TIMEX AND PROSTATE CANCER THRILL THE SILENT BOOMER

The odds have just increased "against" achieving my oft stated goal to get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine before I kick the bucket. At age 78, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Early into his 80th year, it killed him. As he told me, sad regret in his voice, "I guess I got the aggressive kind." I'm 78 myself and on Monday April 18th, 2016, my primary doc felt a prostate nodule. Today, Monday April 25th, a urologist confirmed the lump on my prostate. He said, "I can always be wrong, but if I was a betting man, I'd say it's cancerous." After a stool sample is checked, I'm to go in for a biopsy. Going to be a lot of probing and sticking of things up my butt.

I don't understand all my emotions, but, driving away from the clinic, I was in some way energized by the thought of facing my own death. Don't know if inspiration will continue, but I've begun a book of poetry, called "Up Your Ass".  Here's the first poem in the series.

DIGITAL EXAM

Your doctor feels something,

Then you feel something.

After that, you and the grim reaper

Exchange cell phone numbers.

While your insurance company

Stands by for consultation, you

Hear your digital Timex ticking.

I can't help wondering how much more interested an agent and book publisher might be if I tell them they're racing against time to get me into print and the fact that more than 250 people—maybe more once the news gets out—are following my anticipated death? Will they race against my prostate cancer to see who wins? Will I have the balls to include this new fact in all my query letters to agents? After my publication and death, will all my fellow writers mourn, "Damn, I wish I had prostate cancer."