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"malaria" poems
1261 A Word dropped careless on a Page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The Wrinkled Maker lie Infection in the sentence breeds We may inhale Despair At distances of Centuries From the Malaria—
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10.2k
A Word dropped careless on a Page
Her man had left for California. Left her with nothing but the dog to fight the emptiness of her apartment. She told me she couldn't sleep anymore, told me she couldn't eat anymore. She got sick, so sick— swore that it was tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid fever— My experience led me to my own diagnosis; another case of a love long lost. I didn't have the heart to tell her. Instead I slept with her, despite the risk of sickness. She was afraid it was contagious. I laughed, told her I would take the risk. I stayed there two weeks, laughing. She could eat again, she could smile again, she made up love late into the night. It seemed like this quarantine was paradise. Till up one night there was a knock on the door. It seemed like her bags were already packed. It seemed like she was gone within the few moments it took to see who it was behind the door. Told me to lock up the apartment, leave the key under the *** of wilted hydrangeas. He was back from California. It seemed like she was cured— of her malaria, her yellow fever, her cholera— Just like that, a clean bill of health. A modern day miracle. It seemed to have been contagious, after all.
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Aug 21, 2013
Aug 21, 2013 at 1:06 PM UTC
Think I'm Coming Down With Something
should i shave my head female symptoms of a psychotic break amber rose twerks to *** drop hot bald women how to will your hallucinations away should i shave my head quiz what does it mean if i can't feel anything again borderline personality disorder and psychotic breaks bipolar disorder and psychotic breaks ptsd and psychotic breaks jeremih down on me facebook overcoming bitterness ptsd how to force yourself to stick to the goals you set malaria tegan and sara walking with a ghost sad people smoking cigarettes youtube how to **** myself and not make anyone sad
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Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 4:02 AM UTC
recent google searches
Albert had an ARTHRITIC knee which gave him curry The core of a BOIL is oft hard to extract Yesterday June experienced a server stomach CRAMP Too much dry weather can cause the outer DERMAL layer to peel Never read in a poorly lit room for you'll have EYE strain After eating spicy pickles dad had bad FLATULENCE Some twenty eight years ago my friend Helen had her GALLBLADDER removed They say that a glass of water will stop HICCUPS From end to end our INTESTINAL tract is thirty foot long On Sunday afternoon John broke his JAW playing football Some people have very boney KNUCKLES One of my work colleagues is prone to getting LARYNGITIS Colin suffers terribly with MIGRAINE headaches Sometimes people tend to endlessly NAVAL gaze A woman's OVARIES need to be checked on a regular basis for any abnormalities The PANCREAS secrets a hormone known as insulin QUININE once was extensively used in the treatment of Malaria Since my sister has put on weight she cannot find her RIBS The STIRRUP bone lies within one's ear Dan Aykroyd the famous comic star has webbed TOES Should you bump your ULNA bone it may give you reason to groan The VARICOSE VEINS is great aunt Ruby's legs were very pronounced Does anyone know of a good remedy for unsightly WARTS At our local hospital we have an antiquated X-RAY machine As tiredness and weariness sets in one YAWNS quite a lot ****** ZOSTER can make a person constantly itch
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Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
ABC Poem (Medical Stuff )
Children are walking in flour again, though these grains are the symptoms and the symptom is pain. Resting upon donated metal table, this child is lifeless with only a label around his ankle for identification. Part time doctors and full time others walk and pace and cry and panic around the mother, lifeless, with a document for identification. This is malaria. This is infant death. This is an epidemic of hysteria.
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Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 12:12 PM UTC
MALARIA
The manufacturer must live in Disney land, what a god can do with a twisted hand, who makes mice and calls them a marching band? yes the manufacturer must live in Disney land. The men with plastic heads live in some dolls beds and the munchinkins, (no kin to the other 'kins), friends to Dorothy, see it all. In the Disney town when the sun goes down and the night turns pink, you'd think the bars would crawl with cartoon characters, but I've seen them all on a picture screen, they don't bother me, watching ITV, I feel like Dorothy, yellow brick and click, back to Disney quick. If a god could only be like mickey mouse, eat green cheese in a popeyed house or the rainbow girl could curl me round her hand, I'd like to live right here in this Disney land.
