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Johnny Zhivago Aug 2013
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.
unfinished but did you bother to the end?
When spring arrives
From every tree tip
Flowers will bloom,
But those children
Who fell with last autumn’s leaves
Will never return.
Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, ‘Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.’

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
‘Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.’
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.’
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.’

The lamp said,
‘Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.’

The last twist of the knife.
Lendon Partain Mar 2013
I need to **** my own brains out.
**** the inside of my thigh
/
If self harm existed,
I'd be the definition. Even as a child.
Epitome.
I was the art of chaos.
Reviled taste in the mouth of structure of humanity.
In the eyes of hurricanes,
death emits it's life from my heart chasm,
a dark laceration that continually deprecates the vision of self and image.

When one revokes such practices,
when one covers such motive to make others happy,
destruction of the dreamer will ensue.
Beyond all of the folly in these steps
We continue this dance macabre in order to destroy the civilized that we see in and around us.
Please take this.
Please ingest it into your ears, and masticate it in the gears teeth of your brain.
Hold heart to hand.
Take a breath.
Hold atrial canals to the rib cage that holds it as a cell that completes your bodice.
If you must seek a destruction. Let it be for self intention.
For self seclusion.
Let it be for your own self imprisonment.
Not the caging of your existence by: a state,
a religion,
a county,
a dogma of any sort,
no to ecology,
no to misanthropy.


"Yay", ye shall say. To self worth.
Purcy Flaherty Oct 2018
We rode our horses cross-country,
Through the nations of the unknown,
We survived the snowy mountains,
And lived off the land and the trees,
Through hot summers and cold winters,
Through deserts storms; we circled the trails,
We learned from the birds and the bees,
We hunted the elk, the deer and the buffalo,
We fished to feed the travelling spirit,
We turned acorns into flour,
We set our senses free.

$
Europeans brought Soldiers, missionaries, smallpox, the common cold, scalping, reservations, whisky and the rush for gold.
You brought land grabbers, oil barons, fencing, bricks, barbed wire and all the accoutrements of your civilised culture!
You made this country your own; and forced it's 1st nation people into a 3rd world culture.

You ***** the land of its resources, filled it with waste.
You wasted the water to make coke, burgers,
and fantasy towns.

To reign supreme in a new-world without shame!

Savages!
Meat and potatoes!
Ever since day one, you were the only one
That could guide me through my problems to overcome
There was something about your presence
That made me live life without hesitance
Yeah my life is different today
But if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t look to God and pray
That I have the will to get through every day
You’ve blessed me like a sneeze, achoo
And I am never, ever going to forget you


When “I have cancer” came out of your mouth
I knew life was going to go south
But you, you didn’t let that phase you
And that is why so many give praise to you
Your will to live and win the fight
Was the only thing you had in sight
You never gave up or waved the white flag
Instead you lived your life without a drag
When I think about your motivation to never give up
It always leaves me all shook up
You had a personality to die for
And that is what made people love you more and more
You are the best mom ever
And I’ll never ever forget you


Cancer is the most evil thing
Because of the sorrow that it brings
One day, someone will find the cure
I know it in my heart for sure
They found one for smallpox, polio, measles, and mumps
So that must mean that someday cancer will look like a chump
I love you mom, don’t ever forget that
I’m never ever going to forget you


The time I spent with you after school in seventh grade
Are memories of mine that will never fade
I always made sure you were doing okay
And if you weren’t I would always try to make your day
From the talks we had to the laughs we shared
Nothing will ever be compared
You will always have a place in my heart
So therefore we will never be apart
I’ll never forget you
This was my first poem I wrote I though was truly good. I wrote it in dedication to my mom who's life was taken by cancer in May of 2007.
HaikuGuy May 2014
this world
is a dewdrop world
but yet... but

Master Issa wrote this after the death of his beloved daughter from smallpox...

