Michael Langston

DUST OF SNOW
by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Cancer cells are dependent on glucose for energy, so lowering the amount of available glucose by eating a ketogenic diet and utilizing ketones for energy instead is an anti-cancer strategy that makes a lot of sense, and is one of the first things I’d try.

MY SECRET LOVE
by Michael Langston

Across the floor, not far from me,
Within this dreary factory,
My secret love sits busily
Amidst the noise and drudgery.

So beautiful, so young and fair,
To her, none other can compare;
And trying vainly not to stare,
I watch the back of her long blonde hair:

In all my life I’ve never seen,
In all the world there’s never been
A sight more lovely than this scene:
This long blonde hair of golden sheen.

Passing time will soon erase,
An empty chair will soon replace
All this wealth of untold grace
She brings into this joyless place.

If broken dreams could be made new,
If secret wishes could all come true,
Then I would ask for only two:

To touch her hair…and hold her too.

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

When adverse effects of Prozac appeared, rather than taking the child off the drug, doctors added another drug that is even worse: the antipsychotic Risperdal. When adverse effects arise from a drug, patients are almost always placed on yet another drug.

BACH’S MUSIC
by Michael Langston

an open window
through which
I sometimes see
a fleeting glimpse…
of heaven
and eternity

I WROTE HER NAME UPON THE STRAND
by Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.