Cancer’s No Joke, but It’s Okay to Laugh

Laughter won’t kill me, so why not bust a gut?
No harm in a chortled snicker or a devious snort
at the prissy old lady in the room next door
who punctuated the air with a loud squeaky fart.

Sitting with my bags in the northwest corner chemo suite,
I heard a nurse exclaim: Dunkin’ Donuts can’t be beat.
Then, in unison I heard everyone sigh:
the donuts are gone, so sad we could cry.

Almost peed my pants, laughing so hard,
when a senior oncologist let down his guard—
sharing advice with a young resident doctor;
straight from Mother Goose, my what a shocker:

“For every evil under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
And when you find it, get thee behind it.”

A ride in the elevator, so very telling about life,
Shall I smoke a joint before chemo, a man asks his wife,
A punch in his chest she landed with might,
I feared at that moment there could a fight.

I urge you to give humor a chance,
Let jokes and laughter through your life dance,
Some craziness at times all of us need,
Laugh at yourself, start a healing stampede.

Ode to a Snow Storm

Whispy flakes of snow dart about
just outside my office window
Their helter skelter determination impresses me
Though I can’t but wonder why
in this world, obsessed with management and control
there are no snow architects to guide the flakes
in their building of monotonously white mountains
that will invariably snarl, strangle and suffocate our poor cars
as they endeavor to take us homeward
Hopefully before the price of gas hits 4 bucks a gallon

Attitude most certainly makes a difference in life
and it does when it comes to dealing with snow jobs
including those inflicted by passive-aggressive co-workers
and Mother Nature herself, who claims her right
under some dubious 28th Amendment found in the small print
of THE Divine Universal Constitution–
a book yet to be published in a language I comprehend

I’ll do my best not to question the Divine Right
or Left for that matter
What are politics but nasty boils on our behinds
that no matter how we sit, we feel their pain
So we stand, waiting for the snow to end
while the fools, fruitcakes, and boil-butted lunatic drivers clog up
the exits, intersections, and interstate entrance ramps
For what reason I ask?
Perhaps to see the evening news, reporting what we already know–
a nasty snowstorm has hit Cleveland
making the evening commute home miserable, and
if you missed the weather at 6
you can catch the talking heads on Facebook 24-7-365

Needless to say, I have kicked off my shoes
and let the fools honk and curse each other
while I sip a flavored coffee, nibbling the last of almost stale Christmas cookies
And who knows, maybe I’ll nap till 7
and dream of cities with winning football teams
and places where the sun always shines

Note: Thanks to Jennifer Dillinger at the Cleveland Clinic for the idea for this poem