The Enemy Within  

Images to follow

1

If life is just a waiting room

that must mean the main event

is yet to come.

The doctor will see us now…

 

2

Death goes on

the same as life,

the only difference being

unavoidability.

 

3

People say I’m stoic

but I’ve hardly suffered yet  -

and am happy to wait

to find out if it’s true.

 

4

Health is the priority

and yet

if life is just about staying alive,

you might as well not.

 

5

Yes, you can kill time

at least for a while.

But when time kills you,

I reckon it’s for good.

 

6

The benefit of death

is plain:

there’s no need to be afraid

of dying any more.

 

7

In the event of my demise

'I told you so' 

will hardly scratch the surface

of the years of expectation...

 

8

Now’s the time

that should-be-dones

might fall away undone -

which is why Steph’s keen that I get on with them!

 

9

A poem for the end of time 

sounds rather ambitious, 

whereas a poem for the end of my time

sounds as humdrum as all the others.

 

10

How would I feel

if ‘sentenced to death’

meant ‘sentenced to life

in eternity’?

 

10

 

I’m not sure that immortality

would be good news…

But being immortal for now

will suit me fine.

 

12

In what we must take as a post-dualist world 

does an afterlife make any sense?

If not, I'll have none of it:

I'm not indulging in an illogical practice.

 

13

According to Bernard Williams

life would be terminally boring had it no termination.

Wouldn’t it be interesting

to find out if that’s true?

 

14

I’m having trouble sleeping

but ‘I don’t think I’m going to get back to sleep’

was the last thing I thought

before I went back to sleep last night.

 

15

When I wake in the night

I like to know the time.

Am I subconsciously worrying

about the timeless world beyond?

 

16

Sleep in the world

sleep out of the world…

Is the difference

really worth the fuss?

 

17

People keep telling me

I look much better

than the last time they saw me.

Last time, though, they said that I looked well…

 

18

Mum complains

that her friends are all dead.

Add that to the list

of displeasures to be denied me.

 

19

‘Now and again’

according to Anne Carson,

‘you want to make a poem about death.’

What would she say about all the time?

 

20

Cancer? No problem

It gets me a lot of sympathy.

But symptoms?

I just can’t see the benefit.

 

21

It isn’t

that I want to be compliant:

necessity is the mother

of acceptance.

 

22

I'm not quite ready

to go to a place

that doesn't exist –

and not just because it doesn't.

 

23

Male or female

black or white, straight or gay?

How come the tide that’s turned against binaries

hasn’t got as far as life and death?

 

24

Addiction to life

is hardly a problem –

but that doesn’t mean

withdrawal won’t be tough.

 

25

Gimme an L!

Gimme an I!

Well, OK then, if you insist…

Gimme a D.

 

26

You think I’m macabre?

Victor Hugo kept one bedroom aside

ready to occupy

only when he was dying.

 

27

‘Maybe next year’

has become a commitment I‘m happy to make,

chances being I won’t be around

to have to follow through.

 

28

My bowels control me

not because all my cancer is bowel cancer,

so much as that its movements

determine the nature of my day.

 

29

Given that death

will have his day,

I see no harm

in making him wait.

 

30

People say I’m brave

but bravery is a choice,

and I haven’t had

any choices to make.

 

31

My new regime

is stomach ache and sleep.

I can’t think why

I’m following it.

 

32

Pain is how

you know you’re alive

when you’re wondering if

you might be better dead.

 

33

I love life and

if I change my mind

under cancer’s persuasions

don’t let that count for anything.

 

34

I’m told it’s a matter

of ‘when’, not ‘if’ –

something I share with everyone alive

and everyone yet to come…

 

35

All I really know of death

is how to live without it

and I'm not sure that's going to prove

of value for very much longer.

36

‘Why me?’

is an illogical question:

my asking it ensures

it could be no-one else.

 

37

What do you call

the dead’s own territory,

now that there’s no heaven or hell?

Is the dead zone simply the cosmos?

 

38

Steph is feeling bad today

and that’s not good:

she ought  to leave that kind of thing

to me.

 

39

I guess there’s nothing else to do

but go on waiting for the miracle

that it would take

for me to believe in miracles.

 

40

Can I go on

living this way?

Of course I can:

it’s how I mean to die.

41

‘Fuck cancer!’

is a sentiment I’ve seen around, and share.

But has any body worked out

how to do it?

 

42

This is my twist

on a very old saw:

it must be good that life is going

to leave me wanting more.

 

43

There's more to life

than dying.

That said, it is an interest

that absolutely everybody holds.

 

44

It’s said that death

puts life in context,

but does it? I reckon

it’s the other way around.

