Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill

Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.

Satan was swinging over me
the seduction of solitude
ever encroaching into my slippery thoughts.

I'm in a race to retrace back to what I forgot
but in a effort diluted by my distraction
I will surely rot
before I arrive to the place
where I might get off.

I missed the last stop with eyes
heavy with wine and sleep
and the poisonous concoctions
I so eagerly drink

Just a momentary quenching;
simply sated for the moment.

Chapped lips and a rattly voice
this is the brink of atonement.

There is a man on a stage
three feet from a crowd who gazes on
clearly enraged
though nonetheless engaged.

He is rabid with malice
and a darkness in his heart
tainted blood in his chalice

this coal will never spark.

c.e.m. 11.24.2014

Sophia leans over
the fresh made bed
of old Tom
and says to me

film on at cinema
(she's Polish
and her
English's broken)

is there now
I reply
folding neat
the old boy's clothes

it good film
I put away the clothes
in the top drawer
of the chest of drawers

you take me?
why would I do that?
it good film
after we go back

to my home for coffee
you want me
to meet your parents?
no they out

at some ex army thing
my Tatus was in War
over here
she says

I stare out the window
of Tom's room
not sure
I can make it

I say
maybe we could
be having **** after?
she suggests

the sky is off grey
the clouds are heavy
the grass below
is bright green

don't need ***
I reply
just a film
I look at her

standing there
blonde hair tied
in a ponytail
eyes bright

as new stars
you go?
she asks
dare I say no?

I muse thinking
of the times
she's nearly
seduced me

on the beds
in this old folks home
me a nurse
she a cleaner

a seductive one
at that
sure
I say

looking away
making sure
all the jobs are done
in Tom's room

so I can leave
she smiles
it be good have
coffee after

I nod
and down the hall outside
there's an old boy's
rattly laughter.