Bird Flu February 24, 2019

So, I did get my flu shot back in October 2o18, and as it somehow goes I got a real bad case of the flu about a week ago. Really bad. My sister drove my semiconscious body down the Urgent Care behind my regular doctor's office. They gave me some antibiotics and steroids. Steroids make you higher than the HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And being shaky nervous and filled with adrenaline I decided to write and write and write on Facebook. AND I decided to take my drugged out comments on  Facebook and make poems out of them. I call them' The Steroid Flu Poems. Here's one of 'em.

Bird Flu 

on leave . . . 1969 . . .  fresh back from Nam

sitting at a local bar with my dad watching

the moon landing on TV, blurry picture,

listening to the newscaster describe 

the event and then: “the Eagle has landed.”

Big whoops and hardy hollers from the bar crowd

who just stopped in to see (as best they could?)

the big show. Even the mostly silent bartender 

couldn’t stop himself from whispering a “God Bless ‘em” 

to himself as her poured free beers for the house.

And a group of older men sitting next to me and dad,

big smiles, slaps on the backs, "We did it! We did it"

but somehow all that joy and pride,

all those tears of God Bless America

suddenly turned into something . . . else:

"Yeah, we did it, alright. And those damn

hippies are still out there protesting the war . . .”

“And all that Civil Rights shit! Always
complaining they are . . . “

“Just gets in the way of what’s going on

right here on TV, on the moon . . .”

“On the moon they are! But do THEY care?”

“FUCK NO!”

It took me a while to figure out

what the hell they were talking about. 

We celebrate moments. . .  Personal,

American moments . . . but it never lasts

because other moments intrude, stronger

moments invade our minds, our bodies,

our will to . . . to . . . 

What the hell was my point?

Woodie o2-24-19