Friday, April 6, 2012

CANCER HAIKU

WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge Day 6 is here. Today, my task is to write a haiku about my health focus.

I remember writing my first Haiku in the 2nd or 3rd grade. My teacher liked it enough to enter it into a children's poetry competition. I didn't win. 

© 2012 The Big C and Me
Not feeling terribly positive about this attempt either, but here are three Haikus for you:

Cancer clammers in
Burning like betrayal
Soul survives, barely.

***

Estrogen parade
Fuels the beast within
Tamoxifen blocks.


***

Call brings cold despair
Haphazard terror reigns
Cue the crying game.

Feel free to try your hand at one of your own and post it here! I'd love to read it, and I'm sure others would too.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Renn - I enjoyed these and particularly love that the word Tamoxifen has now been used in a haiku!!

    Am not feeling very inspired, but will contribute a haiku I wrote at school that I thought terribly witty at the time:

    Expressing a thought
    In seventeen syllables
    Is very diffic

    Cheers
    Liz

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  2. Liz,

    That's a great haiku! Has plenty of school-like charm. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. Renn, fabulous "rennditions" of this ancient Japanese art. Love them!

    I wrote two haiku on my day 6 blog post. The second ends with "limping for the cure."

    Jan

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  4. Hi Renn,

    Haiku is what got me through the most terrifying moments of breast cancer treatment and the aftermath. Rather than journal, which was too tiring during chemo, I decided to stick to the minimalist discipline of haiku. May 19 marked four years since the diagnosis, I have a full head of hair, and so far so good!!! Here's my most recent haiku, written while I was anxiously awaiting the results of a bone scan. Onward, Sue

    -------------------------

    child of the sixties
    cancer is my viet cong
    furtive, treacherous

    master of disguise
    now you see it, now you don’t
    invisible, stealth

    ever vigilant
    continually dodging
    hostile sniper fire

    I am, forever, a
    conscientious objector
    tour of duty done

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  5. @Sue: That is a fantastic haiku! And how cool that you used haiku as your vehicle of choice to get through chemo. Congrats on 4 years post diagnosis. PS I hope the scan was clear. Thanks for dropping by!

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