Winter Ailments
January diseases make their customary rounds,
Coughs, sneezes and sniffles all going around;
Cold and flu bugs ride the indoor air currents,
waiting to become the next unwelcome occupant
of unwary human lungs and ripe nasal passages –
unwashed hands or exposed faces encourage attacks.
Sometimes occurrences creep up all of a sudden,
medical ailments dismissed now seize your attention.
What was overlooked will no longer be ignored,
need a professional's help to get your health restored.
Fears can be dispelled and facts verified,
Real problem addressed, antibiotics prescribed.
Difficulties are handled, dosages absorbed
knowing improvement is coming is adored.
Sometimes the most effective step here
is to get some help to see your way clear.
Better health is just a few more steps ahead,
Determined fortitude will put you in good stead.
It's just a simple achoo
Not like I gave you the flu
Yes I know COVID was a thing
Not saying it ain't
But no reason for all the death stares
For just a tickly nose hair
I know I’m really shaking the flu thing because I awoke at 4am totally energised. The first thing I did was Lysol all of my computers and gadgets. Peter was sleeping, but holding the Lysol can, I eyed him - finally deciding that spraying him down might wake him up.
At 4:30am I texted Charles, “Let’s run” and he was grinning outside my door at 5:30am (our regular time).
Why did they remake the Wuthering Heights movie? We had to read WH in 10th grade - it’s like 350 pages of unhinged gossip and Heathcliff, the dark, Byronic, anti-hero is a paranoid narcissist that any modern girl would dump the first time he mouthed off.
None of my Grammy picks, though nominated, won anything. I guess I’m old and out of touch.
sad, fat, cat hat - I suppose I had to rhyme something.
see ya.
.
.
Songs for this:
The world I used to know by Rod McKuen
Better Everyday by sadHAPPY
Kissing Strangers by DNCE
Dive In (feat. Notelle) by Westend
better
I’m finally starting to feel normal (I had the flu)
It’s hard to read or write with shifting temperatures
to make the mental notes required for homework
to focus on the clinical, virtual classes that put me to sleep.
It’s a story as old as time - girl catches something
and either she dies or she doesn’t.
So today (Sunday) feels sharp, tactile and earned.
The Grammy’s are on tonight - does anyone watch them any more?
With so many artists finding and building audiences online rather
than on radio and the fading print media, getting a Grammy in 2026 seems like a secondary co-sign of success rather than some life changing achievement.
THAT being said, I think it’ll be a big year for Chappell Roan, Teddy Swims, Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx.
See ya!
.
.
2026 Grammy nominated songs:
Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan
Beautiful People (Stay High) by The Black Keys
Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter
Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan
Jack Frost coughs he feels ill
And kinda off more than a chill
Jack Daniel’s introduced
No longer has the flu
Head spins sloppy drunk with thrill
Sneeze freeze
Wheeze squeeze
Sickness can turn your house into a personal jail
When friends come to visit you use anything as a veil
The moments you lose track of the day and time
If you need medicine you would spend every dime
To pass the time you watch old episodes on Netflix
Eating soup for dinner and inhaling vapors of vicks
It feels like a vacation you weren't meant to enjoy
Your phone, tablet or book becomes your new toy
Every task that you had planned never gets done
Your skin tone begins to change from having no sun
If you're married your mate becomes your waiter
Every sentence is "Honey can you do me a favor"
When you're sick it actually gives you time to unload
But this is your life in a nutshell when you catch a cold
CDC muzzled
on a need to know basis ~
this dog person cares
Poetry Challenge Day Three
Poem Number 21
===========
Thank Goodness for the OTCs
Relieving coughs, sniffles and sneeze
Ibuprofen for the fever
So thankful for this pain reliever
And answered prayers
Through Acedominaphrin
Hallelujah, and amen
Blessed through modern medicine!
P.C. Poem #22
=========
We've rested almost through the day
But now I am quite pleased to say
This mighty mean and nasty flu
Tonight is feeling almost through
The painful throbbing in my head
Abated now, I'm up from bed!
Day two, poem number 11
=================
These challenge poems
I'll make them quick
I've got the flu
I'm sick, sick, sick!
Poem Number 12
============
A cough, a cold,
Sounds like the croup
I'm sipping tea
And chicken soup
My fever rages
And makes me shake
But I'm writing poems
For the challenge' sake!
yesterday I had flu-like symptoms
let the aches and pains consume me
slid into the misery with gusto
laid away the day in a recliner
sometimes alternating to the couch
I was not human, I was a sickly whickly
feeling sorry for myself, and yet,
resting profusely, odd for me
The bug is still here, that darn flu,
I thought I was over it, too.
It suddenly came back
and doubled its attack.
It had lasted one month, now two!
Like a dog
With a sandpaper throat
A cough like a bark
And the mood of a scrote
Just tossing and turning
With no comfortable spot
A nose like a tap
Simply dripping with snot
I sweat like a pig
Whatever that means
And I fart like I live
On a diet of beans
I don't mean to be crude
But I don't really care
Keep your sympathy close
With you lozenges, spare
Just lock me away
I just want to submerge
In a sea of self-pity
And a song like a dirge
All my charm has escaped
You can probably tell
So, dear friends, you can love me
When I'm perky and well..
My bed drenched in a sweat only a fever dream can produce.
Clouds linger with a persistence that suggest trouble on the horizon.
Breeze blows in through the smallest crack of an open window with furious intentions.
What hell can compare to the pestilence of a seasonal flu whose determination trumps that of modern medicine?
If I could withstand the punishment for a moment longer I would consider myself worthy of a fate which surely has escaped me.
I cannot unwrite anything
Even if I erase this thing
The truth is out of the bottle
You can wage a war, a battle
You can fight all you want
Demonstrate, set up a tent
In the middle of the street
Shame comes after a defeat.
The genie is out of the bottle
The truth will set me free
You disagree, you’re angry
You can wage a war, a battle
When one lies, one sins
Next time, try to make sense
You cannot unwrite anything
Even if I erase everything.
The genie will never go back
Regardless of what you try to do
No apologies! We all feel the impact
We must deal and stop the flu
We cannot undo anything
We cannot resuscitate the dead
We must move away from this thing
Or we all will die on this small bed.
Copyright © February. 2020, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
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