,
Spiritual or scary,
Just life
As we shouldn't know it.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
Driving through a remote highway in a thunderstorm,
winds howl
deafening the ears craving for a consolatory and palliative sound
the welkin lit by the fire flashing across the clouds.
The rain
****** the cars.
The thunder
seemed like a dying drummer of a battlefield.
The fiery sky
ushered callousness into the deserted streets.
A mixed feeling of fear and loneliness, anxietic trepidation and forlorn..
Suddenly,
appeared a bridge.
Lighted feebly by a bygone light post
flickering,
like the breath of the dying.
As soon as I allowed the bridge
to place its hand over my head,
the noise dampened.
the uneasiness decreased.
the war ended.
and the drummer took a moment to rest his head upon his drum..
a sigh could be felt.
there was a sense of composure and calmness
Kept hidden in the unfriendly localities outside.
The heart wanted to stay,
to be wrapped in the serenity.
The pacifying feel
like a mother holding her child.
like a wounded soldier,
who returned from the war zone, being taken care and healed by love.. but soon as I left the warmness of the friendly area..
the thunderclaps welcomed me like they got their prey back..
the winds
growling against my windshield like an unfriendly knock at the midnight.. the blanket of darkness hides away
all the light which once seemed within the reach..
I drove back home..
but with a smile..
Smile, depicting the right prediction of ending up in the same place from where I had been continuously trying to get out..
with a glow on face..
Glow, created by the fire which had been burning everything in front of me..
The tears, though invisible,
reminded me of the lows I deserve.
doing right, yet losing
was a habit now.
I marked another red on my ledger but without any jolt.
A sigh
was enough
to show that I was back.
That calming, comforting, gentle, peaceful, reassuring, restful, alleviating, consoling, easing, mollifying, pacifying, relaxing, relieving, remedying, softening, warming feeling was you.
That bridge was you.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 6:43 PM UTC
Will you falter and fade
In a Palliative room,
With beeps and tubes
Confirming your doom?
Or a fiery crash
And screech of rubber
As onlookers see
Your hair aflame;
Will you fall from the sky
In a laser marked plane;
Get shot while buying
A lottery ticket,
Die doing something
Horribly wicked?
Perhaps the sound
Near your ears at night
Will forewarn your demise
By a mosquito bite.
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 9:48 AM UTC
(Sonnet)
Owl, silhouette of lilting sun,
Sentinel on branch, ********* out
Death, the sky, bleeding darkness rung
On the skeleton of ancient trees,
Your eyes are apparition, eternal flame,
Oracle of palliative, divining moon,
Which doles out fettered wisdom, misery
Cloaked in smokes, deep darkening dusk
Loud as silence in wide plains open,
That flay as creeping deserts do unravel,
O how wanton moon shouts like feather death;
Merest whisper as pale wanes on a bough,
Like some wraith, in whirls, conjures mercy,
Only to rail like gust in cupped tempest.
.
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
within a coma of mouth crept at by thieves
hooked away the woe-ing jewels of his teeth
his face loaved in upon the calcified essentials
(soft claw featured like a boxing glove)
and the desert reclaims
live mummification of the whole arresting body
proclaimed a priest-ful stickman
other realms visit this hospital bed
mothering away gifts in honour
bowing whilst backing they withdraw
his vitality
- peaceful veils
May 10, 2025
May 10, 2025 at 8:39 PM UTC
/ rivers pulse this house as if activity, predictable.
leave this body just like that.
and heave the emptiness from the thrum
of the streets just like that
the stars delineate an axis tilted by my means
to live under frail coruscations.
take this house, take the rivers
with you, all the more my body
anything other than my blunder.
take even, these tiny and immediate currents
as i hear this is how it is to be delivered from
grace and expanse.
you are what this truancy is trying to undo
as you were by mine before -- this is how
it feels to be moved and sidled again and again
this river that you carry me across and left with details none can supply. there
is resolve in this, even when I am taken aback,
which certain things are left crossed and wronged,
and how you keep the place guarded, possessed
by light -- how it wholly hurts, this invented
life all mine /
1
What is to break if not another word for
impossibility, or another phrase as palliative
for suffering each other
2
What is so sure of it to arrive
in the densest minute, say when if already
out of sight, I implore you to
unlearn my body
3
This and the deep and hollow end of it.
