Here’s me, pulling my light out from under that bushel, aka showing off - sorry.
Anyway, the thing is I just won the Hippocrates International Poetry in Medicine prize - and I want to shout about it!
They’ve announced it on social media but haven’t updated their website yet.
just thought I’d let my friends here know, although if you’re also a friend on Facebook or Insta you’ll be sick of hearing about it!
Here’s the poem:
The Cancer Garden
i. (f) Honey Fungus
With little sign or warning, yellow clumps
of honey fungus suddenly appear
bulging from a hidden stump, eyeing up
my precious cherry tree and ageing pear.
Why here? Below the lawn blind rhizomorphs,
attached to some long-buried log or limb,
must be fingering out their toxic course,
furtive in the damp soil.
Online forums
threaten darkly of destructive power.
Carefully I excise the skulking pest,
hoping I’ve got it all, then build a fire,
tossing on rotten wood and toadstool caps.
I’m doing the best I can, while you rest,
a hospital letter across your lap.
ii. (m) Cardoons
The last cardoons are eight feet high,
a conference of faded kings
parading on the evening sky.
Their heads have lost their purple hue
less regal now but spent and brown
and easy prey for winter storms.
The time has come to cut them down,
forget the glory they once knew,
and clear the ground for next year’s plants.
They sway and clatter in the wind.
All humans know what these heads can’t -
for every start an end’s assured.
My mobile phone rings yet again,
I rest below their woody stalks
to reassuringly explain
my cancer’s grade and Gleason Score.
wwwmarcwoodwardpoetry.blogspot.com
Anyway, the thing is I just won the Hippocrates International Poetry in Medicine prize - and I want to shout about it!
They’ve announced it on social media but haven’t updated their website yet.
just thought I’d let my friends here know, although if you’re also a friend on Facebook or Insta you’ll be sick of hearing about it!
Here’s the poem:
The Cancer Garden
i. (f) Honey Fungus
With little sign or warning, yellow clumps
of honey fungus suddenly appear
bulging from a hidden stump, eyeing up
my precious cherry tree and ageing pear.
Why here? Below the lawn blind rhizomorphs,
attached to some long-buried log or limb,
must be fingering out their toxic course,
furtive in the damp soil.
Online forums
threaten darkly of destructive power.
Carefully I excise the skulking pest,
hoping I’ve got it all, then build a fire,
tossing on rotten wood and toadstool caps.
I’m doing the best I can, while you rest,
a hospital letter across your lap.
ii. (m) Cardoons
The last cardoons are eight feet high,
a conference of faded kings
parading on the evening sky.
Their heads have lost their purple hue
less regal now but spent and brown
and easy prey for winter storms.
The time has come to cut them down,
forget the glory they once knew,
and clear the ground for next year’s plants.
They sway and clatter in the wind.
All humans know what these heads can’t -
for every start an end’s assured.
My mobile phone rings yet again,
I rest below their woody stalks
to reassuringly explain
my cancer’s grade and Gleason Score.
wwwmarcwoodwardpoetry.blogspot.com
