PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

[Headnote, as preface to the reader:  This poem is written with the intention of

a speculative verbal experiment.  No disrespect is intended toward victims of

cancer, or their caregivers, or anyone working in the science of this terrible

disease.  This is the first of at least two poems in the series.  Again, no disrespect

is intended to anyone; however, if the subject matter is unpleasant to you, please

do not subject yourself to reading it.]

We learned that certain tumors, when removed,
behaved like embryos when placed within
the reconstructed incubators:  there
they formed similacra---rapid advance
to adolescence, or maturity;
and then just a few years until they reached
decrepitude and an exhausted death.

We call the grown ones Carcinoenthgens.
Some of them outlived their progenitors,
and some did not.  Of their progenitors,
they kept a most extensive knowledge in
an almost psychic way; and most retained
respect (grudging or tender); some possessed
profound affection toward those out of whom
they had been taken as lethal tumors.
To many of those called progenitors,
the cancers seem like new extensions of
existence.  Those progenitors from whom
the viable cancers had been removed
did not recover to the fullest health.
Their life spans had been too much compromised;
theirfore significantly shortened from
what national statistics normally
predicted.  Certain legal questions rose:
the cancers were given citizenships,
without the ballot.  The necessities
of life---food, clothing, shelter---basic stuff---
were financed by insurance profiteers.
Some of the cancers proved quite talented---
aspects developed under pressure from
a limited lifecycle.  Poetry
and music seemed attractive to them, but
not as much interest in the plastic arts.
The cancers often formed neighborhood cliques---
circles of comfort and encouragement
with problems quite peculiar to them.

Starward