Even though he understood that we are dewdrops only here on earth for a moment, he was devastated
Julie Grenness Feb 2016
To vaccinate or not?
What about diseases we forgot?
Like Polio, T.B. or Smallpox?
Kids can't take peanuts to school, or not,
Bu they can bring Measles and Whooping Cough.
What other diseases have we forgot?
To vaccinate or not?
A topical theme. Feedback welcome.
robin Mar 2015
i have no patience for you your feet sunk in the mud im leaving even if you stay behind.
nosebleed in a public restroom irrational shame,
dark stains on the carpet and we strain with the task of memory.
if your feet hold you back cut them off at the joint.
self-dissections in the lab,
case studies of the effects of
obsolete diseases. black plague typhoid smallpox
specimen pins/surgical staples, an efficient kind of suicide.
ill try not to smudge your lipstick when i kick in your teeth,
your white-knuckled hands digging grooves in your thighs.
efficiency as poetry.
brutality as poetry.
█████ as poetry.
i am trying to make a perfect vacuum of myself, purer than space. purer than black holes.
this is for the dirt ground into my jeans for the rusted nails in my walls , this is for you,
your delusions, your lover impaled on a sundial and you weep to complete the scene,
admire your artistry.
this is how to make feathers look like armor,
this is how to renounce your body,
how to be a living parody how to give up on yourself,
from a vulture to a prince. wren to a gryphon.
the water i drink is infested.
with eggs hatching in my throat i become more than myself,
mother to a thousand maggots.i name them all.i divide my love evenly among them.
here i staple my grievances to the doors of the church,
here i scream of plagues in the streets, filth in shining skyscrapers,
here i imagine myself cassandra here i prophesy misery
here i staple my grievances to your chest where you cannot brush them off this time.
you licking the doors, trying to taste what's gone, finding splinters in your tongue,
stuck in the braces you had
when you were twelve.
{i curse all metal grow more crooked by the day,
crooked man in a crooked house crooked cat on a crooked fence i can still rip your throat out with crooked teeth} you glisten you glisten you shine
like oil in the pan,
oil dripping from the car,
oil on top of the lake. lover where are the matches the pilot lights gone out again,
burn off the blockage till the heat shines blue.
domestic arson.in the forest you gather tinder,
too damp to burn clean.you smoke us out of our home.
leave it for someone better, stinking like a forest fire.the soundtrack is so loud i cant hear what you say,
im shouting with the strings it all sounds the same when you close your eyes,
smoke-blind you whisper from across the room and ive never hated you more than i do now.
i read your lips i write your words i staple them to the bedroom door i kick in your teeth too fast too fast a reminder that this isn’t pretty, eggs in the throat an exoskeleton too brittle to block the blows.
[me fetal on the kitchen floor me standing with ****** boots]
i count the teeth,
mark them as a symptom.
shedding the physical/shedding teeth.
shedding children from an open mouth.
Pearson Bolt Nov 2016
come one, come all.
gather 'round, gather 'round the table.
you'll find your invitations—
corporations' coupons—packed
between stories of Indigenous
People, shot by militarized cops in riot gear.
Water Protectors defending the river
while a black snake rears to poison the well.
tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades
replace ragged blankets draped in smallpox.
a tradition rooted in genocide
upheld in frigid North Dakota.
no need to ponder
the lasting legacy
of a leader who campaigned
on "hope" and "change." a hypocrite
continuing a tradition of colonial
aggression, lying by omission.
just another facet
of his presidential profession.
so drown the news of a fascist's
election in gravy and eggnog,
viscous substances to gorge
yourselves on. Nazis vandalizing
black churches with swastikas
must've escaped your notice.
vacuous, preaching
that Jesus is the reason
for the season, but i think
your savior would flip
your Thanksgiving Table over.
flimsy pretenses of gratitude
discarded hours later, chasing deals
before your stomach could even settle.
your brand new 4K TV
cost you over $4K, but couldn't give you
a clearer picture. you continue to disregard
the smoke signs and headlines,
pursuing the material.
consume!
I wrote this poem this weekend, sickened by the ads and coupons distracting from the election of a fascist, the opppression of the Indigenous Peoples defending Standing Rock, and the reprehensible acquiescence of the neoliberal hack in the Oval Office.
Francie Lynch Jul 2014
I regret (usually too late), the authority
Of the sitting government.
Any government.
Once in power (I regret that word)
The back room broking good ole boys
At the exit polls loose their senses,
Sight and hearing.
Feelings get hurt.
Taxes are wasted.
The trough gouging is too loud.
I resent lying.

