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A poem about being partially blind and facing the possibility of going totally blind. On account of having brain cancer, I received radiation to the brain, and the radiation caused demyelination, a stripping away of the myelin that sheathes the nerves.
This is a known effect of radiotherapy, but one which my radiation oncologists concealed from me when, in advance of radiation therapy, I raised the issue of what would happen to my eyes. I was told that radiation would cause cataracts, which did not trouble me because, at the time, I already had cataracts, on account of having used ophthalmic steroid, and cataracts have a surgical fix. The fact that my eyesight deteriorated was a catastrophe for which I was totally unprepared. The result was that I lost the vision in my right eye pretty much entirely, and the left eye is now severely damaged. From exploring the stuff you can find on the Internet I get the impression that radiation oncologists, as a group, have a bad track record when it comes to leveling with their patients about exactly how horrible the consequences of radiation treatment can be. The poem talks of the color of its radiation and of its smell. Radiation is generally thought of as having neither a color nor a smell. However, hard radiation ionizes the air, generating a smell like that of chlorine, reminding me of the toilet in the morning, when the smell of that chemical is apparent in the air. Before being exposed to the rays of the linear accelerator, the machine which pumped radiation into my brain, I was told that there was the possibility of seeing flashing lights. What I saw was a tinge of violet color to the world, and I saw this on each of the times that I had radiation. This, presumably, was the direct result of the stimulation of the brain by radiation. Your mileage may differ. With that preamble, here's the poem. ON HIS BLINDNESS cancer poem in Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online. Webmaster for this site is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. |
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The effortless energies of the rainbow Have become a car crash cavalcade. Red, green, yellow: All in the debris zone. My picture palace is an apocalypse, The sharp precisions of Dali Blurred down to Monet. A waterlily world Painted by a damaged mutant Who saw badly. Technically, I still have eyes. Or, at least, half an eye. The one surviving half of my binoculars Works, but works badly. Sight is a stumblezone. Through the stammer of my ruined vision I see a pastiche of the passing scene, A world of gauze and gossamer, Blurred and degraded, A second-hand toilet paper world. Functionally, I get by. Functionally, What remains is the full stop, the period, Pulled into focus, if necessary, With a magnifying glass. At the survival level, I pass the test. With the right lenses, Corporate is possible, Perhaps. I can toy with an imaginary future Where I am a man anonymous at a computer screen In cubicle heaven, Another hive worker, outwardly No different from any other. Perfect vision Is the easiest of things to fake. Long years ago, our local art museum hosted Monet's famous water lilies. Canvas after canvas Of muddy imprecision. I hated them. These days, I live in them, An inhabitant of Planet Monet. None of us gets to choose the world we wish to live in. Exiled from my truehome, The home planet that I remember, I have lost my extremes, My razorblade Dali, My jagged desert silhouettes, The catastrophic lapis of the tormented Spanish sky. What is lost — part of what is lost — Is the bright clean inferno Of the oceans of light, The true incarnation of the sun. What is lost — part of what is lost — Is the bright blue infinite Of the sharp-remembered sky, The precisions of a world That I, although I see, will never see again. Looming, now, in my imagination, Are the dungeons of the absolute, The darkness of the trilobite zone, Eyetubes choked by cannon balls, Ebony enforced by oubliette. Blindness Once seemed impossible. In the realms of the linear accelerator, I learnt that the possibles are larger than I thought. I learnt, for example, That radiation has a color and a smell. The borders of my expectations Will not defend me from a world of facts Cruel as battlefield vultures. Wounded on my battlefield I still have the strength for weeping. |
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CANCER POEMS: poetry about having cancer, about pressing on with life, about facing death and thinking about mortality, and about suffering damage from radiation therapy, this being in the form of brain damage and partial blindness. Don't miss the praise poem for Saddam Hussein, SADDAM IS GUILTY
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CANCER MEMOIR: read the full text of the brain cancer memoir Cancer Patient free online. Initial problems, diagnosis, neurosurgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and the achievement of remission. Read free online or buy as a paperback book from Amazon.com.
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CANCER BLOG: following remission, brain cancer seems to have returned. Further investigations follow. The author investigates the mechanism of his death. The author's deteriorating vision turns out to be the consequence of radiation therapy, not the return of cancer. Blog entries deal with survivorhood issues including dealing with degraded vision and with brain damage caused by chemo and radiation. The online entries are part of the literary miscellany This Is A Picture Of Your God, available from Amazon.com.
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