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Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 5:08 AM UTC
Malaria
Thanks again America. Long ago, you sent me to war prepared to shed my blood. I was lucky, mine was spared. But some hitchhikers came home with me: tiny, wriggling, tropical parasites. They love my aging body. They are true like ****** They cannot leave me till I die. Occasionally, they decide to dance. No doubt, they enjoy themselves. All they cost me is fever and appetite, sleep and peace of mind. After all these decades, you still want my blood, but now you are content to trouble it inside my veins. Thanks Again America.
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Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 3:57 PM UTC
The Malaria Poem
The leopard and the lion chose to become friends, For they were all proud of claws on their paws They each glorified one another for their mighty, Ability to live on meat of other fauna throughout a year, They each admired one another for running speed, They each remained firm and loyal to one rule; Lions don’t eat leopards neither leopards eat lions. They felt warmth in their companionship without verve, Until the time they initiated a certain joint venture; To hunt an antelope as it was famed to be the sweetest, Again, there had remained one antelope only in the world, They dilly and not dallied anyhow about such glittering project, They both endevoured to set forth by each dawn for a whole year, Tediously hunting throughout a day, the lion doing a great part, Setting ambuscades and arduously sleuthing to orient on trail, The leopard severally fainted in the field due to exhaustion, On one eve of christmas day, the lion captured the prey, When the leopard was a sleep shivering in fevers of malaria, Their prey was a middle aged female antelope with swollen hips. The leopard was sparked to fire of life by a mysterious fillip, He boldly requested work, now to help the lion in carrying, The un-suspecting lion relinquished the carcass to the leopard, Feat of shrewdness gripped the leopard, he took off Running away with a lightening speed, the antelope on his mouth, The lion again began to chase, shouting to the leopard, To be a gentleman and stop running, for them to share the plunder, The leopard never listened, he craftily climbed to the apex, Of the most tall and most slippery tree, he perched at the peak With the antelope on his muscular mandibles of voracity, The lion remained at the stem, wailing like a toddler His family does not climb trees, not even a shrub, The lion wailed, using all styles of wailing, Pleading with the leopard to donate even an iota, Not even a small piece of antelope bone dropped To drop on the ground for the lion to taste, Human leopards are not good hunting companions.
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Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
A LEOPARD IS NOT A GOOD HUNTING COMPANION
The leopard and the lion chose to become friends, For they were all proud of claws on their paws They each glorified one another for their mighty, Ability to live on meat of other fauna throughout a year, They each admired one another for running speed, They each remained firm and loyal to one rule; Lions don’t eat leopards neither leopards eat lions. They felt warmth in their companionship without verve, Until the time they initiated a certain joint venture; To hunt an antelope as it was famed to be the sweetest, Again, there had remained one antelope only in the world, They dilly and not dallied anyhow about such glittering project, They both endevoured to set forth by each dawn for a whole year, Tediously hunting throughout a day, the lion doing a great part, Setting ambuscades and arduously sleuthing to orient on trail, The leopard severally fainted in the field due to exhaustion, On one eve of christmas day, the lion captured the prey, When the leopard was a sleep shivering in fevers of malaria, Their prey was a middle aged female antelope with swollen hips. The leopard was sparked to fire of life by a mysterious fillip, He boldly requested work, now to help the lion in carrying, The un-suspecting lion relinquished the carcass to the leopard, Feat of shrewdness gripped the leopard, he took off Running away with a lightening speed, the antelope on his mouth, The lion again began to chase, shouting to the leopard, To be a gentleman and stop running, for them to share the plunder, The leopard never listened, he craftily climbed to the apex, Of the most tall and most slippery tree, he perched at the peak With the antelope on his muscular mandibles of voracity, The lion remained at the stem, wailing like a toddler His family does not climb trees, not even a shrub, The lion wailed, using all styles of wailing, Pleading with the leopard to donate even an iota, Not even a small piece of antelope bone dropped To drop on the ground for the lion to taste, Human leopards are not good hunting companions.
