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The Philosophy of Cancer in Six Quatrains: For Betty Lou Baker 1 In biology class she had to drawthe parts of the cell in pen and ink:Protoplasm, chromosomes, nucleus.She labeled the parts with red ink. 2 Somewhere inside, even then, … Continue reading →

To preserve formatting, this poem has been saved as a PDF. Please click on the link below to access it. You’re Still Hung Up On Something That Happened in 1950? Bio:Marian Kaplun Shapiro, 85, is a practicing psychologist in Lexington, … Continue reading →

MindfulnessI always feared the thief might come.Genes, not choice, invited it in. NowI’m trying to hold on and keep “up”.I just want it out. I want it gone.As soon as this thing is finally outof my body this ordeal will … Continue reading →

To preserve the formatting of John Haugh’s “Let’s Pick Our Myth with Care,” this poem has been saved as a pdf. Click here to view. Bio:John Frank Haugh’s writing has appeared in publications including Poets Reading the News, storySouth, The … Continue reading →

Six YearsNot everyone can make death wait;You meet it well-prepared.You do not deny your fate,But have faced it long and well-aware.Though the bloom must leave the roseThe end need not come soon.All the doors are not yet closed.Why wait alone … Continue reading →

A Constitutional I think I’ll go outsideto walk and let the bodypursue its job of healing:filter air and water,turn food into energy,into thoughts that turn and twist, embracing action, embracing harmony, discarding perpetratorsof chaos. This new dayappears to hold a … Continue reading →

The Magic BowSophocles tells us When Philoctetes suffered a rotting woundAnd could not fight at TroyHe was abandoned on the island, Lemnos—With an intense slowEating away of flesh—It doesn’t matter what the malady is called—The story is that men landed … Continue reading →

Cloud of Unknowing All I do is eat, sleep, drink, and be negligent. John of Dalyatha, monk and mystic (690-780) Just how did Paul arrange his days?All those Epistles must have taken time.Distraction was not possible for him.One monk moved … Continue reading →

Arrangement in Reds and GraysNothing about my therapist says he’s trying to kill me, except slowly by incompetence, but here he is, softly cutting a diagonal through Hoppertown in a brick-noir haze,and here I am, in his gray bright office … Continue reading →

BLACK FRIDAY They say it’s darkest before dawn but it don’t seem that way Mama sits at table but this time without coffee and cigarette I don’t hear her coughing or wheezing It’s clear she’s gettin’ better I call the … Continue reading →