I regret (mostly from the evidence),
The too full baskets of organized religion
Overflowing from indulgences;
The Roman fingers
Poaching coins for another memorial window;
The glass cathedrals
And get-a-way cars.
I resent hypocrisy.

I regret people don't arrive on time
(no matter the time);
Especially when outside anyplace waiting,
Perhaps a light for a smoke is needed,
Or there's inclement weather,
The nearby company is distasteful.
Waiting dinner.
Late children are the worse.
They cause worry.
I resent the selfishness of time.

I regret being diseased,
And hated for it.
When in remission I'm loved.
Active, not so much.
The know-its say it's a matter of will.
Like you can cure
Cancer or smallpox with thoughts.
The one symptom alone, hurt,
Would need temples of meditating chanters!
I resent condemnation.

I regret failed relationships:
Family, friends and women.
My thoughts are mine;
If I said everything
You'd have a different opinion
Of what I am.
So we don't
Because we can't
Say things: we would appear as socio-paths.
We think good and bad;
Therefore we're real.
A virtual humanity.
I resent blathering.

I regret an educational system
That believes in paradigm shifts;
Spouting new-age lingo:
If it's not broken, break it;
Selling out to athletics,
Or Mr., Ms and Mrs. know
All about education;
They went to school.
Bullies top the list.
I resent permissive parents.

Most of all,
I regret
My resentments.
Мaggie Jul 2013
the
small fox
in the
small box
had
smallpox

i guess i am hopeless at scrabble
The good ole days were enjoyed with ease,
There was less to enjoy because of disease;
There were fewer people to dress and feed
Thanks to childhood mortality.


The middle-class were few and greedy,
Thanks to needs and poverty;
We could find work and be employed,
But tenure turned to workplace injury.

Illiteracy was common,
Innumeracy, our fate,
Due to the high school drop out rate.

Polio and smallpox kept in check
The burgeoning growth of the unelect.

Minorities knew their social place;
Jim Crow was voting in black face.

Heteros ruled the ****** race,
Alphabet people were an outlier trace.

In summer and winter we were outplayed and beat,
With no Air Conditioning nor Central Heat.

Let's leave the past in the past,
Where history belongs;
Where hunger and sickness
Lasted all life-long,
And the poor and ignorant
Were subdued by the strong.

We can agree times were simpler then,
As time came rushing to an end.
Alphabet people are LGBTQA+
The Poems Hunter who left long back
has yet not been returned.                  

May be straying in front of
the closed street shops, temples, steps of ponds,
bars, mujara dancing halls…

To fall on a big game, little ones ignored
or the hunted one pierced out cleverly while retuning,
or the prey which was at the gun point long back
hiding slowly behind the bushes, has stuck on the eyes.

‘’No No’’ the revelation eclipses
nothing is greater than today’s
horn of hare shot down.

while searching in darkness
which lost in light
the marrow ****** bone
thrown out by somebody hindered him

Or hesitant to come home empty handed,
putting back the loaded gun,
he may be roaming around at
riverside, bus stop, ladies hostels,
psychiatric wards……..

Having been not seen back home
even after the ghastly night fed up of
given birth to fumes of lava clotted darkness,

Keeping the gruel in that
smallpox clad aluminium bowl,
on the tiny corner
where poetry and light would never creep in,
spreading the raw jute sack,
unable to shut the mind and eyes
while closing the doors… slowly couched.

