Poem-A-Day #357 : Bathing every vein, etc.

Bathing every vein, etc.

In the horror movie the man
with burned skin uses the tendons
of the teen like puppet strings

We are meant to laugh
at least smile it's hard to say
it was the 80s

There is a moment of tightening
around the heart a beginning
of disease that will kill you

A metaphor in that and in puppets
muscle twitch and horror tropes
what beyond the shore calls it forth

Is the only question
here - a sort of answer:

you will be stolen in the night
the thief will be your dreams
you can die there can be reborn

Poem-A-Day #343 : Vermin

Vermin

Maybe there is a cockroach in my skull
just behind the eyes
running legs along the sack encasing the brain

There
a drain
a run in a stocking

Feeling like a constant faucet
houses creaking in the night cools
congestion pooling post-nasal

Would it live forever
die and
create a void of longing and eventual rot

At night
I would see it in negative
a butterfly against a lightbulb

Poem-A-Day #325 : On the Evening Before the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States

On the Evening Before the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States

The cold has sat on my face - holed up
in the caves of my sinuses

I sleep - wake
sit with the cat
an endless stream of movies runs by

I feel as though I am waiting for someone to come home

I have strange sentimental thoughts about an ex-boyfriend
and almost text him
but do not - and this proves something

I fall asleep and miss the sunset - it is the night and it is cold outside
the snow from last week melts and turns into mud

I found a patch of rust on the hood of my car this morning
a pock or orange-red amid the green - it is rough to the touch
it is probably spreading - I think about ways to patch it

Are there patches

I noticed that the cat is walking stiffly - that
age is creeping in him

Age is creeping everywhere

I math - I will be 39 in 2020 - the cat will be 17
will possibly not be here - will have turned into glass

On the eve of my 40th birthday will I know where I am

There is a progression of things - I told my class today
write towards the future
because whatever you write will date the second it is done
and the future needs you in ways the present does not

A moment of folding occurs

Tonight the world will go to sleep and I will not set an alarm
at 9:30 in the morning things will occur that I will not see
paths before us will have quietly lessened - and multiplied

Poem-A-Day #324 : To My Sick Body

To My Sick Body

It is difficult to think with congestion in your face
you can f e e l the styrofoam thickness of the tubes within you
your heartbeat thrumping on the pillow

This is your blood in your veins and it is making sound

We are so resilient
our bodies take the endless radiation of days
manage to up and down stairs and cycle our habits like whoa

But when things fall apart          they do so spectacularly

They crystallize every mistake ever made and cough
them into a mirror at 3 AM
our bodies turn on us so quickly that they cannot make the turn fully

And they will crash in their haste

Will erupt into fever and pitch and fall into a depth of exhaustion
that will leave them in a state of need that only we ourselves can deal with

Poem-A-Day #264 : Unrest

Unrest

Wake and the arm is cold again - outside the blankets
like it wants to escape the comfort

The arm wants to tell you something - you were sleeping and it has a message for you

There are marks along the skin - birth and otherwise
notice how uneven the color and the veins are so visible in the darkness

The sound of celery breaking

Knees collapsing on pavement and the glitter of light on everything

The arm wants you to remember fear and agency

The arm wants to sweat with you
there is the sound of a siren - it is the sound of all sirens - the room fills then empties of it

A moment before the most beautiful dream ever forgot - it lingers pinkly in the haze of the brain - calls in sing-song that it should be returned to

This arm has thoughts of going through the window - it cannot understand how one sleeps in troubled times like these - there should be blood on the steps of the capitol

Blood is hard to clean

If it is forced under the covers to warmth - the arm will form itself into a mouth and begin to whisper all the promises that have been broken

If it stays in the cold it will purple - possibly loose itself and never come back

Inspiration : Unworthy

Unworthy 9/27/09

The human body can go bad in so many ways.

One day you are sitting, eating a muffin, drinking a latte. The next you have cancer, a blood disease, an aneurysm.

There are some truly horrifying illnesses that can just happen.

And that I am afraid of.

I fear I have genetic disorders
A bad heart, ASL, cancer, gum disease
My head is going to decide that sanity isn't for it

The image above is of Blascho's Lines. They are invisible lines that cover your body. Mine. They become suddenly visible with various skin disorders. The lines are believed to trace the migration of embryonic cells during in utero development. They do not correspond to nervous, muscular, or lymphatic systems. The lines can be observed in other animals such as cats and dogs.

The stripes are a type of genetic mosaicism. Which is when different cells with different genotypes appear in one individual.

Your body is a mosaic.

This is a portrait mosaic from Pompeii. A woman with a pen to her lips, book in hand. She is contemplating 50 Shades of Gray. Or something. Point is, she's made up of little tiles. That mimic atoms. And she had invisible lines of embryonic cells all over her.

And maybe they showed up sometime.

When they do. They look like this.

And that kind of looks like a kick-ass leopard make-up job. Though more calico cat.

