The Lote Tree
And still there is more
Saintpaulia
how tiny you are
the smallest
flower or you are
a dangerous mind
boggling dragon to
pursue us dragging
mysterious around
the dusty old cosmos
how your petals
sparkle and those too
are small and creep
into the outraged eye
like criminals
bright dainty sparkles
the sun comes up
glistening now
in the window
which is also
dangerously small
particularly thin
between the wind
that might have
touched the fragrant
Bouillon of stars
and the air inside
of this cozy container.
How many stars
would it take
to put out
your nuptial glitter?
In comparison
how trite
to see you there
and wonder.
20.8.14
18.8.14
> Liberian officials fear EVD could soon spread through the capital's
> largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected
> patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses. The
> violence in the West Point slum occurred late Sat [16 Aug 2014] and
> was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding
> center from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant
> health minister, said Sun [17 Aug 2014].
>
> Local witnesses told Agence France Presse that there were armed men
> among the group that attacked the clinic. "They broke down the doors
> and looted the place. The patients all fled," said Rebecca Wesseh, who
> witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and
> the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams. Up
> to 30 patients were staying at the center, and many of them fled at
> the time of the raid, said Nyenswah [other reports put the number at
> 17. - Mod.JW]. Once they are located, they will be transferred to the
> EVD center at Monrovia's largest hospital, he said.
>
> The attack comes just one day after a report of a crowd of several
> hundred local residents chanting "No Ebola in West Point" drove away a
> burial team and their police escort that had come to collect the
> bodies of suspected EVD victims in a slum in the capital, Reuters
> reports. West Point residents went on a "looting spree," stealing
> items from the clinic that were likely infected, said a senior police
> official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to
> brief the press. The residents took medical equipment and mattresses
> and sheets that had bloodstains, he said. EVD is spread through bodily
> fluids including blood, vomit, feces and sweat.
>
> "All between the houses, you could see people fleeing with items
> looted from the patients," the official said, adding that he now
> feared "the whole of West Point will be infected." Some of the looted
> items were visibly stained with blood, vomit and excrement, said
> Richard Kieh, who lives in the area.
>
> The incident creates a new challenge for Liberian health officials who
> were already struggling to contain the outbreak. New figures released
> by the World Health Organization show that Liberia has recorded more
> EVD deaths (413) than any of the other affected countries.
>
> Liberian police restored order to the West Point neighborhood on Sun
> [17 Aug 2014]. Sitting on land between the Montserrado River and the
> Atlantic Ocean, West Point is home to at least 50 000 people,
> according to a 2012 survey. Distrust of government runs high in West
> Point, with rumors regularly circulating that the government plans to
> clear the slum out entirely. Though there had been talk of putting
> West Point under quarantine should EVD break out there, assistant
> health minister Nyenswah said Sunday [17 Aug 2014] that no such step
> has been taken. "West Point is not yet quarantined, as is being
> reported," he said.
>
> While the armed attack is likely the most brazen attack on health
> workers trying to contain the deadly outbreak, it is far from the 1st
> in the region worst-hit by it. There have been numerous reports of
> locals attacking those trying to stop the disease by throwing stones
> at aid workers, blocking aid convoys, and forcibly removing patients
> from clinics. Many locals blame foreigners for bringing the disease,
> saying it had never been there before they arrived. The mistrust of
> central government and help from outside runs deep in this part of
> West Africa. All 3 countries worst-hit by the outbreak -- Liberia,
> Sierra Leone, and Guinea -- are relatively recently off decades of
> either brutal civil war or iron-fisted dictatorships.
> largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected
> patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses. The
> violence in the West Point slum occurred late Sat [16 Aug 2014] and
> was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding
> center from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant
> health minister, said Sun [17 Aug 2014].
>
> Local witnesses told Agence France Presse that there were armed men
> among the group that attacked the clinic. "They broke down the doors
> and looted the place. The patients all fled," said Rebecca Wesseh, who
> witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and
> the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams. Up
> to 30 patients were staying at the center, and many of them fled at
> the time of the raid, said Nyenswah [other reports put the number at
> 17. - Mod.JW]. Once they are located, they will be transferred to the
> EVD center at Monrovia's largest hospital, he said.
>
> The attack comes just one day after a report of a crowd of several
> hundred local residents chanting "No Ebola in West Point" drove away a
> burial team and their police escort that had come to collect the
> bodies of suspected EVD victims in a slum in the capital, Reuters
> reports. West Point residents went on a "looting spree," stealing
> items from the clinic that were likely infected, said a senior police
> official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to
> brief the press. The residents took medical equipment and mattresses
> and sheets that had bloodstains, he said. EVD is spread through bodily
> fluids including blood, vomit, feces and sweat.