Yet, out to search the poet in the woods and
was fallen prey to the tiger,
that is what to the seekers from time immemorial.
now, time has given punishment
to the poet
To lie on the furnaced fever,
on the burning sack of the friend
scribbling elegy on the death of the friend.      
                  ====
Jodie LindaMae Jul 2014
I'll let you take pictures of other girls in their bras
And I'll never quite get over it.
And I'll let you sleep all through the night
And I won't say a word when I'm feeling left out.
But I'll save all those rocks in a little purple
Crown Royal bag on a tack in my room.
And I'll throw those rocks at you when push comes to shove.
But I won't tell you how I'm feeling, I won't
Let you know how I've been doing
Because I'm your little princess and you
Expect me to be happy
But I'm not.
I always order too much
Food to handle and I
Pay for movies with a gun
Stuck in my back because I'll never watch them
But isn't it nice to think that I'll have a way
To stay sane in the case of a catastrophe?
Isn't it nice to say that I'll be able to
Mask my self indulgence in
Cigarette smoke and bad puns?
I hate myself, I hate myself,
I hate myself for engulfing myself in this load of *******
But I didn't ask to be born.
If I had it my way I would have been a wasted mess in a ******,
A wasted race in a piece of latex
Because I hate myself and that won't change.
I want to go to Chuck E Cheese
But I'm a hundred and twelve percent sure that
I won't fit the tubes.
I'm the lost cause of the century,
A piece lost in the puzzle.
The piece you dropped while making love
Underneath the covers
With that ***** you call a friend who's really just
Out for blood.
I want you to see, oh how I want you to see,
That you're a ******* and she's a ****
But you're building your castles and I'm just
Sending smallpox-ridden corpse heads over the fence.
I've never put my lips to the bottle because I'm tired
Of people using ales and hard ciders as excuses
Because we were all born once and we'll all die
But these people won't even let the most solemn of us
Dream.
Why can't you let the solemn ones sleep?
I've gotten older and I long for deeper things
But I'm a casket in the courtyard,
Not the body so much as the casing
Of a human bullet heading straight into your back.
I'm the whiskey in your glass, the nicotine of a cigarette,
So addicting but so remorseful.
I am the unwritten play,
Waiting for the day in which I'm published
But I'm ahead of my time and no one will do it.
But at least I'm in love with the best of the best
Because I know that at least if I **** up,
I'll still be loved deeper and more succulently than any of you losers.
I'm that geek who sits with a plate of food in front of them
But doesn't eat.
I don't care if my games don't come with the instruction manuals,
I'm all right with the value of being incomplete.
I'm intelligent because I see all these maddening things.
I'm the better person because I am walked on.
I am the queen of my own kingdom
And I'll have my king by my side through and through.
Ken Pepiton Jun 2019
In the presence of any hearing ear or seeing eye,
the oldest man in the room stood and said,

I suggest a motion be made that:
This proven means of reaching a realizable samesame state
of peace and freedom, 'mongst beings of all
breeds tested as sapient and unem us augmentedus,

be administered free at any seven one eighty Fibbo equipped
joy ride facility.

The Motion:
All peace negotiations,
all settling negotiations
on earth,
must now be preceded by
a ranked pairing of the parties,
{what if wit life partners, so we have a four wide}

Yeah, pairs of plus ones, two by two

most worthy of admiration and respect and trust
ranked order,

let the first rank step into the car. wait for the message.
YOUR BODY IS LOCKED IN< YOU CANNOT DIE ON THIS RIDE

each rank takes its place, reads and and agreed terms of unbelief release.
combine con questseers haulin
ah questions mistook
for quests... happens, but

that ranked the riders? the waring bros. us the unem
of four are in car one,
Aha, the roller coaster Poke'mon, as Grandpa

suggested, in the entrancment lesson, did you hear that story?g
This is no linked, but generally,

breadcrumb... weak link back... but later

this is the chunk chunk chunk cogged rotation
of gears in gears meshing

chunk, chunk, chunk to the peak the initial
wave on the Fibbonaci ***** with
one eighty per twist time s

seven,
we endure... ah it is not we riding, ha, I for got
virtual reality, by god, i'd say
pretty good, too.

