Thursday, July 27, 2023

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!'










Thursday, July 20, 2023

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.
 



Thursday, July 13, 2023

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!


 

Thursday, July 6, 2023

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!