DEATH IN THE HOUSE

Now they are saying

the cancer’s spread further.

I think I know

when this bad news is going to end.

I look disappointingly unlike

someone about to die.

The doctors believe it,

but should I believe the doctors?

Sickeningly healthy

might be the term.

Perhaps I'm pretending: 

that would be sick. 

  

My hair’s stopped growing

as if it wasn’t bad enough – and good enough –

to feel as if I don’t have cancer,

now we’re into beneficial side-effects of chemo.      

Sepsis didn’t kill me

The bowel-blocking tumour didn’t kill me.

It seems I am immortal

for a few more months.  

It feels odd

to be back in the world of not-ill

and odder yet

to know that I don’t belong.  

 

My bowel is now short

but, like my big and crooked nose,

no-one's impolite enough

to mention it.

Everyone says that I'm strong

I’ll get through it.

For once I'm resisting

the urge to prove everyone wrong.  

I've bought myself

a new diary.

Is there no end

to my optimism bias? 

Existence

is only a brief reprieve

from the infinite opposite either end.

Why should it seem so significant?  

            

Will I die tonight?

If I tell myself 'yes, I’ll go in my sleep',

waking to find these weren’t my last words

will feel quite the bonus.

  

Life’s

been pretty great so far.

What a comfort

that it hasn’t got long to go wrong.   

Would it be kind

to start being mean?

Just to make sure

I’m not missed…

                      

The outside is healing

nicely, thanks -

I like to claim it’s unusually neat.

It’s the inside that I wonder on, blindly.

Is it only love 

that will survive of us?

I suppose the immaterial is the most natural fit

for immortality.              

3.01 a.m.

This is the steroids waking me,

certainly not worry -

unless it's the worry that the steroids will wake me.

My tastes remain

annoyingly consistent.

The novelty of enjoying of eggs –

or opera, rugby or video games – is still denied me.

‘Half of a date is sugar!’

warns Steph. She’s concerned  

in case sugar accelerates tumour growth.

‘I’ll have the other half’.

 

Is there comfort

in melancholy?

Not much. I’d rather

look to gallows humour.

Traffic jams, spam mail

call centre menus, Xmas jingles,

bad grammar, heating bills…

What's not to not miss?

  

The toaster’s refusing to pop

until the bread’s been pretty-much cremated.

We’ll get a new one:

I will not be mocked.  

 

The blinds are down.

The heating’s off.

Only the stand-by lights remain.

The house is with me.

              

Think of the global warming impact

of widespread immortality.

In times of crisis

we all have to do our bit.  

 

My teeth are terrible

The dentist was urging

major reconstruction

before the good news that they’ll probably see me out.

  

You want it darker?

I’m not scared of that:

I write on 

an illuminated screen.

 

 

A bit of pain

to sharpen the reality?

I recommend the sore mouth and the tingles:

they're nothing much.  

 

I seek no honorific

for death, but if I did

that exemplary failure to discriminate

would have to make it ‘Mx’.

 

On the plus side

plenty have told me

of their chemo successes,

and no-one has told me they died.

 

Just another day on earth?

Only for those

who feel immortal 

even though they know they're not.

 

Is this the real death

or just a test to see

exactly what it feels like

to know it’s coming soon? 

I’m not so sure

that dying is an art,

but maybe it’s essential

to the whole of art’s production.

Art, after all

is recuperation from time

and right now I am out of it

trying to catch this.

Should I go to London?

Steph prefers not: cautiously, touchingly,

she wants me to live

I say yes: I want to live.

 

 

It's a classic patient-carer tension

according to my colorectal nurse:

that and the question of whether to talk about death

or bury it in the unsaid.

           

I wake at night

and thoughts occur

like streamers in extremis.

Is this one?

 

Will I return

as someone else?

I don't even I know

if I've had a prior existence. 

Between the forceps and the stone?

Hardly: I came out easy

and plan to go up

in smoke and scatter. 

  

Is naked cremation an option?

Why burn good clothes

at time when I expect to be  

well beyond any pretence.

 

Can I have a double funeral please?

File right for classical: Bach, Schubert

and Shostakovich. Or left for indie rock:

Joy Divison, Cope and the Cocteau Twins…

I imagine observing

from the balcony of the dead

as the funerals stream in aftermath,

trying to work out which group is most affected. 