>
> "All between the houses, you could see people fleeing with items
> looted from the patients," the official said, adding that he now
> feared "the whole of West Point will be infected." Some of the looted
> items were visibly stained with blood, vomit and excrement, said
> Richard Kieh, who lives in the area.
>
> The incident creates a new challenge for Liberian health officials who
> were already struggling to contain the outbreak. New figures released
> by the World Health Organization show that Liberia has recorded more
> EVD deaths (413) than any of the other affected countries.
>
> Liberian police restored order to the West Point neighborhood on Sun
> [17 Aug 2014]. Sitting on land between the Montserrado River and the
> Atlantic Ocean, West Point is home to at least 50 000 people,
> according to a 2012 survey. Distrust of government runs high in West
> Point, with rumors regularly circulating that the government plans to
> clear the slum out entirely. Though there had been talk of putting
> West Point under quarantine should EVD break out there, assistant
> health minister Nyenswah said Sunday [17 Aug 2014] that no such step
> has been taken. "West Point is not yet quarantined, as is being
> reported," he said.
>
> While the armed attack is likely the most brazen attack on health
> workers trying to contain the deadly outbreak, it is far from the 1st
> in the region worst-hit by it. There have been numerous reports of
> locals attacking those trying to stop the disease by throwing stones
> at aid workers, blocking aid convoys, and forcibly removing patients
> from clinics. Many locals blame foreigners for bringing the disease,
> saying it had never been there before they arrived. The mistrust of
> central government and help from outside runs deep in this part of
> West Africa. All 3 countries worst-hit by the outbreak -- Liberia,
> Sierra Leone, and Guinea -- are relatively recently off decades of
> either brutal civil war or iron-fisted dictatorships.
TERRIFIC
I hold now to nothing but Allah, bricks and dust,
the house empty and memory just a phase
in yet more phases while you sleep
unencumbered in your sociopathic haze.
Remember the day your boy got his leg
stuck in the fender of an ATV
and I turned and rolled in.
Near the camel souks of Riyadh,
his gasps and terror bled into the sand.
As I knelt by his pale wonderful body
and shushed him like the babe
to whom I’d given birth while you
entertained the nurse with stories
of a woman in stillbirth and her husband
threw the body in the morn into the well
saying, What baby? to her as she awoke,
I gasped and begged for the knife
and as he lay limp and lifeless there
near my worn out old form,
they pumped him full of nitrogen
for days as I woke and traveled to
and from the hospital where I tended
to drunks and drag queens,
there you were hanging onto
your strenuous gaps of good and evil.
And you twisted your face
as you watched me pull his leg free,
inspect his chest where he’d landed
and you complained about my calm
demeanor and I knelt near his
pale wonderful body, his natural grace,
the only peace I’ve ever known
with your species was at his side
in the afternoon naps.
He and I read the Hobbit over a course
of a week or two, Charlotte’s Web
left us weeping and alone.
Letter To The Dead
Don’t blow out the last light in my soul,
the one called pity, the one called empty
for it is the only one that burns.
It’s unsteady flicker consumes
atom after atom of air,
the breeze wanders through her door.
The lighthouse keeper has locked
his shop and turned away the sea
in agony where his breath holds
the final blow to all that burned
all that beckoned he has stowed
away his key. Beware
the cool
vapor that settles near the quay,
beware the tips of your fingers,
beware the beating of your heart
where nothing but stones and stitches
remain. For the
movement of its chambers
disrupt the universe where stars
melt into time and the past
behind which is more past and the past.
In Monrovia
the hundred aliases of evil
know poverty’s single house address,
familiar with all her drab,
pointless days spent in mud
and frustration, robbing Peter
to pay Paul. The taxis carry
the message of God to every door
and gallons of rain wash
the rusts of love from the naked
bodies of the dead and the dying.
The pungence of death’s naked stare
on the floor of a hut bearing
her breasts to an old man there
waiting for Judgement to come.
The last view I saw as he stumbled
toward the back gate, broken
and breaking will haunt
the waterways of our prison no more.
All those hours spent waiting
for the guard to pass by, to pass
us our crusts and slop
sink into the sewers
on the tales of snakes.
Rub al Qali
Here in sacred spaces, these invaded places
where the last of you retracts
the lips of my soul, not once
did you read the cover to cover,
not once did you stop to take the time
to hold on and craving after craving,
the taxi driver past the gravestones
in the wadi, the gull as she shat
a slap from the Lord
of the Worlds
and Istanbul
might wake me from the sleep of prison.
Chain after chain encircled until finally
chin, nose, eyes were wrapped
into the blindness of bondage.
Did you know love that I bleached
every single uniform, took time to
clean the blinds? At last to collect you
from your airports and first class lounges
to brush aside these meaningless advances.
Here my heart lies listlessly
between creation and time
waiting alone until Paris closes,
until Morocco flashes her headlights
in the whore-light of dawn.
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