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Sweat dripping from my puke, trapped and chained by an IV..my inner stereo screamed from 102.9 and on top of my ride I felt totaled. Darkness and alone with empathy blind to my dungeon. Why do you treat me like this? You don’t even know me! You don’t really care! You only care about yourself! Give me a second of your time! Don’t you see my heart is bleeding?! I was justified and as usual my finger went to point but at that point I realized I’ve always been the MARK. HAHA did it take disease to realize the disease. You see from the outside and don’t we many look so pretty? Hip Hip Hooray they say to my accomplishment but inner drive selfish like the parasite. I could have lived my whole life white picket ignorant, world successful and none the wiser. But I can’t trade it for nothing I had to die through a sickness to see the re-mastering of my soul by His remedy… Blood........ Light on “Would you go again?” Are you kidding! I’d go again if it kills me!.... No half and half I’m all in… I understand and want to Love like my own marrow. I’m coming back to you kids..I love you and no circumstance matters for this man. My unseen finally got engaged to the fire of my actions and……………. I DO
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Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 8:48 AM UTC
“Thank you Malaria”
Without a lover who'd slash your heart Or an impudent cut across your cheek by your step mother Without the pain, without things to bother Without the mosquito and the rat, Without Malaria and plague to smother You will be living in paradise Dear friend, you just realized This is Earth, the devil's prada.
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Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 3:14 AM UTC
Optionless
A hot hell at the bottom of the earth a cesspool of filth and disease In the 3rd world, where they will chop off your arm sooner than say hi war and genocide are the national sports and the only souvenirs are aids and malaria
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Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011 at 6:45 PM UTC
HELL ON EARTH
Veasna Ta Kvak recording playback over Chinatown cafe again while recounting recent events to journal pages muddled from frequent exchanges bag to bag (Been to Taipei airport, Bali, Vancouver, most recently) blind fate blind fate shower me with Indian daisies and photographs of Railway New Delhi! Hanoi Old Quarter/ Vietnam monsoon/ evening on balcony/ Darjeeling water boiled and filtered anti-malaria golden drink for honeylungs and spring-soul morningtide under moonlight canopy of Avalokiteśvara the fruitful Bodhisattva! English lessons and future hourless comely chimera in sleep phenomenon Benares phantasmagoria YELLOW (near Mata Anandamai Ghat) speaking to Aghori prophecy Kala Bhairava FIERCE ILLUSORY APOCALYPSE FAMILIAR WHERE IS YOUR NOOSE? the Ganges is full of lice and flowers candlewax melted into holy water sickness equal to harmony & jubilant eyeclose and mouthcurl. The future mysteries in Mexico City poorboy $2 mystic orb jade green reflective underneath dirt now in North American bottom white four floor house basement suite coffee table. Visions indivisible from the Viridian roundly haze but surefire in their accuracy I'm absolute and universally formed for the next few cacophonous decades!
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Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 1:47 AM UTC
Early Rest in the Chinatown Cafe
White eyes , ebony smooth skin Like chocolate and cream A room full of sleeping children How peaceful they dream Yet they are not sleeping A simple mistake They are in a coma From which they never wake On their blood feeds Mosquito flies Every half minute A child dies Malaria nets at a few dollars each Could save the life of a child In the rest of the world Malaria has been exiled And now occurs A terrible thought If the rest of the world was black Would these nets not be bought? Do you think?
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Apr 2, 2010
Apr 2, 2010 at 5:33 AM UTC
How Peaceful A Room Of Sleeping Children
I saw the smooth hands of children grow calloused, sanded by the empty hopes that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails. Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock, I thought they were just urban children, or the ones in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault. That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer. I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat. I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways. Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed. Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke. Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics; This one is gone, the one on Brown street died, We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood. Charity elevates them into a an opportunity— A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins. God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it. I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart. His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy, The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people Both someone’s child, both like dogs. I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman, A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour. I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself. And that is the problem.
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Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
In A City Close To Me
I saw the smooth hands of children grow calloused, sanded by the empty hopes that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails. Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock, I thought they were just urban children, or the ones in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault. That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer. I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat. I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways. Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed. Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke. Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics; This one is gone, the one on Brown street died, We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood. Charity elevates them into a an opportunity— A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins. God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it. I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart. His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy, The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people Both someone’s child, both like dogs. I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman, A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour. I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself. And that is the problem.
