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THIS WAR IN IRAQ is a cancer poem which deals with the fact that having cancer is not a path to self-improvement. It is entirely possible that having a severe disease will result in a self-centered attitude, a prioritization of the self. Maybe an absolute prioritization of the self. In this case, the speaker of the poem is entirely self-centered, selfish, self-obsessed and indifferent to the wider world.
This piece of cancer poetry is part of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online. The Genghis Lotus poems are hosted at two locations, genghislotus.com and zenvirus.com/genghis-lotus/. Webmaster for both sites is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. |
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A public man. His suicide was broadband. Where was my Lotto win from that? The delights of the future Include water wars, global warming And the heat death of the universe. But this, As yet, This panoply of glory, Is prospect only, No ice cream offered upfront with the nuts. Promises, promises: All I get is promises. Meantime, The revision of the United Nations, The Kyoto Protocol, The Guantanamo tribunals, How does that better my case? Oh, and that Treaty of Versailles thing, What was my payoff from that? In the atrocity exhibition, There have been many, many shows, But if I was supposed to get a payoff from any of them, It got lost in the mail. My carnage files are missing. In consequence of this, I cannot decrypt my benefits. I cannot find the reason why The shark's extinction, the electric execution, Could be construed as being personally therapeutic. Why The corpse gone hard in the morgue Must signify a better world for me. This war in Iraq, too, Precisely what Is its utility to me? Your baby, Dead or alive, an octopus or a bathmat, How does that Improve the flavor of my tea? Where is my coup from the genocide? In the big bowl of the world's red blindness Where is my edible hummingbird? In the ashes of the bushfire Where is my portion of the human heart? |
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May be photocopied for classroom use |
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Paperback Book or US $5 PDF file |
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CANCER POEMS: poetry about having cancer, about pressing on with life, about facing death and thinking about mortality, and about suffering damage from radiation therapy, this being in the form of brain damage and partial blindness. Don't miss the praise poem for Saddam Hussein, SADDAM IS GUILTY
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CANCER MEMOIR: read the full text of the brain cancer memoir Cancer Patient free online. Initial problems, diagnosis, neurosurgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and the achievement of remission. Read free online or buy as a paperback book from Amazon.com.
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CANCER BLOG: following remission, brain cancer seems to have returned. Further investigations follow. The author investigates the mechanism of his death. The author's deteriorating vision turns out to be the consequence of radiation therapy, not the return of cancer. Blog entries deal with survivorhood issues including dealing with degraded vision and with brain damage caused by chemo and radiation. The online entries are part of the literary miscellany This Is A Picture Of Your God, available from Amazon.com.
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