Best Cholera Poems
A double sonnet in which the great detective and his faithful sidekick, Dr. Watson, alternately deduce the cause of Sherlock’s latest malady…
Part the first
Sherlock could not deduce his source of pain
at first. “Try as I might, I cannot find
the cause – is it contusion, or a sprain?
Perchance a mere psychosis of the mind?
“Yet by deduction, I’ve ruled out the plague,
consumption, smallpox, cholera, and mumps.
My symptoms, although serious, are vague –
this lack of answers has me in the dumps!
“Where’s Watson? He would have a quick prognosis –
I’ve never seen him err in all our years”.
Then! Churn of stomach yields its diagnosis
just as his friend, the good doctor, appears:
“What seems to be the problem, troubled one?”
“It’s alimentary, my dear Watson!”
Part the second
But from the learnéd doctor’s point of view,
there yet were tests and readings still to take.
He’d learnt the ill effects of poor review
and on his friend would not make that mistake.
“Stick out your tongue! Now, turn your head and cough!
Say ‘ah’. Hold this thermometer in place,
and while you’re at it, take your trousers off -
we’d better check your prostate, just in case!"
But Sherlock dashes to the water closet
in dire urgency and grave chagrin
to make a loud and liquidy deposit.
“It’s diarrhea!” Doc yells with a grin.
“How did you know?”, shouts Holmes. “How in tarnation?”
“Why, Holmes, mere process of elimination!”
written 17 Jan 2020
Didn’t digest my all-dressed pizza
Suffering now from insomnia
A touch of every possible phobia
Mostly of ravenous bacteria
And humongous tarantula
O yes, and the sordid mafia
Did I call my Grandmamma
Did I put away the spatula
Did I book girls’ day at the spa
Did all the bourgeois really die of cholera
I’m drowning under this plethora
Remind me What’s that formula
O yes, Abracadabra
Tra-la-la and La-di-da
And poof now I’m in a gondola
On the way to utopia
Dressed in graceful taffeta
Eating baklava in the basilica
Hanging from the candelabra
Swinging to the tunes of Lady Gaga
Supported by the silliest orchestra
Hey you Pass me the foie gras
I have a cockeyed camera
You’ll see me at the cinema
I love you Etcetera Etcetera
AP: 1st place 2020, 3rd place 2025
Leaving behind the city grime
and angry crowded streets of crime.
The chimneys belching smoke and ash
clinging to the window’s sash.
Filling wagons with prized possessions,
facing our westward journey, like hessians.
“Westward Ho” was the call of the day;
we began our journey without delay.
A caravan of hopeful dreams
driving cattle herds in teams,
facing the harshness of rough terrain
wind, sand storms, and pouring rain.
The journey hard ~ without remorse,
losing lives throughout our course.
Crossing rivers and narrow mountain passes,
where rocky paths where thick with brush and grasses.
Fighting Indians and thieves we managed to survive
through cholera and wounds ~ the lucky stayed alive.
We buried souls in shallow graves ~ as we travelled on our way,
marking stones and crude crosses, we knelt down to pray.
To lessen our burden we made concessions
left behind ~ our family possessions
to arrive where the mountains meet the sky
and nights illuminated with stars up high,
where fertile valleys wave and roll
filling our dreams, filling our souls.
The Oregon Trail brought us here,
building a life, in a new frontier.
God must have spilled stars liquid
on His brooding Gabriel Marquez Garcia…
weaving, crushing and shaping words
lacquered with magical realism. But this
is not his only primal appeal; his Latin veins
spread a scenic collage of life pierced by decades
profound…meaningless then meaningful like
a glue of patience in ‘Love in Time of Cholera’,
the alchemy of serendipity flowing
oh so slowly along eternity’s belt and hanging
angel dreams on a wax, as if his pages bleed with
quivering fingers that speak of growing old when
men stop loving and serenading the moon…and
God spills me with stars climbing inside my bones;
my sacramental eyes collapse on Garcia’s hands
tasting his need for cities to become one family,
transcending more than ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’.
................................
Your Favorite Artist Contest of Anthony Slausen
*A dedication to Nobel Laureate Gabriel M. Garcia
who passed away last April 17, 2014. He wrote
'Love In the Time of Cholera' and 'One Hundred Years of Solitude',
among others.
4/20/14
Born into a life of poverty crime and squalor
where hunger and cold winds bite
and disease is rife
and it was a daily battle to stay alive
and find some food to stay alive.
Uneducated illiterate caught in the poverty trap
drinking polluted water
from the same polluted cholera riddled tap.
An impoverished woman
sells her body for a cheap bottle of Gin
and a lodging for the night
while a pickpocket and mutcher
ever watchful
look for a pocket to alight.
The deafening clunk and clatter
of horses and carts on the cobbled ground
and shouts from the street market traders
echo all around.
Children play and run through the narrow
crowded streets
dressed in rags no shoes upon their feet
The putrid stench from the gutter
and thick choking bellowing
smoke from factories
make one heath and make it hard to breath.
Dilapidated hovels and buildings
covered in black soot
horse manure and raw sewage
under foot.