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Numerous number systems beyond the real: complex numbers, octonions, omnions which can eat whole black       holes. It's axiomatic that your personal history, preferences, how you feel account for nothing at all. $30 buys a flock of chickens for a needy family (International Rescue       Committee) $29 gets a girl a school uniform (CARE), for $300 you can stock a fish       pond (Heifer International) $69 can start a female entrepreneur in the sewing business (Mercy       Corps) $5 will buy a bed net that protects a family from mosquitoes (Against       Malaria) 20th century experiments demonstrated that electrical charge is       quantized; that is, it comes in multiples of individual small units called the elementary charge, e,       approximately equal to 1.602 x 10-19 coulombs (except for particles called quarks which have       charges that are multiples of 1/3e). Why has the experimentalism of the avant-garde, which has failed in       the novel, succeeded in poetry? Because poetry is always experimental; while the novel, on       the contrary, by its nature, cannot be . . . which is to say that experimentalism is synonymous       with poetry, and that applied to the novel, it leads simply to the substitution of the novel with       poetry. --Alberto Moravia Man made the town, Fibonacci inflated zero to be the wheel around which the universe turns and language is the soul walking and talking quietly or going angrily to war. "Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice is at all.       For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched."       As are words. Joan Didion thought the scariest stanza in all of poetry begins Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. The elements, the material penumbra, irresolvable for the mortal, readily dissolve in words and numbers.
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Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
The Scariest Stanza in All of Poetry
Numerous number systems beyond the real: complex numbers, octonions, omnions which can eat whole black       holes. It's axiomatic that your personal history, preferences, how you feel account for nothing at all. $30 buys a flock of chickens for a needy family (International Rescue       Committee) $29 gets a girl a school uniform (CARE), for $300 you can stock a fish       pond (Heifer International) $69 can start a female entrepreneur in the sewing business (Mercy       Corps) $5 will buy a bed net that protects a family from mosquitoes (Against       Malaria) 20th century experiments demonstrated that electrical charge is       quantized; that is, it comes in multiples of individual small units called the elementary charge, e,       approximately equal to 1.602 x 10-19 coulombs (except for particles called quarks which have       charges that are multiples of 1/3e). Why has the experimentalism of the avant-garde, which has failed in       the novel, succeeded in poetry? Because poetry is always experimental; while the novel, on       the contrary, by its nature, cannot be . . . which is to say that experimentalism is synonymous       with poetry, and that applied to the novel, it leads simply to the substitution of the novel with       poetry. --Alberto Moravia Man made the town, Fibonacci inflated zero to be the wheel around which the universe turns and language is the soul walking and talking quietly or going angrily to war. "Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice is at all.       For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched."       As are words. Joan Didion thought the scariest stanza in all of poetry begins Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. The elements, the material penumbra, irresolvable for the mortal, readily dissolve in words and numbers.
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her poems pierce us to our core.. we must surrender to her choice of words.. a wrong word she despairs to malaria compares.. perhaps a way inside enter her two doors.. watch these switch and intertwine.. heaven/hell soul/society light/slant morning/night.. find ourselves on the / still.. as we wrestle are we grasping for an Emily Ungraspable..?
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Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 12:06 PM UTC
grasping Emily
Quinine is used as medicine to treat malaria in humans, and quinine was originally derived from a species of plant named Cinchona; I wonder haw many new medicines can be discovered in plants, animals, insects, bacteria and in all the species of living-beings on this wonderful Creation we call Earth?
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Oct 16, 2021
Oct 16, 2021 at 6:02 PM UTC
Medicines Discovered in Nature
Were there no stalkers or high school shooters in the 50s? Or are social web sites just more influential than our parents think? Did texts and tweets raise the *** drives and black out drinking? Or is the thinning atmosphere contributing to mass judgement impairment? It's strange that we have a cure for small pox, can remove cancerous cells but can't convince some to drive home sober. It's fitting, in a way, that Mother Nature has figured out a system to keep the human population relatively in check: we have the technology to survive diabetes and malaria but access to delicious saturated fats is slowing down and stopping hearts from properly earning a living. Progress has ended many terrible ailments and has expanded understanding and brains but has also given more creative ways to be lazy and irresponsible. A double edged sword, with most likely more benefits than setbacks, we have all become hypocrites under advancement. We learn of the monstrocities in far away places we will never see, yet still do the very things that contribute to its existence. Sweatshops? I'll buy an anti-slavery t-shirt! (made my children. in sweatshops.) Pesticides?! I'll go organic! (and perpetuate pollution with the fuel used to import the goods. and continue terrible working conditions) It's impossible to resist the inevitables, like death and setbacks and corruption so sometimes it's best not to fight but to just do what you want, even if it's stupid or lethal or involves making an *** of yourself. We're all stupid at sometime and susceptible to faulty thinking, and sometimes advanced thinking leads to inventions that create crutches for living or coping, but the fields level out and global common sense always balances individuals who lack the ability to be actively responsible.
