Diary of Our Fatal Illness

By Charles Bardes

This moving prose poem tells the story of an aged man who suffers a prolonged and ultimately fatal illness. From initial diagnosis to remission to relapse to death, the experience is narrated by the man’s son, a practicing doctor. Charles Bardes, a physician and poet, draws on years of experience with patients and sickness to construct a narrative that links myth, diverse metamorphoses, and the modern mechanics of death. We stand with the doctors, the family, and, above all, a sick man and his disease as their voices are artfully crafted into a new and powerful language of illness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9780226468167

Book preview

Diary of Our Fatal Illness

Diary of Our Fatal Illness

Charles Bardes

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2017 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2017

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46802-0 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46816-7 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226468167.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bardes, Charles L., 1956– author.

Title: Diary of our fatal illness / Charles Bardes.

Other titles: Phoenix poets.

Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Series: Phoenix poets

Identifiers: LCCN 2016039076 | ISBN 9780226468020 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226468167 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Terminally ill parents—Poetry. | Catastrophic illness—Psychological aspects—Poetry. | Cancer—Poetry. | Patients—Poetry. | Physicians—Poetry. | Medical care—Poetry. | Families of the terminally ill—Poetry. | Fathers and sons—Poetry. | Autobiographical poetry, American. | LCGFT: Poetry. | Prose poems.

Classification: LCC PS3602.A775265 D53 2017 | DDC 811/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016039076

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To the memory, sacred and profane, of Charles Robert Bardes, 1927–2010

I felt my self far otherwise through all my limbs, than I

Had been before

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Where shall a pious father place his son apprentice

to be instructed in the practice of crossing the seas?

John Woolman, The Journal

And even as when most welcome to his children appears the life of a father who lies in sickness, bearing grievous pains, long while wasting away, and some cruel god assails him, but then to their joy the gods free him from his woe, so to Odysseus did the land and the wood seem welcome; and he swam on, eager to set foot on the land.

Odyssey

This other excellent deed of the Dolphins have I heard and admire. When fell disease and fatal draws nigh to them, they fail not to know it but are aware of the end of life. Then they flee the sea and the wide waters of the deep and come aground on the shallow shores. And there they give up their breath and receive their doom upon the land; that so perchance some mortal man may take pity on the holy messenger of the Shaker of the Earth when he lies low, and cover him with mound of shingle, remembering his gentle friendship; or haply the seething sea herself may hide his body in the sands; nor any of the brood of the sea behold the corse of their lord, nor any foe do despite to his body even in death. Excellence and majesty attend them even when they perish, nor do they shame their glory even when they die.

Oppian, Halieutica

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh

Rockin’ to and fro

Back in the saddle again.

Ray Whitley