02 February 2008

influenza


inside the body
everything smells like influenza
pink and swollen
and the noise...

all those people
polyps with barbs to catch
pink and swollen
in silence

but we are secure
in this rolling womb
in my fortified cervix of dreams
barking at the silence

wracked with infections of noise
everything smells like influenza
and my dark antibodies
battle against the dreamtime

the Great Mother eats her young
to keep the predators at bay
and return to me
the lulling drone of influenza

--

A little something in honor of Reya's Blog Poetry Slam for this Feast of Brigid, also known as Imbolc, or more strangely, "Groundhog Day." And now we return to our normal Intangible programming...

3 comments:

deborahoak said...

If this is yours, well, damn! This is a great poem. thank you!

Reya Mellicker said...

Wow - that's powerful, and true, too. Illness takes people into alternate realms. Coleridge wrote the poem about Kubilai Khan after smoking opium, an experience not unlike a bad bout of the stomach flu.

(I tried it once, way back in the early 1970's. Bad dreams, no poetry came of it. Once was enough.

Anithe said...

"inside the body
everything smells like influenza
pink and swollen"

Did you come to our house and I missed it?

(Seriously, very nice.)