2004-12-07 - 1:09 p.m.
wrote this recently
towards a medicine in real time
respect to maria poblet
ultimately the study of the way
hot metal rod buries and burns into flesh
is too late
to identify again and
again on each patient
the again
the way
electric shock
penetrates
cauterizes sears again burns
again
black into black skin
is too late
bullets will always
break holes into whole skin
to only memorize the way
depleted uranium crams into
soldier bodies and rises
again
with a lump in the throat
or a lovers breast
is too late
we believe in on time
on time
right now
medicine
in bodhisatva medicine buddha
who sharpens his
ears
sits lotus position alone
still
quiet as the night
for the wind to carry
any cry or shriek
we believe in
let the witness take a stand
Dr. Wendy Orr
24 yr old
south african
apartheid
prison doctor
who said enough
my scalpel cannot heal
without my voice following
cut silence
call out loud
the name
the necessary
the baton
the whtie police guard
the stove hot revolver
before a welt rises
like a mountain on flat skin
or another body is buried
a small lump of dry earth
we believe in
house call
great depression doctors
open their black bag
write prescriptions
for bread
we believe in
Dr. V
Indian doctor-saint
the infinite vision to
dream and do
erect
as many free eye clinics
as McDonalds
an assembly line
of sight for the poor
we believe in
doctors without borders
of commitment
Dr.Gilbert Granados
Dr. Jyoti Puvvula
who stand months
before the Fedral
building in Los Angeles
in protest of the Iraq war
the doctor/soothsayers
who know war
only brings together
a community
of severed legs
blood that clots
in the throat
of
mother earth
we believe
in
Dr. Paul Farmer
Dr. Joia Mukherjee
sadhus of the night
who travel mountains
and slums
to wring poverty out
in all her incarnations
repeating her name as they walk
AIDS
TB
Malaria
Diabetes
we believe in
Dr. Franz Fanon
Dr. Che Guevera
doctors who draw
the wrethched of the
earth
back into the line of history
we
do
believe
