Archive 04/28/09 - (1)

   

Panicdemic

                                                                  

By now, even the least informed, around the globe,

Can easily refer to the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918

As the modern-day granddaddy of all devastators,

Responsible for decimating fifty million people, at least,

Before it got bored with hastening mortality.

 

Today's swine flu, conflated with that fabled catastrophe,

Is infecting everybody's imagination,

Creating its own strains of hysteria and paranoia,

Fueled by speculation of government-imposed quarantines,

Mass food shortages, corpses metastasizing faster than cancer.

 

What few realize is that the flu is with us daily — part of life —

And that, every year, in America alone,

200,000 are so sickened they require hospital admittance,

And another 36,000 are zeroed out, by its virulent ravages —

Almost as many as die, annually, in drunk-driving accidents.

 

If you really want to get panic-stricken, freaked out,

Over Bruegel and Bosch scenes of medieval human suffering,

Why not just consider a maple seed the size of New Jersey,

Helicoptering down, landing on your front yard,

Turning six billion souls into ashes and dust?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                

04/28/09 - (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 
   
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