MS and poetry

I have just done a 4-week MS and poetry, it was a small group of the tutor, Georgi Gill, me and 1 other person. we looked at a poem every week to give us an insight into writing, discussed those poems, we took a cuppa break and then wrote a poem of our own, I really got a lot out of this course. It was a very cathartic process and helped me express myself, something that I have, and I am sure many of you will also have found hard to do. I wanted to share my poems with you guys, they are based on different topics, but all include at some point an inference to MS.

Banana skin

The Banana skin of MS made me feel like my life was slip, sliding away, give up walking, toil with talking, retire from work and feel like you shirk, from freedom to captivity in on step, try to keep positive you can’t lose your pep.

Frustration abounds well that’s how I feel, I think in my own mind. I am keeping it real. MS my captor an ever-present in life, if a cure could be found it would ease this strife, slipping and sliding in my daily routine the banana skin of MS is dangerous even when not seen.

An icon of danger the innocent stranger in its own way, a double-edged sword, that is innocent yet deadly as time goes by, keeps me focused on surviving, we all have to try, some days I feel lucky to be alive, others it’s a struggle just to survive.

Dreams can come true

Is ambition a dream

do your wants and needs have an arrival or expiry date?

Where am I going and where have I been, recalling memories of things that I have seen.

there was a time when all of that was a dream.

when and how did it happen? Was the plan achieved?

Can I, will I, did I, are all questions that I’ve asked

in a dream to take me to the future and deliver me from the past

Dreaming of retiring early, of being financially secure

dreams from my youth that were innocent and pure.

An aspirational dream, that was well on its way, until that fateful day

I was diagnosed with MS what more can you say, but life for me is not over

I have plenty of things still to do and wish you, health, wealth and happiness in everything that your dreams bring to you.

Leg Tremors

Is this really happening to me,

Control although easy to imagine has become impossible to me,

As the lightness or loss of weight sensation, an out of body experience transcends my imagination.

I detest that feeling of loss of control, although strangely the rhythmical discourse that my legs are experiencing does make me smile?

Waves lapping onto a sandy beach,

Sheets blowing in the Autumn wind, creating a rhythm to write music to.

A cascade of energy from my waist to my toes, that somehow overtakes me and leaves me in its wake,

A comfortable feeling, even enjoyable to a fashion,

Which feels like it isn’t really happening to me.

Pain does not enter nor leave my body,

but is there transfixed in the back of my mind almost as an afterthought,

can this really be happening to me.

MS my Captor

As an MS sufferer I’ve wandered through the years why MS had to pick me? It brings me close to tears. With all, its many guises side effects and all I just wanted to tell it I may trip but I won’t fall. I know that it will beat me of that you can be sure, but I live my life in hope that one day we will find a cure.

The disease has many faces, complications by the score, but try as it may I will fight it and try to stay off the floor. It takes your legs, your hands and your arms, it can also take your voice l am told, but I will continue to fight and find ways of keeping it on hold.

I was very fortunate and had a life pre-MS, but since it fell upon me life begun to be a mess, but with my friends and family around me I will fight this awful Scourge and with the wind in the right direction it’s effects I hope to purge.

Remitting and relapsing those stages came and went and now were secondary progressive It’s gone to that extent, MS has changed me a lot over these 11 years, But I will not allow it to realise my tears. I find myself captured, sometimes angry, sometimes afraid, but the illness itself in place it has stayed.

I think of myself as lucky, as I had a life before and the MS although progressing has affected others more, I am sad when I see youngsters affected by MS Blight and will do my best to help everyone who is with me in this fight. When you meet people, who are at a stage of the illness that you know you're heading to, you give thanks for the small blessings and what time is still with you.

I find my mind being drawn to absent friends who sadly now have gone, I smile in recognition of the memories that they leave and will take this fight to MS until my time is done.

Regards

Iain Elder