Crying Out To God

 

Kind of funny, but I have a Horseshoe Of Pain running from the metastasis in my right femur, through the pancreas up to my neck, then curving down to the metastasis in my right humerus.

Maybe I should get a tattoo, to follow the path? Let me know in the comments!

But while it's horrible, God's got this, and the healing I have received is being equipped to handle this, every day, hopeful in the face of the hopeless, and cheerful to light the dungeons of despair.

The Lord God will not hear me cry

from the pain and from the deep,

for there's no earthly reason why

I should wait, whimper, and weep,

for I have been amply equipped

with all that a hard man needs

when he's bound and being whipped,

but beyond that are the seeds

of faith and joy, eternal hope

that He secretly slipped in

to my soul to let me cope

with Satan's worst, maybe not to win,

but to stay out on the field,

and play the game, never to yield.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is MILESTONE. Dropped one of them on my toe, yeah.

Cancer has milestones so many,

and I refuse to count a one

'cause it's my life and it's my penny,

and counting death-marks just ain't fun.

Sure, I got metastases

and they're getting whole lot worse,

but if I focus mind on these

I will become mine own curse.

I'll adjust to newer pain,

and kowtow to the loss of function.

Even good dudes get the rain,

and I won't ask for an injunction

to stay the sentence passed on me,

the dream hard by Eternity.

Four minutes, a few seconds over. Last couplet was tough.

Music from Cat Stevens, with Another Saturday Night 

Sylvia says, 'I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!'

Angels, And How To Tuna Fish

It's been a rough week, and in fighting off the angels sent to take me home during the night I may have made the fatal step from hardass to dumbass.

Of course, it may play a role that Barb's sick, and her system doesn't like the prescribed medication. Kinda don't think bowing out would be good, right now.

But anyway.

Did you ever have the thought,

did you ever have the wish

that you really truly ought

to know just how to tuna fish?

Are there scales to check the tension?

Is it tenor? Largemouth bass?

Did perhaps I fail to mention

that this can be Pain in the... Donkey?

But, oh, yes, the piscine tunes

must play acquatic harmony,

and raise on high their fame-balloons

unto the Lord's Eternity

in which He dared to see the play

of a singing fish fillet.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is DECIDE.

If you decide to tuna fish

to make in music-land your mark,

be careful, very, not to wish

that you had a mako shark

with its quite distinctive tail

(looks like it could be strung as harp),

but your effort would not prevail;

its teeth would make the tuning sharp.

But a flounder is no better choice;

please believe when I say that

its tonal repertoire and voice

are like it's body, really flat.

So, for fish-song with no worry,

stick with Nemo, Bruce, and Dory.

Three minutes forty-two, exactly.

Music from Pharrell Williams, with Happy

Sylvia's happy I'm still here.

 

It's Pain O'clock; Do You Know Where Your Tumours Are?

Good morning, it is pain o'clock,

do you know where your tumours are?

Ones that fester, ones that rock

and beg a Cheech and Chong cigar?

They're in each arm and in my neck,

in both legs and abdomen,

underneath each mighty pec

(or were mighty way back when).

They give me grief during the day,

but when the night is still and quiet

is the time they like to play

in a game becoming riot,

but that's OK, I live the dream,

and Barb will come out when I scream.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is WORK, which I really try to avoid.

Cancer's sure a lot of work,

like digging ditches in the cold,

but it has an awesome perk,

namely, that I won't grow old

and have the honoured hoary head,

grandkids sitting on my knee.

Yeah, it's better to be dead,

than, by far, to come to be

an elder and wise ancient sage,

a pillar of the street and village,

'cause I'm stuck upon the page

that is marked, 'Let's loot and pillage!',

which example, I will bet,

ain't fittin' for the younger set.

Three minutes flat. That might not be good.

I was really reluctant to post this; not because it's exaggerated (it's not), but because it verges on Poor Poor Pitiful Me.

And that's not the case at all. Yes, I've lost a ton of ground in the past few weeks, yes, I spend a lot of time bent double, just trying to get to the next moment, and yes, there are screams in the night (a perfect horseshoe of pain, from the pancreas into the neck and thence to the right humerus.

I don't do medicinal cannabis, nor painkillers of any type, for various reasons. It's not a path I would necessarily recommend, but it works for me.

But life is still good, and I am blessed beyond measure by Barbara, the dogs (and the cat), by sunrises and rainbows and shooting stars.

And I am blessed by YOU, my dear, dear readers. Your presence, and your comments, these keep me going.

You give me purpose, and I will tell God about you.

Do please take the sonnets above as reality's chiaroscuro, the shadow that defines the Light.

Music from Bobby Sherman, with Easy Come, Easy Go

As long as there's ice cream, Sylvia's cool with things. Me, too. Except that Edy's discontinued French Silk!

 

You Aren't Alone

 

Drag your heart out of the deep

and frozen place where it has gone.

Bid soul rise from fevered sleep,

and now arise to meet the dawn.

You're not promised life sans pain,

and free of loss and free from fear;

His promise is that He'll remain

and that His heart will hold you dear

down that dark and lonely road

that always seems to lie ahead.

If you allow, He'll share the load

and help you learn to sing instead

of weeping, for He knows your story

will join His in clouds of glory.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is IMPULSE. Hmmm...

The impulse used to live in me

to play my fiction of a man,

that everyone who looked might see

me as fulfillment of God's plan

for a golden bright ideal,

fit and hard and quick and kind,

yet someone who could keep it real

while having Heaven on his mind.

But now, truly, I have fallen,

and to my shame I can't get up.

There's no choice but to be calling

for the humble poison cup

that will kill what I had planned 

that I may take Jesus' hand.

Three minutes thirty and change.

Music from The King, with You'll Never Walk Alone

Sylvia says, I'm coming too!