Month: May 2020

SONGS OF AN AMATEUR PHYSICIAN

  On the Best Advice Oh, a little bit of bleach is good for you, And so is lying on a sunny beach, If you’re ravaged by the flu And you don’t know what to do There is nothing like a little bit of bleach.   On those days when blooming health seems out of reach When your body’s racked with pain You will soon feel right as rain, And be in the pink again If you’ll just inject a little bit of bleach.   So attend to what the learned doctors teach: When you’re feeling not quite right, And you hope to ease your plight, Bathe yourself in UV light And always take a little bit of bleach.   Ode to a Miracle Drug Sweet hydroxychloroquine! Wondrous substance! Drug divine! Of thy virtues for the lung Mighty men have often sung. Tho’ no studies, double blind, Blaze thy splendors to mankind, I will all thy powers prove. Live with me, and be my love! That my airways may breathe free Shed thy healing balm on me. All thy blessings shall be mine, Sweet hydroxychloroquine!   Summer’s Promise The warm caresses of the summer sun, When the humidity climbs very high, Announce that now disease’s course is run, Viruses all must melt away and die. Acclaim the miracle of nature’s round! Rejoice to feel the sunshine on your face!...

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In Gratitude

  The April evening darkens over Queens. She’s left the ward. But, as on other days, She still moves through it. Haunted by the scenes Of witnessed pain her mind cannot erase. More than a dozen years she’s lived among An alien folk. She wonders why she came, To hear the angry voice: “You don’t belong. Go home!” It often adds an ugly name. The words still echo, as in growing light Through empty streets she makes her steadfast way. They dimly mutter as she soothes the fright Of patients half aware of their decay. “You don’t belong!” No...

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If Coffee Shop Could Open

If coffee shop could open   If coffee shop could open would time still be there for one macchiato, standing at counter elbow to elbow, before armor-piercing ammo penetrates bricks? And isn’t it disgusting asking this while dying goes on somewhere else? Coyote, stuck in this yard, can’t open gate hen turkey perches on back fence without asking crows caw from above I go out, thinking keep stupid legs moving keep stupid heart beating mind will think thoughts of the past but I don’t have to believe don’t let them land, keep them circling till out of ammo or...

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A HITHERTO UNKNOWN DRAFT OF The Waste Land

A HITHERTO UNKNOWN DRAFT OF The Waste Land For Vincent Blasi Il miglior fabbro. Editorial Note: Although it has long been thought that all Eliot’s drafts of The Waste Land had survived, the version below has not previously been known. There are good reasons to think it was an early draft, probably not sent to Pound. The verse is often crude and clumsy, and markings on the manuscript suggest Eliot’s extreme dissatisfaction with it: in places, there are signs (tooth marks and the like) of attempts to chew and swallow it. Given the primitive quality of many of the...

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