Dream Poem 65: Cancer and the Boiling Sea

At college, students want me to write them references.
Whilst writing I’m thinking,
“Not many students will want references.”
But then it turns out
Loads of students want references.

Not only that
but they want help with sketching,
idea generation and starting projects.

We are on board a huge ocean liner.
Up until now it has been a calm sea.

We are weaving boats of wire.
I’m helping students get started
Many of students want help.

The sea is smashing onto the shore so hard,
it is very noisy on beach stones
and the water is flung up very high.
Houses on the coast line have waves beating and breaking onto upstairs windows.

The force of the sea is incredible.
It is so powerful and raging and mighty.

What was a flat calm,
Is now a roiling, boiling sea.
White froth rising alarmingly
And smashing down
Annihilating
Grinding
Destroying
The power
The rage.
The incandescence of the sea.

I’m sneaking into a house
Everyone is asleep
I have in my hand a pair of shoes
I’m taking  the Cat.

When I creep back to the car
The shoes in my hand are odd
How did this happen?

There is a party in full swing with a band and craft show going on.
We can’t eat our own food,
we have to have the energy bars on sale as a part of the evening
but I want my own and stealthily eat my own energy bar.

I’m at a clinic with Naomi
She is ill and needs diagnosis
The doctor comes and speaks to me
It is a cancer clinic.

After tests all day and repeated questioning,
the doctor tells me she has cancer of the brain.
All the headaches she’s been having mean she has cancer.
It’s a lot to take in and I have to get my head around it.
It’s a children’s cancer clinic
the children stay over while recuperating and live there.
There are nice trips and fun days but basically they live at hospital for a few months.
I’m laughing saying, “I thought I had cancer of the breast but I didn’t really.”

No-one was interested,
this was a children’s hospital,
the other patients were not amused.


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