What the Doctor Said (Raymond Carver)

[poppyromanov]

What the Doctor Said
by Raymond Carver

He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask

Comments

[aedrais]

I am so sorry. I just found out yesterday that my significant other's father was supposed to go into surgery for prostate cancer, I believe, and wasn't expected to survive. The surgery has been delayed by a bit, but from what I gather... it's still not looking so great.

I'll be sure to share anything I find. Again, I'm so sorry. <3

[poppyromanov]

Thank you so much for your kind words! <3 I am sorry to hear about your s.o.'s father :( I can definitely relate to that situation...

[phobiaofshae]

SWEETNESS

[poppyromanov]

woow... really nice. thank you! I love the last stanza.

[exceptindreams]

These are poems that I think would help me, so hopefully some will prove to be good for you too

[exceptindreams]

"The Crickets Have Arthritis

part 2

[exceptindreams]

The truth is: there's not enough miracles to go around, kid. And there's too many people petitioning God for the winning lotto ticket. And for every answered prayer, there's a cricket with arthritis. And the only reason we can't find answers is because the search party didn't invite us, and Louis, right now the crickets have arthritis. So there is no music, no symphony of nature swelling to crescendos, as if ripping halos into melodies that can keep a rhythm with the way our hearts beat. So we must meet silence with the same level of noise that the parents of dying 9 year old boys make when they take liberties in talking with heaven. We must shout until we shatter in our own vibrations, then let our lives echo and grow, echo and grow, grow distant. Grow distant enough to know that as far as our efforts go, we don't always get a reply

[exceptindreams]

This is the one I immediately thought of and just remembered where to find:

"diagnosis"
Ruth Baumann

In the after
(and it is always the after for
naming it as after is only the beginning of
always)
there is sometimes the urge to scream
it.

Days like clocks
tick.
As do I.
Quietly.

Nobody knows.
Or, most nobody knows.

I want them to know my after,
that there was a before and that
somewhere in-between days opening like hands and closing like fists
I have drawn a line.
Not that they cannot cross it but
I cannot cross back and this
makes me not
like them.
It does not make me
but it makes me not
like them.

[poppyromanov]

These are all incredible. Thank you so much!! "On Living" made me cry :O