Listening To The Band

Not a music post, but one dealing with the great pandemic of our time: AIDS. As today is Worlds AIDS day, I thought I would add this poem I wrote a couple of years back. I was inspired in part by one of my favorite books: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman F. Cantor and the fantastic movie about the early struggle with AIDS: And the Band Played On. In this piece I make allusions and comparisons to the Black Plague (which was probably two diseases: Bubonic Plague and Anthrax, hence the two forms of the Plague) and AIDS, not in the similarities of the diseases themselves, but the idea of the pandemic that can change the world, especially if public awareness slips. In the case of the Plague, its mere existence changed the world and helped shape the modern world. I am not sure what kind of world AIDS will shape when it is all said and done, but if we continue to pay lip service to a very real pandemic, there might not be enough of us left to pay lip service. Also, AIDS has a tendency to mutate, like many viruses, and perhaps something worse will come about if AIDS is not stopped, or at the least contained.

'Listening to the Band'

Smooth notes distracting,
Danse Macabre reaping,
Broken hearts weeping,
Another soul contracting,
Plague biding its time.

Blood pathogens corroding,
Red ribbons hiding,
No longer siding,
Public support eroding,
Death enjoying its time.

Third world inciting,
This problem denying,
Nations against trying,
Instead keeps fighting,
Compassion wasting its time.

Talking heads braying,
About life saving,
Vaccine effects staving,
Doctors are praying,
Hope buying more time.

Jagged fear returning,
Band still waiting,
Good feelings abating,
Pandemic tide turning,
Who's listening this time?

Smooth notes distracting,
Danse Macabre reaping,
Another soul weeping,
Plague keeps reacting,
Death listening this time.

C.