I am not afraid

of your anger, death.

Though sometimes I may pause to consider

your cunning and your stealth.

I hear I'm no angel

nor will I become one.

But why would I want to be

a being that doesn't exist?

 

Allow me to appreciate

being alive, 

as I'm not betting on the chances 

of appreciating being dead.          

Patrick Caulfield

got there first

with a tombstone reading simply ‘DEAD’.

And so, perhaps, I’ll have to go with ‘GONE’.

 

The freest death

would make sense of my life

without looking backwards

other than to prove the time is right.

      

Imagine a ‘Where's Wally?’

in which Wally is death

and you start to wonder

if you'll ever find him...   

I guess it would be interesting

to see posterity,

but I’m happy to delay 

the opportunity.  

 

People say I’m brave

but I’ve done nothing

save carry on existing a bit longer

and acting as I please.

 

Everybody cuts me

a fantastic amount of slack.

If only ‘dying’

could be a permanent state.

 

Now I can be blasé

A cracked pane? Fungal toenails?  

A suitcase on its last wheels?

Do me a favour!

 

 

How ludicrous would it be

to worry that these thoughts

will seem to lack integrity

should I survive?

I stroll out daily

to prove I’m not yet  –

even if I could be –

a dead man walking.  

 

         

I've bought myself

a new diary.

Value for money is less of an object

If you’ve only got a few months to spend it.  

 

If everything matters

then nothing matters.

But does that work

the other way around?

 

This is brilliant!

Any event I don’t want to attend

falls

‘at the wrong time in the chemo cycle’.

     

        

Soon I’ll be dead

and people can say what they like.

Hang on –

they’re ahead of me!

 

I'd get high

on hope

if I could see the point -

for what would that change?

Surely it would be 

too pointed to be believed

were 'hated’

the only anagram of death?  

I've always thought 

biennial Christmases would be quite enough. 

But this year better not be fallow

if it's going to be my last.  

  

I feel the kiss of death

But does Death kiss?

Surely I'm more likely

to be fucked.

Can I have a Golden Death?

One that makes

my life seem

that it had to be as was?  

Perhaps they’ll say

‘He took to death

like a fish to water’.

Water in which the fish drowned.  

 

Idiot!

Saving up my finest achievements

for my last two decades

only to find I’ve already lived them…

Is it too late to change my afterlife?

I say it ought to be:

why should a craven end-fearing switch

outweigh sixty years of denial?       

It isn’t so much that death becomes me

as I’ll become death -

in which state

I might as well be anyone.

 

Abducted from nowhere

I ended up here.

I guess I’ll get

right back where I came from.

 

I’ve got the darkness

nailed down tight.

The question being

if the other side is light.  

I've bought myself

a new diary.

I need to schedule blood tests, chemo,

operations, funeral.

 

It’s one thing to know

that I should welcome death

when the moment comes,

another thing to live it. 

Context

I spent 17 September – 11 October 2022 in Southampton General Hospital with sepsis followed by an operation to remove a tumour from my bowel: see 'The Death Suite'.   Shortly after discharge I received the news ('Now they are saying') that the cancer had spread not just to the liver but also to the peritoneum (wall of the abdomen) - tricky because the abdomen can't be removed. ‘Death in the House’ was written in the run-up to Christmas during a 12 week course of chemotherapy, to be followed by an assessment of whether further operations were feasible to deal with the secondary cancers. Doctors said the odds were against me, though there was a chance. There are 69 photo-poems here, matching my 64 years plus the five years of survival which tend to be cited in the analysis of cancer death rates. That's optimistic, as the online stats give me a 17% chance of reaching that landmark with my condition.

The medical and research consensus seems to be that the widespread claims that ‘sugar fuels cancer’ are false, but a balanced diet without too much sugar is certainly a valid goal ('Half a date is sugar!'). My super-supportive wife, Steph, is well on top of diet issues. I didn't suffer much during chemotherapy: common side-effects I avoided include sickness, fatigue, hair loss and changes to taste ('My tastes remain'). 