and we, no, they are upside down, which was the intention,
the whole party of peace negotiators

realize
the terms of agreement
and the benefit of proper ranking
{discounting **** in a coriolis sorta swirl, that shall hap, watch}

Before the pen and ink and all our augmented eyes everseeing witness
war is stupid and too costly at this phase to waste any more unexamind lives on,

beacause we can. We agree, we. the people, peacemakers are

and peacekeepers be... we,

the controllers of every mob on earth, we bodies of words in minds.
War now is as useless as smallpox and polio in bubbles
of babies
where peacemaking is set to kick in after terrible twos,
epigenetically, but  set with the polio vaccine, prenatal-mods hapt in the moms with
the Mario plumbing level.

We are getting better results. At five they are inquisitive,
and comprehend portals need means of access
which must be learned while find ing
messages with
synchronus meaning.

Now, then, that means
something real but we don't know what, yet, grandpa, don't

--soto voce', {golf-whisper}
the key to this portal,
long still being a true let be-er,

but meaning is imagined in the games,
my seven grand children all were born after 3g.
these fresh augmented us, mentally, more than we could think or ask.
They find meaning faster than
we found it in **** and Jane, and The Little Red Hen

The future is bright. Not a big bang. Not even a pop. A sigh,
of satisfaction. Believe it or die, eventually, wishing you had examined
life more close-up, earlier.

Fret not. Later is as real as you can realize. Watch and see.
History is so much more enlightening now. Think how Ben Franklin would have seen our gloabl brain's access to accrued wisdom in old age.
Deadwood Haiku Mar 2015
once, when I thought I
had smallpox, Doc Cochran slapped
me across the face
http://deadwoodhaiku.blogspot.com/2015/03/even-been-beaten-merrick.html
Arlene Corwin May 2020
This is long, but go through it.  It’s worth it.      it was originally called "Words That Changed Our Lives", being inspired by the  connection between pandemonium and pandemic.  

           Pandemonium

Words that show lives but a tribe:
There to scribe, describe our lives.
Words that come from health or sickness: mind and body:
Prowess, fearless, speechless, endless;
Dangerousness, selfishness, childishness - nothing escapes;
Sowing seeds of mental shapes
That come from mind-to-mouth.

Now’s come the time to learn some new:
Epidemic and Pandemic,
Plus another word to view: Endemic.
Just a few, but whew!
Hoping that it’s not titanic - the Titanic!
Let me help you.

First came epidemics:
Measles, smallpox, influenzas…
How to conquer, name and aim,
How could and could we control the sum?  
Sometimes.  Some.
Coming back to hit us all the same,
But vanquished?  Germs and viruses not dumb -
Survive  anti-biotically (the foe of symbiotically).

Year twenty-twenty,
Epidemic now pandemic,
Plentiful and more than plenty;
Too, too many - far too many.

Struck by the invisible;
Questionable, susceptible,
Humans daring not to touch,
Wondering, asking when will it become too much?
And thus we come to the last word:
Endemic: background sound
Though underground many a year
Alive and well and waiting for…
Pandemonium 5. 14. 2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