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May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012 at 10:14 PM UTC
Sweetly Sweet
Were there no stalkers or high school shooters in the 50s? Or are social web sites just more influential than our parents think? Did texts and tweets raise the *** drives and black out drinking? Or is the thinning atmosphere contributing to mass judgement impairment? It's strange that we have a cure for small pox, can remove cancerous cells but can't convince some to drive home sober. It's fitting, in a way, that Mother Nature has figured out a system to keep the human population relatively in check: we have the technology to survive diabetes and malaria but access to delicious saturated fats is slowing down and stopping hearts from properly earning a living. Progress has ended many terrible ailments and has expanded understanding and brains but has also given more creative ways to be lazy and irresponsible. A double edged sword, with most likely more benefits than setbacks, we have all become hypocrites under advancement. We learn of the monstrocities in far away places we will never see, yet still do the very things that contribute to its existence. Sweatshops? I'll buy an anti-slavery t-shirt! (made my children. in sweatshops.) Pesticides?! I'll go organic! (and perpetuate pollution with the fuel used to import the goods. and continue terrible working conditions) It's impossible to resist the inevitables, like death and setbacks and corruption so sometimes it's best not to fight but to just do what you want, even if it's stupid or lethal or involves making an *** of yourself. We're all stupid at sometime and susceptible to faulty thinking, and sometimes advanced thinking leads to inventions that create crutches for living or coping, but the fields level out and global common sense always balances individuals who lack the ability to be actively responsible.
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Sometimes I think I’m crumbling from the inside out. I can feel a parasite knawing at the coffin encasing my soul and exposing the pretense of overconfidence for what it truly is- dust. There was a time when a smile from a man on the street made me feel special. Now it tenses my muscles and knocks on the bedroom door of fight and flight. If it came down to it, I know that acceptance would win. I once saw a TV special about how coffins are becoming larger and larger because of obesity. When I was eleven, my brain was overweight with the awareness of the novel I would write and the ballet company I would star in. Lately, the obesity of my dreams is directly related to the size of the graveyard residing in my brain like an icy sea frozen mid-breath. My best friend hurts herself because she doesn't think she’s pretty. I renounced my faith a long time ago, but I always pray that she won’t be among the one in four women who are ***** because a man told them they were pretty. The leering, drunken man outside the movie theater built my coffin. The disease of his hand stroking my shoulder put out the fire in my brain like malaria kills 1.2 million people each year. Like the 1,871 American women who were sexually assaulted today. My skin still crawls where he touched me and my mind still recoils when I catch myself wondering if my oversized sweater and Converse sneakers were too provocative.
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Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 1:12 AM UTC
Dust
From home in the morning, I take the bus routinely As often as the sun rises Or as I, asleep, assume it rises Behind the veil of Washington's overcast But today I am awake for it all And watch the caravan of I-5 Puttering in inches, billowing exhaust As I imagine the dust kicked by as many oxen All hoping to reach the Emerald City But some of them don't make it Or decide to settle elsewhere Sometimes even my fellow passengers are lost Perhaps they've gone to malaria or the pox And I pray I'll see them again tomorrow For when the sun goes down Or I assume it does as my eyes close We've drunk the waters of that Platonic river That as far as I remember begins with an L And, reincarnated, come back up as always
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Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 4:33 PM UTC
The Ascension on I-5 North
When ever I touch the ground that’s hot With the sole of my foot that’s bare, I never fail to recall a time, And the memories lingering there, Of a day when I was just a boy, Beneath equatorial skies, And the tactic used to keep me indoors While the missionaries rested their eyes. My mother was sick with malaria The curse of the tropic zone, And while my dad was away on the hunt Their station became our home. And after lunch when the sky was hot And the morning’s work was done They took my shoes away from me To keep me out of the sun. The veranda air was still as a grave, Not a sound to could be heard outside Save the click-click-click from the beetles And the grasshoppers jumping to hide. Or the scratching scaly slither, Of a snake on the flowerbed verge, Or the distant cry of the crested crane, These are the sounds that merge. The sight of the distant Koru hills Shimmering in the haze Beyond the frangipani trees Return once more to my gaze, And the prickly spiky Crown of Thorns That lined the garden ways, These are the sights that ribbon back From my early Kenyan days. The smell of the room was a mixture Of scents on the garden air, And creosote coming up through the floor From the pilings under there, And paraffin from the pressure lamps Which hissed as they gave us light. With the hint of oil of pyrethrum Sprayed round the eves at night. The step to my door should I venture At noon was as hot as a stove, The soil on the paths and driveway Would burn if ever I strove. And the thorns in the earth would pr ick me As I cautiously picked my way through To the shade of the frangipani tree, From there I took in the view. So, when ever I touch the ground that’s hot With the sole of my foot that’s bare, I never fail to recall a time, And the memory lingering there, Of a day when I was just a boy, Where the images I find, Set smells and sights and sounds of Africa sizzling in my mind. Redding, California July 4th 2005 temperature 105° Fahrenheit