There's a difficult judgement call to be made during chemotherapy ('Should I go to London?' and 'It's a classic patient-carer tension') - should you get on with normal life, or stay at home and avoid contact with others - given that the drugs compromise your immune system so it is more dangerous than usual to catch a virus. Apparently the 'ill one' always wants to do more than the carer would like (and typically the man in heterosexual couples prefers to avoid talking about death - so we're not wholly predictable).

References

As in 'The Death Suite' there are echoes of others, though the chemo life seems to have reduced the number and lightened them up. Or maybe I was just running out...

Seneca ('Will I die tonight?') - On the Shortness of Life, c. 49 AD 

'Is there comfort' derives from Victor Hugo's 1866 statement 'Melancholy is the happiness of being sad’, as picked up by Joni Mitchell's 'Hejira', 1976, which also includes the line 'Between the forceps and the stone')

Friedrich Nietzsche ('The freest death') - Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883-5 

Forest Bess ('Can I have a Golden Death?') - ‘Golden Death’ is the title of a 1957 painting

Sylvia Plath ('I'm not sure') - Lady Lazarus, 1960

Philip Larkin ('Is it only love that will survive?') - An Arundel Tomb,1964

Simone de Beauvoir ('Existence') - A Very Easy Death, 1965

Queen: 'Is this the real death' echoes Bohemian Rhapsody, 1975 

RS Thomas (‘Art, after all’) - Pissarro: Kitchen Garden, Trees in Bloom, 1981 (curiously enough, that poem is omitted from the Collected Poems shown on the shelf)

Robert Wyatt (‘I cannot know’) – Free Will and Testament, 1997

Wolfgang Tillmans' 2003 exhibition title 'If One Thing Matters, Everything Matters' is tweaked in 'If everything matters'

Brian Eno ('Just another day on earth?') - Just Another Day, 2005 

Leonard Cohen ('You want it darker?') - You Want It Darker, 2016 

Photographs

All images were taken either inside  our bungalow in the New Forest or else in its enclosed  backyard. 

It's curious how the Oral B toothbrush matches the Colgate toothpaste. Those must be the accepted colours of cleanliness! ('My teeth are terrible')

'I seek no honorific' shows the work clothes I kept on retiring from my public finance jobs in 2018. I thought I might wear them again from time to time, but it hasn't happened yet!

Kathy Acker (1947-97) died of cancer ('I guess it would be interesting'), as did Georges Perec (1936-82), Philip Larkin (1922-85), Amy Clampitt (1920-94) and Ted Hughes (1930-2017) ('I've bought myself'). Adeline de Monseignat and I wrote 'The Book of Ladders' (2022).  

Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) also died of cancer: his grave is in Highgate Cemetery.

There are a lot of art works in our home. Some are glimpsed here. They are by Denys Short ('Is this the real death'), Rachel Whiteread ('Should I go to London?'), Julie Verhoeven (hand-drawn get well card in 'Soon I’ll be dead'), Fiona G Roberts ('Will I return') and Albert Irwin ('I'd get high' - it's a postcard-sized work up on a pelmet). It would be ludicrous if anyone could spot that works by Maggie Hambling, Kathy Prendergast, Helen Williams and Glyn Baines appear in 'How ludicrous would it be'. The central Christmas card in 'I hear I'm no angel' is designed by Liv Fontaine.

The photograph of me ('Life's') was taken in 1995.

While in hospital I spoke to an artist on Zoom most days, finding the 40 minute conversation format ideal. Jane Harris was due to be one of those, but before we could exchange treatment stories, she died of ovarian cancer. We have ('Can I have a double funeral please?') a wonderful drawing by her: 13:51, graphite on Fabriano paper, 2004. Jane is well-remembered in her Guardian obituary. I carried on my Zoom habit during chemo, and had spoken to a hundred artists by the time the course finished. It’s a great shame that Jane couldn’t be one of them.

Steph's collection of model horses ('Just another day on earth?') is very popular with the grandchildren. 

'It isn’t so much that death becomes me' and 'Abducted from nowhere' show frost on the attic window.

'If everything matters' shows a cardboard box being soaked so it can be integrated into my brother-in-law's compost. 

Our TV's volume control failed, but I mended it successfully - if oddly - by taping a coin across it ('I've got the darkness').