Beggars with large mournful eyes
reach out pleadingly to the passing gentry
to fill their empty bowls with plenty.
A peeler pins a notice of a forthcoming hanging
at the local Gaol for the few who can read
upon a rusty nail.
A Mother desperate to feed her hungry children
steals a loaf of bread from a market stall
but is soon captured in the sprawl.
The judge sentences her to 10 years
penal servitude far over sea in Botany bay
but she dyes aboard the ship of fever
upon the way.
Her 9 children are sent to the workhouse
for the poor to gain some education
and work hard behind it's hellish door
never to see their Mother or escape poverty
ever more.
Peter Dome.copyright.2012.
Under the wrought iron arch and gateway
crawling with both wild and deep red creepers
complimented by evergreens.
The fall colors are splendid.
Most of the flowers are giving way
to the chill, and the swans are graceful and content
with the breeding season now over
Walking slowly along the narrow drive,
spots of color scatter around the green grass.
What beautiful yards,
each house made of stone,
granite - marble - sandstone.
The foundation of the earth
Dark stone black, pink, white, gray, burnt umber, rose
beautiful houses inviting you closer,
please see my name.
I was here many years ago.
Cholera came to me and took my spirit away.
But I was pretty and young and full of joy.
For a little while.
Old stones to the early 1800's.
Stones with angels guarding a lamb
baby tears fall, in time giving the stone soft edges.
One from yesterday.
Come see me in my house. Mausoleum strong and tall.
Handsome and successful.
Each as individual in death as their homes and places were in life.
Over here, I fought for my country. Me and all my buddies here,
laid out under each of these many white crosses.
Hello, don’t forget my free spirit ... riding high over the houses
touring where ever the wind wishes.
Swirling fine invisible ashes through the trees
sparkling in the late closing sun.
A town’s history. Natural, tragic, sickness, murder ... all here
The history wraps around the casual visitor.
Keening out not to be forgotten.
Calling, we were important pioneers.
The end of day sun setting on their windows
Aglow with the spirit of yesteryear.
In this story the leaves are digressing,
In another, perhaps I shall too
With warm feelings and autumn shades tinting my view
We go along the path at a crisp clip
High heels and rubber soles
Trench coats and scarves fluttering
Scandalously in our rush to understand
The literature hidden between the flesh and the spirit
Soul on soul, deciphering in motion
Picturesque and ugly
Please Smile for me when the camera blinks
When that moment is gone and this photograph is all I have
Along with dangerous conversations of how we shall eventually Fall
Life Kafka, like Vonnegut, Marquez,
Slaughtering ourselves 5 over 5 times,
Armageddon in Retrospect
Metamorphosing within
100 years of Solitude
Loving in times of Cholera,
And we plummet beyond the help of our seasoned knowledge of devotion
Past the neurotic winters of Kerouac
Beyond the springs of Plath
Over and gone the summers of Margaret Mitchell and ironclad romance
To Fall
To the Inferno of the ground below
Through nine different hells
To end up where they started from
Dust begets dust
Dante in Love
All Muted in translation
In death, empty words shattering like
The Crimson leaf
Silenced in the psyche of la fabrication d'amour
Skeletons of desire
Lynched in the closets
The bedrooms,
Dusty and leather-bound
Black on ébène
Starved and lonely
The sound of Autumn on Leaves
black snakeroot, yew, cocklebur, poison (ivy, oak, parsnip, sumac, ryegrass, hemlock), blister bushes, daffodil, mayapple, lilium, jerusalem cherry, indian licorice, deadly nightshade, christmas rose, bleeding heart, asparagus berries, wolfsbane, tomato leaves, doll’s eyes, the suicide tree, young larkspur, blue-green algae, stinkweed, dumbcane, european spindle, blind-your-eye mangrove, manchineel, laburnum, mother of millions, elderberry root, bacterial pathogens, exotoxins, mycotoxins, grayanotoxins, rhinovirus, chicken pox, sleeping sickness, cholera, yellow fever, typhoid, rotavirus, river blindness, measles, japanese encephalitis, hepatitis (a,b & c), cryptosporidiosis, shigella infection, pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, malaria, influenza, herpes (1 & 2), crab louse, scabies, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, hpv, hiv/aids, ebola virus, marburg virus, mad cow disease, mudslides, avalanches, blizzards, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, supervolcanic eruptions: evidence of absence.
The sun never sets
Over the cholera hit areas
Jilted by the light
The moon agrees to serve
Near extinct mankind
Pardon skepticism, but it’s true
There’s too much ado about Swine Flu
Thirty-one deaths by May of ‘09
In 25 nations worldwide
Avoid all public transportation
And forego annual vacations
Protect us from the dreaded Swine Flu
By closing our schools and churches too
The government was slow to react
When HIV first left its tracks
On drug users, gay communities
Thousands died in the 1980s
But when the “pure of soul” met demise
With blood transfusions linked to lost lives
AIDS won interest from politicians
Lightning struck, they sprang into action
Swine Flu can kill, but what’s the fuss?
