Sleeping Sickness
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S: Sleeping Sickness
C:
Malaria malaise and miasma for days
Screaming silently through the bug-bitten haze
Broad daylight or starry, starry night
There will never be respite.
Mosquito net captivity.
Fly-paper African nativity.
Tape me down to a cot and
Weigh me down with stones.
Sooner or later the liquor will dry
And the red-eyed Devil will feast on my rotten bones.
V1:
Run rampant across the roiling desert sands,
Violent ends and violent plans.
Gin and tonic for healthy spinal fluid, tonic-
clonic, myopic sight like Jesus blinded.
Seizures, DT, spiders makin’ webs in the corner.
He prophesied I would be dead by the Coming of the Monsoon
High tide rolling over, thunderstuck, trapped in the mud.
A man-made voyage down the Nile,
I drop my tablets single file.
Down the hatch, fear mounting,
Dread sky splitting upon the mountain.
I:
“I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.”
V2:
Cursed be he whose hubris flies,
Cause somebody’s gotta collect your ashes when your soul dies.
They found him yesterday
Face down in the foul smelling water
Brackish delight and choking fly-
Tsetse bottleneck and Evil Eye
Hung around his neck, noose loose
And hair up in flames, fuse abuse.
Cholera, dysentery,
Pick a peace, my dog, pieces a’plenty.
And spare my mind the Green Fairy’s wisdom-
Because she’s the gatekeeper to God’s harlot kingdom.
I:
In the distance, the sound of many wild animals permeate the night.
V3:
Digging dunes under an August moon
Teeth chattering, sweating blood, crushing pills underneath my tongue...
Wide awake, wide awake, wide awake...
Pillow’s looking like a graveyard den.
Thieves comin’ to snatch the net off my tent.
“Keep calm, keep calm,” bellows the red-eyed Chieftan,
“A Season in Hell puts hair on your chest…”
C:
Malaria malaise and miasma for days
Screaming silently through the bug-bitten haze.
Broad daylight or starry, starry night
There will never be respite.
Mosquito net captivity.
Fly-paper African nativity.
Tape me down to the cot,
Weigh me down with stones .
Sooner or later the liquor will dry
And the red-eyed Devil will feast on my rotten bones.
I:
“You'll always be a hyena,” yells the devil, who'd crowned me with such pretty poppies. “Deserve death with all your appetites, your selfishness, and all the capital sins!”