Visage voyeurs as if the past is just next door
sleeping with my woman, laughs and then cuts
open to free itself from a slammed door
and mosey on.
4
As statement to refute my coming into,
I am already accomplished. Turn this day opaque.
Lens to the world my found
imperative of what was given, a knife
to stalk a heart so difficult as if known to me
as a path home, or unearthed bus tickets
from Longos to Tabang. Say when it rains,
forgive me. I remember still.
5
To believe in touch and its memory is
obligation. The way I see this, a palimpsest.
I attempt to discover something, witnessing myself
pass mirrors, body found as if rivers do drift
me to the brink of a high noon wishing
to swing downstream the words I have
no use for, if not documents of haloed hours.
6
I passed by your house.
Silence annuls azure skies.
Balustrades gone. They took everything down
evenly to the last inch of paint,
balmy this oblivion only for me, catatonic is this
peace as my hands lift a piece of the soul
to shred. The day burns like a forest in my hand.
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
Voice like supple silk
that rises and falls
like the mellifluous sounds
of sand-fused waves,
stripped of judgment,
bare and candid,
as though it were made
of pearlescent clouds,
gleaming in the air
and absorbing my breath,
leaving me only a shell
with a conflicted smile,
pained by the pangs
of unreturned debts,
of unpaid dues,
of long glances
and untouched skin.
Gaze like a palliative stroke
that brushes against my face
and washes over my pores,
chills my bones to their core,
morphs my heart into a butterfly,
glides across my flesh
and heats it slowly,
shifts my attention not toward the stare,
but toward myself,
or, for that matter,
my bleeding lips.
Smile like unsullied sweetness
that glimmers like diamonds,
rubies, emeralds,
a purity like no other,
unexperienced by most;
it shines like pearls,
gleams like a tentative embrace
and it melts me like ice,
shakes me like time,
grasps me like simple moments
that fade with life's frown,
that crawl back to their nests,
hoping to wake soon.
These things, these little
qualities, are not destined for
a scheduled end, or a common finish;
they are not made or fashioned
by selfish desire or avarice.
They are made, no, crafted
by you and your
beautiful persona,
your gracious intent,
your soft-spoken words
that make the world
tremble in awe,
make humanity kneel
in admiration, in placid veneration,
make you sing like
an uncaged bird freshly freed,
laugh like a newborn just kissed,
cry like an adult just moved.
These facets are just words, yes,
but they're simply what make you
so magnificent and true.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC
respiring corridors
interior hospital night
outside
silenced
the winter
away facing
patient pacing
in palliative care
for the age-ed out expiring
iterations of ejecting death
darkly dressed haggy wet breaths
beds engaged
berths of great ferment
corridor ; raked in
corridor ; ridden out squalling
a patient who has yet to reach
the concluding condition of his fellows
bellows
'Shut The **** Up'
mad for sleep
he's lost compassion
The corridor labours on
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 7:13 PM UTC
There's no more to be done, or feared, or hoped;
None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire;
No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped
Does she require.
Blankly we gaze. We are free to go or stay;
Our morrow's anxious plans have missed their aim;
Whether we leave to-night or wait till day
Counts as the same.
The lettered vessels of medicaments
Seem asking wherefore we have set them here;
Each palliative its silly face presents
As useless gear.
And yet we feel that something savours well;
We note a numb relief withheld before;
Our well-beloved is prisoner in the cell
Of Time no more.
We see by littles now the deft achievement
Whereby she has escaped the Wrongers all,
In view of which our momentary bereavement
Outshapes but small.
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 7:30 PM UTC