Other illnesses claim more of us
Look back to the Fourteenth Century
For true epidemiology
Black Death caused widespread annihilation
Nearly half Europe’s population
The Smallpox deadly legacy
Egypt-born, 1350 BC
Fifteen million had this disease
As recent as the 1960s
Eradication finally defined
December 1979
Return to Century Fourteen
To find the world’s first quarantines
Cholera ships confined to ports
But still this plague reached landlubbers’ doors
Regular flu in winter thrives
Each week taking 800 lives
Though common colds seldom spell doom
Thousands flock to emergency rooms
So answer this: Why all the hype
When Swine Flue takes a gentler bite
Newspaper headlines must be filled
Across their banners Swine Flue spills
Or could these reports be diversions
For something more foul in our nation
Are dogs now being wagged by their tails
As health hazards go, the Swine Flu pales
Hire Willie to write a theme song
But don’t expect us to sing along
Don’t blink, or Washington may think
They’ve succeeded in this hoodwink
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15 seconds
SOMEONE IN THE WORLD DIES FROM Diarrhea,
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SOMEONE IN THE WORLD DIES FROM Cholera
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15 seconds SOMEONE IN THE WORLD DIES FROM Dysentery
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15 seconds SOMEONE IN THE WORLD IS DEAD FROM Typhoid,
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15 seconds SOMEONE IN THE WORLD DIES FROM Guinea worm
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15 SOMEONE IN THE WORLD DIES FROM Hepatitis
Where is the funding for clean water/ sanitation to stop them?
A tornado comes and goes so quick
Sometimes revisiting on the same day
Air humid, breathing hard and thick
Best advice given…get out of its way
Sounds like freight train bearing down
Delivers this –Varoommmmmmmmmm
Next best advice--don’t live in a valley
Respite from twisters in Oklahoma town
Not possible— it’s tornado alley
Here’s the scoop
May 5, 1960…The date of the natural crime
Wilburton, Oklahoma…quiet and boring
Me…my life, smooth and in my prime
Outside, trouble brewing, rain pouring
No wind—then dark---storm clouds
Sudden change and all so loud
No way to stop---nature makes it way
Tornadoes F4 hit twice that day
Up one hill, down in the valley, another hill
A path right through main street
Wiped out fifteen blocks with shocking skill
Score tornado 16, town 0…no receipt
Sadly, sixteen dead, hundreds hurt
Think disaster, destruction, devastation
Hail equates baseballs—certain disconcert
Wind 250 miles per hour, an aberration
On a personal note
Mom, sister, and I alone
Little sister told to put football helmet on
I get only, “You better pray. Don't groan."
Three females in bathtub…no put-on
Scared, hoping this was a no drop zone
First cyclone over…it was no spoof
Uh, oh, second one took the roof---
But not us…Prayed and prayed
God was there, though fear stayed
What happens next...nothing good
Can’t drink the water…
Dysentery, typhoid, cholera—it could
Can’t go to school
Smushed-–classes postponed
Can’t go to church
Smashed---future unknown
Can’t find food
Red Cross helps pick up the tone
Friends hurt, one killed
One man up in the swirl…
Carried him about a mile—life unfulfilled
No limbs left—no head to twirl
People scared another will hit
The normal long gone—some split
Build shelters, that's the name of the game
Yet, life did go on... but nothing ever the same
Virgin
Chastity
Innocence
Integrity
Virtue
Decency
Dignity
Gift
LIVE
Pure Love
Transparency
Light
Glow
Enthusiasm, Excitement, Zeal
Passion, Love,
Obsession
Fervency
Flame
Fire
Cholera, Anger, Wrath, Fury
Strength
Forgiveness
Tolerance
Patience
Kiss
Sapience
Conduct
Behaviour
Delight
Enchant
Gratify
Joy
Happiness
Rejoicing
Bless
Gift
LIFE
Fortress
Affection
Care
Caress
Peace
Beauty
Sincerity
Honesty
Frankness
Deep dedication
Renounce
Self-abnegation
Tears
Laughter
Prayer
Grandiosity
LIFE
Covered in mud, blood, sweat and tears.
Lads so very young in years.
Some so young they shouldn’t have been.
Even witnessing those terrible scenes.
Let alone fighting in the trenches surrounded by death.
Watching comrades draw their last breath.
Giving everything they had to give.
Wondering if they are going to Live.
Scared to death they fought the fight.
Death was within their sight.
Cholera, Trench foot, a bullet which was going to get them first ?
Which could actually be the worst ?
They gave their lives so that we may be free.
It is not just the injuries that we can see.
The missing limbs,the arms the legs.
It is the trauma going on inside their heads.
With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, flashbacks, Night terrors to name but a few.
How are they ever going to forget what they went through ?
Of all the things they had to do.
They won’t,It will be with them until the end of their days.
They will then take it with them to their graves.
When you eat chicken,you get chicken-pox.
When you play polo, you catch polio.
When you color,you catch cholera.
When you descend on people you catch dysentry.
When you like harvesting potato tubers you catch tuberculosis.
When you steal answer you catch cancer.
When you don't like people you catch Aids.
When you eat from a dish in a cafeteria you catch diphteria.
If you continue to tie your headtie you'll get typhoid.