I fear the divide between reality and dreaming
It blurs sometimes
It's an ocean liner - I'm a bit of wood

I recently had a strange fight with a skin disorder. I thought it was ring worm. And I even talked about it in a post.

It turned out that the rash was actually Pityrias Rosea. Which has no known cause and is treated by 'waiting'. It showed up in lines across my chest and back. In a pattern that looked like stripes. In lines.

What is amazing about the ways the body goes wrong. Is that sometimes it does and we suddenly can see how it began. We hold the memory of our creation in lines across our skin. They are hidden. They are forgotten.

I fear tomorrow will be the same as today and so on
That the sun will rise and the sky will be blue
I fear not being afraid

We are recordings of ourselves.


Inspiration is a try at exploring my own work in a thoughtful way. A book report on me.

Worms

Delicious

So I've been sick since Sunday. I spent yesterday asleep in bed while J went about his day off business. He made an amazing butternut squash casserole that I couldn't even eat. I awoke this morning to a blistering headache and upset stomach.

So I watched Mythbusters all day. Which is my second place go to behind Murder, She Wrote. Cause when you're sick the best things are science and murder. And explosions. And WASPy shenanigans.

I've not been feeling too well for the last month or so. I got ringworm in September and have had a lengthy battle that involved me sitting in an annoying NY waiting room while TMZ played on a TV and an elderly woman bitched loudly about how long it was all taking. I had to explain to the nurse what ringworm was! (!!!) (!?!?!) The doctor wrote a prescription without even looking at the spots on my chest or arms.

It took 5 weeks to get rid of it. Mostly because it was ALL OVER me and was hard to treat. But secondly because in the middle J and I went to England for the wedding of the century. Thus negating a lot of the treating that had gone on.

I bring this up for a two reasons:

1) Ringworm is lame. It's like a sunburn that won't go away. Mildly itchy yet spreading and ugly to look at so not something to be left to its own devices.

2) A woman mentioned something to me at work that reminded me of a great episode of Radiolab.

Dematophytosis is a fungal infection of the outer layers of skin on humans and other domestic animals. It is a fungus that feeds of keratin, which is found in skin and fingernails. There are 10 different species of fungi involved with infections and it is estimated that up to 20% of the population are infected. The clearest sign you have it are pronounced rings of red, they don't always itch, and can go undetected under your arms or in your groin.

Now on to Radiolab. If you are not familiar with this exceptional WNYC show, please acquaint yourself. Pick any show and go with it. They are amazing, strange, and enjoyable. The show I'm about to discuss is a great one. You can listen to it below.



The part of the episode the woman was bringing up to me at work was about people infecting themselves with hookworms to relieve allergies and asthma.

Hookworm

Radiolab centers their story on David Pritchard, a scientist who infected himself to study the effects. After a series of painful experiments, that he outlines in the show and in a NY Times article from 2008, he has settled on an infection of 10 worms as a prescription for allergies.

The process is called Helminthic therapy. And has been shown to be helpful for a number of over-active immune system disorders. The list is long - Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, asthma, eczema, dermatitis, hay fever and some food allergies. The theory is that exposure to these parasites helps to 'train' our immune system properly. That we provide a host body for the parasite and it helps us become immune to these disorders.

I am not a squeamish person. I take pain well. I handle blood well. The sound of bones breaking is the only thing that I really flinch at. The idea of purposefully infecting myself to alleviate allergies sounds preposterous.

BUT.

Sitting here feeling sick, fluish, the way I do in spring when my allergies kick into high, I've been thinking that it might not be so bad. Considering I've dealt with an annoying false 'worm' this last month I'm sure I could deal with a real one. Especially one that only caused minor itching at the infection site and few other problems in low numbers. 10 seems low, right?

Multidrug

Multidrug 4/15

They are warning against drug resistant tuberculosis
that it could be a new plague – a new AIDS – a new
anything but what is already

It would be like Paris in the 1800s like England in the
1400s like Southern Africa in the 1900s

When was the last time you took pills for a cold and
when was the last time they worked

Phthisis

Phithisis

In the blood – it’s going along in – the blood it is going

Your lungs are a breathing net of coral – a fibrous salmon flange
swaying in the tubercular swamp

The thing is – all of this will melt down – chocolate on the stove
it will pile and melt down – your fibrous roots will disintegrate

Root of clouds – the chest seed planting root – of clouds

You control the air like you control infinity – by drawing circles
around it in continuum – in ball point pen – in sharpie
The more permanent the better

Remediless

Remediless 6/10

Ten thousand words balled n paper still
cannot kill your cancer

I sit on the edge of a fire pit and press ashes back
into branches back in to trees into seeds
I bonsai the crumbs of your bones into miniature yous
Clip their branches once a year give them small
fields to pick daisies in

In the dream about work there are endless
piles of sand filling endless coffee cups
The roots choke n the waterlessness despite
Sahara preferences

There is no eye on the dead sparrow
only holes and things banging about beneath