Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Cancer

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. 
-Edward Abbey, naturalist and author 

“The failure to think positively can weigh on 

a cancer patient like a second disease.” 
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided . . .  

“When one person gets cancer, the whole family gets cancer.” 

― Shirley Corder, Strength Renewed . . . 

Midweek Motif ~ Cancer

4th February 2015 is World Cancer Day.

 "Taking place under the tagline ‘Not beyond us,’ World Cancer Day 2015 will take a positive and pro-active approach to the fight against cancer, highlighting that solutions do exist across the continuum of cancer, and that they are within our reach."  

(Please explore the World Cancer Day website for information and ideas.)

Your Challenge:  Treat a cancer and/or a cure poetically.   Emotions and Insights are welcome.

~

Snow White to the Prince  

By Chris Tus

          (after Susan Thomas )

Truth is, my life was no fairytale, 

that afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse 

under a glass sky, a rotten apple 

lodged in my throat like a black lump 

of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips. 
. . . . 
          (Read more HERE at Poetry Soup.com)

Doctors 

By Anne Sexton 

They work with herbs 

and penicillin 

They work with gentleness 

and the scalpel. 

They dig out the cancer, 

close an incision 

and say a prayer 

to the poverty of the skin. 

. . . . 

(Read more HERE at Poetry Soup.com)

“Why should I have been surprised?
Hunters walk the forest
without a sound.
The hunter, strapped to his rifle,
the fox on his feet of silk,
the serpent on his empire of muscles—
all move in a stillness,
hungry, careful, intent.
Just as the cancer
entered the forest of my body,without a sound.” 
― Mary Oliver, Blue Horses: Poems

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For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
2. Post your new cancer poem on your site, and then link it here.
3. If you use a picture include its link.  
4. Leave a comment here.
5. Visit and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is LOVE is not a greeting card!)

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