There's a free lunch after all

 

Two poems from Free Lunch: A Poetry Miscellany

Chemotherapy Lessons

"Life and the World Are One"  --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus

These poems first appeared in Free Lunch: A Poetry Miscellany # 31, , Spring 2004, Ron Offen, Editor, published and copyrighted by Free Lunch Arts Alliance, Box 717, Glenview, IL  60025.  They are reproduced here with permission.

for other poems, go to

3 September 2004 Richard P. Richter 

 

 

 

 

 

lessons

.

Chemotherapy Lessons

Chemo introduces you

to entropy:

the tensions of your hot pursuits

must slacken; passion

must become anathema.

 

Faces behind

closed eyes, like images in film,

replay your plot--

you, now, a creature in a time

that's ending, choked

by tubes that flow with licensed poisons.

 

Chemotherapy decides

an old debate—

mind and body are not two, but you.

 "Life and the World Are One"

3 September 2004 Richard P. Richter

 

 

 

 

 

 

life

.

"Life and the World Are One"

                  --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus

 

Dear loving and beloved, though my pace

is growing slow, I ask you not to cry.

 

As I go forward into dying, the world

is slowing from its fury to a crawl.

 

A film is forming on the silver moon,

promising the end of tides, romance.

 

Nothing now can rescue Newton's laws.

When finally my breath ceases, they will lapse.

 

Now that the world is ending, I can speak

the uttermost of love and not hold back.

 

I don’t expect to speak from another world.

This is my only world—don’t wait for word.

 

As I embraced the world, so it did me.

As it of me, so I of it, will soon be free.

 

Chemotherapy Lessons

3 September 2004 Richard P. Richter