What magic things might I have bloomed,
What worlds dreamed into being--
As naturally as linking my hands with my mind's light--
If I had not been cursed with this cancer.
Several shelves of books set aside
For my retirement years of happy reading.
Instead, by that time I shall have died.
I don't know where to file an appeal, or make a pleading.
So many books I have ghost-written:
My words, but not my name; and no more money for me.
I got one-time payments; and then, contractual anonymity.
Some wealth and even fame I helped to make; but for me, not to be.
My name was unknown; after submitting often and untaken,
I took the offers of publishers--who called it too costly to promote me--
To ghost-write for various known-name authors. 
Fiction and non-fiction, I had the right diction,
And the right ways to write. 
It seemed a good thing then.
I wish I had declined, and kept submitting under my own name.
Recently, just before the cancer came for me,
I wanted to start sending out under my own name again;
It's been so long since I have sent anything; I had drifted away.
I have hundreds of filled notebooks of my writings, in my own hand.
Ready to go; I just need to transcribe them into readable type.
I wanted to get started, and go at a steady pace.  I would have. 
But now, I won't have enough time for all of that transcribing.
I transcribe at odd moments, when I can now; but I cannot cover much.
Almost all of  those semi-legible scribblings will be lost; the meaning in them
Will end as meaningless--unknown, unread. 
Worse than like me--dead.  These are children of my mind's pen:
And they will now remain, to the world, unborn.
The doors I once found open to me are gone; I find only a wall.
So I have to give it up as a lost hope and a dead dream.
I could have transcribed quite a bit by now; and much more, later.
I won't reach the time I would have had time to take my time--
My retirement years--in which I felt sure to win.
And as for love--I wanted romantic love again.  This cancer killed it.
I have been choked with too much of darkness,
And a sudden larger share of the world's pain.
My gifts and lights, which I have had since my early childhood,
Have done nearly all they will ever do;
The rest of all my fruitful promise is all in vain.
What a strange and bitter destiny.
My lifetime has been bent as easily as bending the twig
That grows into a tree.
My birth promises have been broken. 
So much time has been used up and wasted dealing with this disease;
And in the end, I still will die an earlier death
Than genetically should have taken me.
If this had not happened to me, what would I have achieved?
What might I have done?
What magic snow-shapes I might have shaken,
Under the flaring sun!

==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka (thanks to Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Thursday, May 19,2011  2:49 am PDT
56 degrees F.  Humidity: 51%  Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved
(I still copyright my writings, for my estate)