the waste collected, bloody sheets, corpses bled, bloated
left to lie amid the debris of futile attempts to heal, relieve
as the whimpers, cries, demands of those left, floated
within the hearing of those standing back, set to deceive
the hubris of them, has went to the beyond, offended
brought lightening quick, death, dressed in night black
no quarter given, no recompense warrented to defend
to leave those afflicted laying on the death’s bloody rack
civilization felled by a lowly cell made of toxic poison given
life from the depths of the oceans in millennium pasts, mutated
never conquered, never seen, instilled in a sheath shriven
mindless, carved from the original by survival, kin related
whatever is stated, slated for the what is to become once
will ever be again until there is naught, a last futile attempt
sitting on a far corner stool with only the hat of the dunce
leaving some, those clinging, as others sneer with contempt
Categories: Literature, Poetry
World News Forum 
Virus or bacteria, all can be deadly and toxic to people. Ebola is only one on the list, Anthrax, E coli, E pneumonia (both of which are showing increased resistance to antibiotics especially in the Middle East), cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, polio, bubonic plague, leprosy, hantavirus, enterovirus. We’ve become lax about the effects and the need for containment, research and evolving treatments.
I sometimes wonder if the common flu and colds haven’t contributed to this laxity in response to other viruses and bacteria’s that are more potent and deadly killers. The acceptance that we only a mild few days of being sick and than getting better seems to have become a wall to hide behind that there are easy treatments that cure. When the opposite is what is actual. Thus the poem.
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There is a lot of stuff out there, lurking about, waiting to get us. And you’re right. People are so used to and so take for granted the sanitation and health care they enjoy living in an advanced, industrialized society with a strong central government that they don’t appreciate what it’s like to live without these things.
An American has a far greater risk of dying from influenza or bacterial pneumonia than of ever contracting Ebola, yet how many Americans forgo influenza vaccines every year?
It all comes back to a basic lack of education. Read about the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the Yellow fever epidemic in New England in 1793. They were piling the bodies of flu victims into horse drawn carts in New York City in 1918 in scenes reminiscent of the Black Plague.
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Very true, we will never get away from ‘bugs’.
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I like the poem. It has a wonderful rhythm and cadence.
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thank you. This Ebola hysteria, mostly from the media, has went over the cliff and since I had read about pandemics and lived through the Hong Kong A flu epidemic, it turned into a poem and from first hand memories or what I could remember anyway. Being unconscious occasionally was the better part…. 😦
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I barely remember the Hong Kong flu. I was too young to be concerned about such things. Did you contract that influenza type? I understand that it killed a million people worldwide.
Yeah, the Ebola hysteria is mostly politically driven. The same old politics of fear and loathing. Be afraid, be very afraid, and vote for us. It’s funny how people who despise science and big government become outraged when science and big government aren’t there to protect them.
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