100 Poems to Heal a Broken Heart

By Richard Rucker

The poems that became this book were written to ease the mind of my wife, Cindy. She had just been operated on for pancreatic cancer. A close friend of ours had just died from the same disease, and it was not pretty. At this time we had been married for thirty-six years. Cindy still had a lot of residual pain from the surgery, and was very afraid to die. I wrote her a love poem, and that made her feel better. Soon, I was writing more. I wrote poems that were loving, silly, or funny, anything to make her happier.
Almost exactly a year later, I was in a motorcycle accident. It left me with a broken back, and eight ribs broken. I was in a cast which left me lying on my back for over four months. I became pretty good at writing on a notebook computer, with it resting on my cast, and up against my legs. Now we both had pain, and the poems brought us even closer.
Other than the time that my family doctor told me that I had cancer (which turned out to not be true), things went along fine for about eight months. Cindys doctor had his assistant call her to say that her most recent test results were back from the lab. Without any preamble or emotion, she told Cindy that her cancer was back, and there was nothing that could be done! Cindy looked as if she had been shot. Now I really had to write some words that would help her on her last journey. I wrote to tell her how much I loved her, and how much she would be missed.
The disease was consuming her body by this time, and she was becoming very weak. She continued on this downhill slide for approximately three months, until she finally required in-home hospice care. Her condition deteriorated considerably, but she still loved it when I read her my latest poetry. She started sleeping more and more, as she was having her pain managed with morphine. Our thirty-eighth wedding anniversary was August 20, and she managed to hang on until then. The next day, she slipped into a coma, and died four days later. I was beyond devastated.
Cindy had asked me to get married again, even enlisting the help of her many girlfriends to find me a suitable mate. Before her death, that was a funny story. Immediately afterward, it was unthinkable! My whole world fell apart with her death. Cindy used to be the brightest spot in my life, my beacon, without her I was lost.
I asked around, trying to find a grief counseling group, and found a grief sharing group run by a church. It totally worked! The people there all shared their grief with me, and I returned home feeling ten times worse. Many of these folks had lost a loved one from five to ten years before, but still cried at the mention of the departed person. I didnt wish to be like them, so I decided to take action. I started in again on writing poetry, this time for me. It had worked with our pain, perhaps it would help with my suffering.
The first ones were rather dark, about loss and being alone. Gradually, they took a turn. They began to be about how happy I had been. Soon my poems were about being happy again. Quite a few of them were even whimsical; they had dragged me back from the brink of despair.
Instead of just being happy, I wanted to be in love again. Cindy was right; I would not do well alone. There were several ways for people to meet, but most of them wouldnt work for me. I had seen ad for an online dating site, and decided to give it a try. There was a questionnaire which contained dozens of questions that were specially formulated to find matches for people, based on similar views of important subjects. I filled it out, and hoped for the best. I received several matches, and I started dating at a furious pace. It was crazy, I was going on eleven dates a week (one each weekday evening, three each, Saturday, and Sunday). It was tiring. Although I was going on so many dates, I was getting more matches than I could handle. I didnt know what to do!
I became more selective in my judging of the respondents answers, and of their p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483656182

Book preview

100 Poems

To Heal A Broken Heart

Richard Rucker

Copyright © 2013 by Richard Rucker.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-5617-5

               Ebook         978-1-4836-5618-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/19/2013

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Contents

Foreword

First in My Heart

Be the Star

Death Holds no Fear

Love’s Last Dance

Death’s Messengers

My Treasure Within

Success

Big Brother in My Pocket

Real Wealth

If I Gave My Heart Away

If I Were a Clone

Beloved Cindy

Life Is Mortal Combat

Can I Live on Only Hope?

Good Breeding

Mood

Clouds Are Transitory

Love’s Duet

Jim Morrison Slammed His Doors

Hondo Died Yesterday

Racing Is Life

Love’s Balance Sheet

Love’s Search

Passion

Here Lies Bob

New Year

Madly Iridescent

That Thing in Your Chest

Is Your Heart on Ice?