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May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC
The Hot Earth
When ever I touch the ground that’s hot With the sole of my foot that’s bare, I never fail to recall a time, And the memories lingering there, Of a day when I was just a boy, Beneath equatorial skies, And the tactic used to keep me indoors While the missionaries rested their eyes. My mother was sick with malaria The curse of the tropic zone, And while my dad was away on the hunt Their station became our home. And after lunch when the sky was hot And the morning’s work was done They took my shoes away from me To keep me out of the sun. The veranda air was still as a grave, Not a sound to could be heard outside Save the click-click-click from the beetles And the grasshoppers jumping to hide. Or the scratching scaly slither, Of a snake on the flowerbed verge, Or the distant cry of the crested crane, These are the sounds that merge. The sight of the distant Koru hills Shimmering in the haze Beyond the frangipani trees Return once more to my gaze, And the prickly spiky Crown of Thorns That lined the garden ways, These are the sights that ribbon back From my early Kenyan days. The smell of the room was a mixture Of scents on the garden air, And creosote coming up through the floor From the pilings under there, And paraffin from the pressure lamps Which hissed as they gave us light. With the hint of oil of pyrethrum Sprayed round the eves at night. The step to my door should I venture At noon was as hot as a stove, The soil on the paths and driveway Would burn if ever I strove. And the thorns in the earth would pr ick me As I cautiously picked my way through To the shade of the frangipani tree, From there I took in the view. So, when ever I touch the ground that’s hot With the sole of my foot that’s bare, I never fail to recall a time, And the memory lingering there, Of a day when I was just a boy, Where the images I find, Set smells and sights and sounds of Africa sizzling in my mind. Redding, California July 4th 2005 temperature 105° Fahrenheit
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Why can't one of the bugs That bit my feet Carry malaria And end my existence For me? Why can't I trade me life My electric pulse My energy With someone else who Wants it? Why can't everyone Ignore me, rather than Just most people? Why can't they make it Easier? All of those people in accidents. All of those people who Didn't have a choice. I want to trade places. I wish to.
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Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 6:54 PM UTC
While Walking "Home"
just a hint of fever and he recoils                      recalls when first the malaria hit him like a a dump truck full of iron garden gnomes left him shivering                            sweating swimming                 in pain deeper than the greatest                  Great Lake before it broke and he was smashed                          flat left crapulent and woozy a still stagnant pond where parasites permanently petulantly            patrol awaiting their turn to make another visit and say hello again hello    ~mce
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Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 5:10 PM UTC
Nosophobia
She had heart of darkness. I couldn't hold my head, Nor my eyes to the sight. As she closed the sides down On the bug canopy, I took another one away. As she says to me, "There are two of you, don't you see?One that kills and one that loves."   I feel as if I've swallowed Straight razors and snails. Napalms and A-bombs. Palm trees once beloved green Blown to smithereens. Wild and over grown Everything and everyone. Gardenias equal sweet peace. Real freedom stings when It's nothing but the "peoples" Stark opinions of themselves. Streaming blank bamboo shoots Into the night's black iris. Shadowy figures Bend triangles into shape: To straighten you out, To put you down. (Don't let them) Their methods are unsound Yet, I see no method to be found. I see only the cauterized remains of Arms, legs, hands and feet As they sit and swing Grossly from the burning palm trees. There's something happening out here. The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. He is dying, I think. He hates all this. He hates it! He reads poetry out loud! And in a voice. . . Oh, this man and his forces. It smelled like slow death in there, malaria, nightmares. It was the end of the river, all right. The great stone face of the temple shone out As we began to fade out Into the end. . . Oh, "The horror, the horror. . ."
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Aug 21, 2013
Aug 21, 2013 at 10:54 PM UTC
A Knock On The Door