Dementing Torture of Benign

          Drugs against Malignancy

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

        His life came to its

      End.  Smell of the medicine

        Departs chillingly.

                                   ~ Dakotsu (Englshed by Phillip Whidden)

The faint, faint fragrance of the cancer drugs

Had floated in her bedroom quite a while.

They smelled as well as evil’s curing drugs

Which hinted with a demon’s hanging guile

Above her.  They were helping her to die

Less painfully — or that was their main claim.

But specters that they were helped hide that lie.

Instead they found a subtle way to maim

Her with a stink-like itching.  Where she lay

Her husband had to treat her with the pain

Replacing pain.  She wished that he could flay

The skin to take away that itching’s reign.

  When she was taken to the hospice, stench

    Enough remained to make her left man blench.

~ Phillip Whidden