Love’s Warriors

Out of the Dungeon

My Doctor Told Me

Real Life

Rebirth

I Swoon In Spring

Dark and Gray

Out of the Blue

Singularly Blessed

Fools Rush In

Looking for Love

My March Madness

Serendipity

Life Is What Happened

My Lover Cried Today

Powerless

Magic

For My Birthday, a New Life

I Am So Thankful

She Said Yes

Paradise Found

Evil Woman

Renaissance

My Last True Love I Have Found

No Way Out

I Was Okay Before We Met

I Loved You Before We Met

If All Your Dreams Came True

Now That I Am Sixty Four

My Heart Is No Longer Mine

If God Made Me Immortal

I Dare Not Tell You How Much I Love You

If I Could But Make Her Love Me…

I Smell Your Perfume on The Breeze

On Gossamer Wings

Cara Mia

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, My Dear

I Keep You in My Heart

Love Is Life

I Will See My Love Tonight

Dutch Girl

Reality Construct

Crazy Hearts

Love Slave

My Confession

New Year’s Cruise

Exceeding Your Expectations

My Greatest Pleasure

I Wish To Explore With You

Soulmate

Forever More

My Love and I Shall Ever Be

It Is I That Mourns For Thee

Hard and Long

Check Mate

I Win

Love’s Ultimate Winner

I Die When We Must Part

Sudden Death

Big Silver Bird

Mixed Marriage

Love’s Enveloping Cloud

Heroism

Panic Attack

Love Transcends Space, and Time

Killed By the Ferrari I Don’t Have

Doesn’t Play Well With Others

Our Love Song

I Will Cry At My Wedding

Our Wedding Day

The Luckiest of Men

Foreword

I see my life as being divided into four acts; they are (so far):

Act 1:    Before I met, and married my wife of thirty-eight years, Cindy.

Act 2:    The time between her diagnosis and death from pancreatic cancer, almost exactly two years.

Act 3:    The desolate period after Cindy’s death.

Act 4:    The miracle of finding Ria, the beauty that brought me back from the Abyss.

It was during Act two, that the poetry started. I was in shock when Cindy was found to have cancer. She and I had recently lost a friend to the disease, and it was not pretty. Coincidentally, I was diagnosed with cancer during this same time (but it turned out to be a false positive). Added to all of this, I was involved in a motorcycle accident that broke my back, eight ribs, and could have easily killed me. I started to write poetry while I was lying on my back, in a cast and unable to walk. The poems seemed to help both of us with pain. Just when I thought that things were getting better, Cindy took a turn for the worse, and quickly died.

After Cindy’s death, I found myself in a deep depression; it was a very dark place. Cindy had ordered me to find a new wife (she knew that I would not do well alone). I loved my wife, and enjoyed being married to her. Writing, and reading poems made me feel a little better every day, and I slowly began to dig myself out. It became apparent that I would survive.

Eventually, I realized that I wanted to be in love once more. I joined a dating site, and went on numerous dates, until I met Ria. At that point, I mounted a full frontal assault! I pulled out all the stops, and shamelessly wrote poems designed to make her fall in love with me! I wrote some very powerful stuff, and it appeared to work. How well? We got married in 2013, after a two-year courtship! I am so blissfully happy!

Richard Rucker

2013

First in My Heart

You were the first one that lived inside my Heart,

I believed that we would never, ever, part,

Now it seems, we are somewhat out of synch,

You will be going ahead of me; I have cause to think,

When I do get there, I’ll see you walking in the grass,

You will be again, my teenage lass,

We will have a billion lifetimes to catch up on our past,

The loving conversation, which will, forever, last.

Our bodies will be young, and pure, and strong,

And we will dance, for all Eternity long!

Be the Star

Are you the star of our Life?

Seizing opportunities, which are rife?

Or, would you rather be the One,

To let others have all the Fun?

I, personally, would prefer to Do,

To try All things, Exciting, and New!

When People talk of Life, quite thrilling,

I want the starring role, top billing!

How do you ensure you get the Credit?

That you survive the Final Edit?

Simply be all that you can be,

Live your Life, Worry Free!

Worry is another name for Fear,

A guarantee you won’t have good cheer!

If You have worried, in the Past,

Has it caused you to have a Blast?

Of course not, it only causes more worry,

My advice? Ditch it, in a Hurry!

Live your Life, banish Fear,

Change your Skies from Gray, to Clear!

Death Holds no Fear

You are my reward,

For doing nothing untoward,

Death holds no Fear,

You’ve shown me Heaven, My Dear,

When I’m in your arms,

I’m under the spell of your Charms,

You make all Time