NOBODY SAID FLEAS

by Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Could America’s pandemic response be any more medieval? 

—Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, June 30, 2020

The Great Mortality produced, when it came,
a five-year torment for the Gothic mind.
Wise men—there were not wise women then—
proposed these causes: conjunct planets, corruption,
close-by swamps, over-consumption of fruit, dung.
Further, they condemned corpses rotting in ditches
or in makeshift graveyards. Folk understood their murrain
as the footprint of God’s fury, a penalty for their lapses.
Nobody said fleas. Nobody said rats.
If a citizen sprouted buboes there were nostrums:
banishing foul “vapors,” balancing ill “humors,”
drinking urine, yours or others’, holding a dead snake
or a live hen against your afflicted skin, burning spices,
using potions: Unicorn or theriac, Four Thieves Vinegar
or if you were well off, powdered emeralds.
The pious tottered along scourging themselves.
Most cures contained a fair amount of opium.
To stop the spread of plague without a remedy,
the Fourteenth Century would separate the sick from well
for 30, then for 40 days under the law of quarantine.
The US tried isolation for a month or two, then gave it up.
Despite the pestilence, news from the government was
they were on it, but since it exploded as a novel virus,
what could they promise? After that, they faked the data,
muzzled experts, gas-lit, spread the blame, and when their
constituents asked, without a remedy, how do we survive
contagion? Their answer was, wear masks, stay home
or keep six feet apart. However puzzled, folk understood
they must persist in using the regime's meager directions,
or perish en masse. Proving our regime no more advanced
than our forefathers, salvation just past what politicians
can imagine, just past their careless, medieval reach.

Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives and writes in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of four books and five chapbooks. Her poems have appeared on line and in anthologies.

GUMLINES, AMONG OTHERS

by Barbara Simmons

Build-up, they call it, the slow accretion colorless
at first. Later I guess you’d think my teeth had bathed
in egg yolk if I’d let it go that far. Especially if I were smiling today.
But today, I’m not thinking recession as in my gums, but as in
our economy, how the graphs display the V’s that look like troughs
not mountains. Feels too much like my slackline has no anchors,
that I’ll be eternally between, above, not able to begin or end. Reminds
me of those hemlines we called handkerchief, the 70’s loved them, I
loved them, made me feel that I was whirling standing still. More standing
still on stars or footprints or just blue tape lined up outside Target
or the post office, I’m wondering if last night’s dreams are still available,
shelved someplace, line forming here, I’d even pay for their retrieval. Lost
moments, lines breaking up. I’m back inside my mouth, imagining what they’ll
find after I’m beyond words. Not anything as artful as the lapus lazuli
the 1000-year old teeth held, medieval teeth, medieval scribe, medieval woman
breathing in the bright blue pigment, licking her brush while blue began
its residence in her mouth. What would my mouth hold—a piece of jasmine rice,
the inhalation of surprise and joy, the drupelets of a final raspberry, the
exhalation of all the lines I’d thought about and haven’t had a chance to write.

Barbara Simmons grew up in Boston, now resides in San Jose, California—the two coasts inform her poetry. A graduate of Wellesley College, she received an MA in The Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins. As a secondary school English teacher, she loved working with students who inspired her to think about the many ways we communicate. Retired, she savors smaller parts of life and language, exploring words as ways to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, and, always, to try to understand more about being and living and expressing her identity and human-ity. Publications have included, among others, The Quince, Santa Clara Review, Hartskill Review, Boston Accent,  TheNewVerse.News, Soul-Lit, 300 Days of Sun, Capsule Stories: Isolation Edition and Perspectives on KQED, the NPR local affiliate. 

EXTREMISM

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Whose world is it anyway
Borderless planet flooded azure blue
No deity superior to all
Others praying to whichever listens

Unalterable creed makes tenets sacrosanct
Feminine sexuality emancipating driven women
Barbaric uncivil wrongs ignorance barbarism
Detrimental to everything save war

Universe of pure unadulterated hatred
Without knowing or understanding why
Dogma forced down parched throats
No violent intolerant extreme endures

Faceless weak narrow-minded trapdoor
Freedom of speech slammed shut
Censored opinions intent on recreating
World in own perverted image

Medieval mindsets dominating modern crusade
Bent distorted time-bomb warps confusing
Madness with mission malignant stupidity
Uncommon cause War Crimes Inquisition

Our real enemy is fanaticism
Duped by superstitions rumors black-and-blue lies
Imposing domination controlling underlings’ Fate
Stifling creative freedom of expression


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1