pandemonium | ˌpandɪˈməʊnɪəm |
wild and noisy disorder or confusion; uproar: there was complete pandemonium—everyone just panicked.
ORIGIN mid 17th century: modern Latin (denoting the place of all demons, in Milton's Paradise Lost), from pan- ‘all’ + Greek daimōn ‘demon’.
pandemic
(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.
an outbreak of a pandemic disease: the results may have been skewed by an influenza pandemic.
ORIGIN mid 17th century: from Greek pandēmos (from pan ‘all’ + dēmos ‘people’) + -ic
endemic
1 (of a disease or condition) regularly found among particular people or in a certain area: complacency is endemic in industry today.
[attributive] (of an area) in which a particular disease is regularly found: the persistence of infection on pastures in endemic areas.
epidemic
1 an epidemic of typhoid: outbreak, plague, scourge, infestation; widespread illness/disease; Medicine pandemic, epizootic; formal recrudescence, boutade.
2 he's a victim of the county's joyriding epidemic: spate, rash, wave, explosion, eruption, outbreak, outburst, flare-up, craze; flood, torrent, burst, blaze, flurry; upsurge, upswing, upturn, increase, growth, rise, mushrooming; rare ebullition, boutade.
adjective
a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time: a flu epidemic.
• a sudden, widespread occurrence of an undesirable phenomenon: an epidemic of violent crime.
Mhelaney Noel Feb 2019
America was never just great
It was flawed first
It is practically an accident
But better here than India
The explorers came, and faster than a cinnamon skinned Arawak Native American woman could yell “the colonialists are coming!” The men in lily-white shirts shoved the unsuspecting indigenous off their land.

The explorers were as lost as Louis and Clark without Sacajawea
But a determined pedophelic peony planted itself in the deep brown soil
The invasive plant started a genocidal streak all over the continent
In return it won a couple cities and holiday and the Native Americans were bestowed with accidental exposure to smallpox and enslavement.  

To repay them we allotted reservations where people live in crippling poverty, put Sacajawea on a coin and Pocahontas in a movie yet we cannot fully allow them into our society, our neighborhoods, our schools because they are uncivilized.

The only people who have any business being on this continent are uncivilized. What a shame.

America still is not great
It still shows scars and old behaviors from the 1400s, 1800s, 60s and even yesterday. The Band-Aid was applied but the wound never washed, never sewn up.
So it sets, burgundy bruises and gore gaping at our present, our future.
America’s past is far darker than anyone’s skin but is accepted while brown complexions are not. America’s roots are not up for discussion, white supremacy is not real.

We are imagining things.

We weren’t turned away at white linoleum restaurant counters, we haven’t been isolated from the rest of the country, our sufficiency in the English language hasn’t been questioned, our bodies haven’t been sexualized, politicized
It’s all in our heads.

Our heads, spinning with fiction, are buried
Sinking towards the earth’s core, waiting to come out of the other side where oppression is not pressing down on us like a molten red brick wall. Our brown heads will come up out of the grass and be greeted by the sun and all will welcome us.
I promise I don't hate the U.S.
Bob B Aug 2021
In 1777 we hear
Death from smallpox was a fear.
Much to Washington's dismay,
Troops were dying every day.

Sound off: one, two;
Sound off: three, four;
Bring it on down: one, two,
Three, four…(beat)…THREE, FOUR!

Despite the soldiers' expertise,
Most of them died from disease.
Smallpox was a bigger threat
Than dying from a bayonet.

Trying to think outside the box,
The British even used the pox
To cause much greater deprivation
By spreading it through the population.

In Europe there were indications
Of the value of inoculations.
So British troops were free from worry
While smallpox germs unleashed their fury.

Sound off: one, two;
Sound off: three, four;
Bring it on down: one, two
Three, four…(beat)…THREE, FOUR!

Washington said, "This won't do.
If WE don't act now, we are through."
Showing that he had a spine,
He had to lay it on the line:

To stop from being obliterated,
He had all troops inoculated.
That was a major contribution
To the American Revolution.

When lack of knowledge feeds distrust,
Using wisdom is a must.
We know that when sickness thrives,
A shot in the arm can save our lives.

Sound off: one, two;
Sound off: three, four;
Bring it on down: one, two
Three, four…(beat)…THREE, FOUR!

