Sick Poems | Poems of Sickness, Illness, and Recovery

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    On Pain Poem by Kahlil Gibran

    Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
    your understanding.

    Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
    heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

    And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
    daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
    less wondrous than your joy;

    And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
    even as you have always accepted the seasons that
    pass over your fields.

    And you would watch with serenity through the
    winters of your grief.

    Much of your pain is self-chosen.

    It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
    you heals your sick self.

    Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
    in silence and tranquillity:

    For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
    the tender hand of the Unseen,

    And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
    been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
    moistened with His own sacred tears.

     

     

    Flames Poem by Billy Collins

    Smokey the Bear heads
    into the autumn woods
    with a red can of gasoline
    and a box of wooden matches.

    His ranger’s hat is cocked
    at a disturbing angle.

    His brown fur gleams
    under the high sun
    as his paws, the size
    of catcher’s mitts,
    crackle into the distance.

    He is sick of dispensing
    warnings to the careless,
    the half-wit camper,
    the dumbbell hiker.

    He is going to show them
    how a professional does it.

     

     

    To The Whore Who Took My Poems Poem by Charles Bukowski

    some say we should keep personal remorse from the
    poem,
    stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
    but jezus;
    twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have
    my
    paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
    are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
    why didn’t you take my money? they usually do
    from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
    next time take my left arm or a fifty
    but not my poems:
    I’m not Shakespeare
    but sometime simply
    there won’t be any more, abstract or otherwise;
    there’ll always be mony and whores and drunkards
    down to the last bomb,
    but as God said,
    crossing his legs,
    I see where I have made plenty of poets
    but not so very much
    poetry.

     

     

    Wot A Pair Poem by Benjamin Zephaniah

    I waz walking down Wyefront street
    When me trousers ran away,
    I waz feeling incomplete
    But still me trousers would not stay,
    When I found where they had gone
    De pair addressed me rather blunt,
    And they told me they were sick of being put on
    Back to front.

    I told dem I would treat dem good
    And wear dem back to back,
    I promised dem protection
    From a friend who is a mac,
    Me trousers did not believe a single word I had to say,
    And me underpants were laughing
    When me trousers ran away.

     

     

    Walking Around Poem by Pablo Neruda

    It so happens I am sick of being a man.
    And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
    houses
    dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
    steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

    The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse
    sobs.
    The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
    The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
    no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

    It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
    and my hair and my shadow.
    It so happens I am sick of being a man.

    Still it would be marvelous
    to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
    or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
    It would be great
    to go through the streets with a green knife
    letting out yells until I died of the cold.

    I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
    insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
    going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
    taking in and thinking, eating every day.

    I don’t want so much misery.
    I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
    alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
    half frozen, dying of grief.

    That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
    with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
    and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
    and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the
    night.

    And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist
    houses,
    into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
    into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
    and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

    There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
    hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
    and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
    there are mirrors
    that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
    there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
    cords.

    I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
    my rage, forgetting everything,
    I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic
    shops,
    and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
    underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
    dirty tears are falling.

     

     

    The Sick Rose Poem by William Blake

    O Rose, thou art sick!
    The invisible worm
    That flies in the night,
    In the howling storm,

    Has found out thy bed
    Of crimson joy:
    And his dark secret love
    Does thy life destroy.

     

     

    Enslaved Poem by Claude McKay

    Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
    For weary centuries despised, oppressed,
    Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
    In the great life line of the Christian West;
    And in the Black Land disinherited,
    Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
    My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
    For this my race that has no home on earth.
    Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry
    To the avenging angel to consume
    The white man’s world of wonders utterly:
    Let it be swallowed up in earth’s vast womb,
    Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
    To liberate my people from its yoke!

     

     

    Alone In The Woods Poem by Stevie Smith

    Alone in the woods I felt
    The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees
    Nature has taught her creatures to hate
    Man that fusses and fumes
    Unquiet man
    As the sap rises in the trees
    As the sap paints the trees a violent green
    So rises the wrath of Nature’s creatures
    At man
    So paints the face of Nature a violent green.
    Nature is sick at man
    Sick at his fuss and fume
    Sick at his agonies
    Sick at his gaudy mind
    That drives his body
    Ever more quickly
    More and more
    In the wrong direction.

     

     

    Buried Alive Poem by emo girl

    Inside that feeling of depression……….
    It’s not just a silly superstiotion………..
    It’s hard to make this confession……..

    I’m buried alive……………..
    I believe that no one can help me to survive………………………..
    I’m sick of this pathetic life……………
    and i think it’s all based on a horrible big lie………………

    still there..laying there
    inside that fearful place…..
    where a feeling of death hung upon the air……….
    oh god this’s so unfair………….
    my life has become an abhorrent endless nightmare…………….

    inside that gloomy place..
    where every thing is dark and……….
    and the sun will never shine upon my pale face…………….
    oh god how can i get rid of all these choking scares? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
    how can i get out of this frightening place…………

    so hard to get rid of the weight of thise feeling laying inside my brittle poor heart………..
    this feeling of depression it makes me fall apart……….

     

     

    But Not Today Poem by Susan Williams

    I have no heart today.
    I think I have lost it somewhere along the way
    From yesterday to today.
    No
    I am wrong
    It’s not gone
    It’s still here
    I know this because it aches
    If my chest were truly empty
    It would not ache.
    I should get up now
    Get up and rejoin the war
    On this battlefield
    On this battleground.
    Yes
    I should and I will
    I will get up again
    But not today
    Not today.
    Tomorrow maybe.
    Maybe tomorrow I will get up off the ground
    As far as my knees.
    I should
    I should get on my knees
    But not today
    Tomorrow maybe
    Today I am too heart-sick and weary
    Too heart-sick and weary to move
    Tomorrow maybe.
    Maybe tomorrow I will lift my eyes to the hills
    From whence my help will come.
    Yes
    I will lift up my eyes again
    Lift them up to the hills again.
    But not today.
    Not today.
    Tomorrow.
    Tomorrow I will
    Because I must
    Rejoin the war
    On this battlefield
    On this battleground.