 

45

Death is the essence

You can refuse to drink,

to eat, to breathe, even to live -

but you can't refuse to die.

 

46

It's bad enough feeling 

like death warmed up 

without it being your body's way 

of warming up for death.

 

47

According to the ludicrous Wilhelm Reich

cancer is caused by sexual inhibition.

Would I dismiss that so readily, though,

were it not too late for an intense campaign to reverse it?

 

48

I have no issue

with the fact of death.

It’s only the timing and the manner

I might like to adjust…

 

49

I eat, yet still feel desperately hungry

The doctor says the tumour’s press

is mixing up my signals.

I’d like to give it signals of my own.

 

50

People think I’ve suffered

I haven’t, much, and here’s the proof:

I’d happily live

the last three years again.

 

49

‘Bring on the agony!

That’s an experience

I need to respond to…’

is not what I’m tempted to say.

 

52

Is bowel cancer

the same thing as colon cancer?

If so, I’d sooner avoid the bowel:

for something comes after a colon.

 

53

It’s only just occurred to me

that ‘nothing lasts for ever’

describes the state of death

with some exactness.

 

54

Time to move on

as I’m reaching the stage

at which chemo seems unlikely

to make me feel worse than I’m feeling already.

 

55

It seems six months

of palliative chemo

will extend my life by about six months.

Let’s hope it’s not the same six months.

 

 

56

 

I like life 

even though it causes death.

I wouldn't be without it

for any other reason.

 

57

There’s so much stuff

I want to get done

I'm seriously thinking of being awkward

and simply refusing to go.

 

58

I thank my tumours

for the chance to engage at a sensible pace

with the coming of death. Just think:

I could have been hit by a bus, and ended none the wiser.

 

59

This dying business

turns out to be pretty long-winded:

it’s almost as bad

as living.

 

60

Death may be

the end of thought,

but it’s given me plenty

to think about.

 

61

Of course I want to be there

when it happens –

why miss out on a one-off experience? –

but now, it seems, I'll have to wait a while.

 

62

So much speculation

so little substance…

Is it time

I killed my death stuff off?

 

63

If this is going to be

my last line, I’d better hang on

until the end of the quatrain

if this is going to be.

 

Notes

These poems cover June-August 2025, following the news that I now had measurable tumours in three places – mesentery, abdominal wall, and right lung - with suspicions of a fourth in the bowel. I was having some symptoms – tiredness, stomach aches, back ache, bowel irregularities – which the doctors said were consistent with the tumour developments. The tumours were small (in the 1-2 cm range) and not currently showing signs of rapid growth – when they do, palliative chemotherapy will be set up. So the tumours were my ‘enemy within’. By the end of this period, they were starting to grow faster.

Steph, I should explain, is my wonderfully supportive wife.

‘Is bowel cancer’ - Punctuation puns aside, my cancer is of the colon, but my doctors always refer to it as ‘bowel cancer’. That’s a broad term referring to cancer in the large bowel, which includes both the colon and the rectum. Essentially, colon cancer is a type of bowel cancer. Secondary cancers arising from it are all 'bowel cancer', and treated as such.

Images

The plan is to ask favourite artists to contribute. 

References

‘Given that death’ refers to Shakespeare’s ‘The Life and Death of King Richard the Second’, Act III, Scene 2 from 1595: ‘Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay: The worst is death, and death will have his day’. It is thought likely – though it isn’t what happens in the play – that Richard II (1367-1400) was starved to death in captivity after being deposed by the future Henry IV in 1399. If so, not the way to go…

‘You think I’m macabre?’ The bedroom – including skull-themed décor and a rather splendid bed - is in Hauteville House, St Peter Port, Guernsey where Hugo lived (but did not die), from 1856 to 1870.

‘A poem for the end of time’ echoes Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’, 1941

 ‘According to the ludicrous Wilhelm Reich’ cites the theory set out in ‘The Discovery of the Orgone, Volume II - The Cancer Biopathy’, 1948.

 ‘Death is the essence’ – according to Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) ‘Death is the essence of life. Life is an approaching death.’

‘All I really know of death’ - Love and death are often connected: Karen Carpenter sang in ‘Goodbye to Love’ (1972), that all she know of love was how to live without it.

‘According to Bernard Williams’ – in ‘The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality’, 1973

‘Of course I want to be there’ – Woody Allen’s 1975 play ‘Death’ contains the line ‘It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens’.

‘I guess there’s nothing else to do’ refers to Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Waiting for the Miracle’, 1992 - ‘Nothing left to do / When you've got to go on waiting / Waiting for the miracle to come’.

‘Now and again’ - Anne Carson: ‘Martha Going’, 2024.