-by Bob B (8-1-21)
Pearson Bolt Aug 2017
the first time i said, “i love you”
we were lying in bed
at your apartment.
your skin held the hue
of the afternoon sun,
but a frown
pulled at the corners of your mouth.

a chill that had nothing
to do with the Florida summer
came like a cold-snap
and, in an instant,
covered us in hoarfrost
smothering as a blanket
racked with smallpox.

the scars in the crook of your elbow
had all but healed, but an itch
crept across you—insistent
and incessant. for a while,
i read The Myth of Sisyphus
aloud, moved by Camus,
wrestling with the one
true and serious
philosophical question:
suicide.

i searched desperately
for the right string of words
to convince you
the razor isn’t a solution.  
i made “prayers of my hands
on your body” and sang hymns
like honey. i sampled
salted, caramel apple—
you hung precariously
on the tip of my tongue.

wishing i could wrest my eyes
from my skull so you could see
yourself from a new perspective.
Beloved, this may well be
your war to win,
but in every struggle,
we need comrades.
in solidarity, i remain.

i refuse to leave you alone
to fight the shadows
lurking in back-alley
neuroses. in a world
that is utterly absurd
only three words
make sense anymore.
three words. a song
that fills our lungs:
“i love you.” partner,
dance with me
to the beat
of a new drum.
partners
n.

1. a person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor; sharer; associate.
Jacob Parnell Jan 2019
These days, I spend my lazy days coming up with phrases to say.
A delay is to wait.
So what am I waiting for?
A torn deliverer departs saying life is an art form.
Sworn to protect his endeavors.
Swift and as light as a feather.
The blue embarks to make his mark on this world
in
due
time.
So I wait, and I wait out the hate this country has torn into.
Pandora's box locks from the outside.
I'm not hiding, I'm living in plain sight.
In
due
time.
We all wait until the day turns bright enough to ponder more.
We have all fought the night enough in excellent form.
In
due
time.
We will rise as a nation guided by unspoken voices.
Verses and choices.
In due time.
We stay alive till the coming of dawn.
That's just fine.
In due time.
Generations wait belated unto their fate.
This is our time.
We rise up.
Uncriticized this is our time.
We rise up.
One as a nation.
Two as a people.
Three as a crazed individual on a soapbox.
Four as the children with smallpox.
Five as the ones who just try to stay alive every night when the light shines too dim.
Six as the individuals who act on a whim.
Seven as those who pray to get to heaven but work all their days at a seven-eleven.
Eight.
Those
who
wait.
Well wait no more.
We are the infinity score.
The war torn worlds go down when they sleep and so as not to make a peep we plan in silence. Abstracting violence with peace. We sit in hollowed out churches without verses because if we speak the truth the worlds seams will undo, that's power.
One day will speak for hours for us.
Those of us who are meek and delirious.
Still stand proud.
Yes I'm loud.
Say into the light signs.
Stay until the night time.
Weigh it all and that's mine.
Yes I'm loud.
Take the voices. Reiterate the choices. Learn it through osmosis until we're comatosis.
Gleam what we mean when you read all these words.
Your life is better for it.
Just a phrase as it turns.
Abstract poem about certain dreams that I've had.
I.
He was in the wilderness
a place where no man strays
          he had nothing to accomplish
alone there on the fray

Standing oaks reaching tall
          with green crowns bearing life
beams of sunlight piercing stillness
          red cardinal and his wife

Creepy crawlers in the damp
          black and moist their stay
leaves shed carpet years far gone
          dry twigs upon it lay

Walking, watching, listening
          snake silent moving still
squirrel grey lounging overhead
          sadness here is nil

Golden finch laughing chatter
          dance in full costume
twisted vines, honeysuckle
          shares her bright perfume

                       II.
Breathe in deeply, rest awhile
          Virginian countrymen
dreams of days long time past
          days of the Powhatan

Before the European man
          washed their tribe in pain
before the Spanish smallpox
          before so many slain

They danced the dream of brotherhood
          Siouan, Tutelo
adopted by Cayuga
          into the northern snow

Monacan nation, native land
          wind, water, fire, earth
renape spirit guiding silence
          offering rebirth

— The End —