THE DISEASE
by Kirby Wright
copyright © 2001



Ludlow Press Poetry

The Disease

                         It forced you up in the dark morning.  It made you take a hard look
                         at your life.  It was awful.  It was how a lawyer reviews a case and
                         decides the case is lost.  It was a plague.  People from Boston to
                         Beijing, Honolulu to Helsinki, North Pole to South, suffered.
                         Depression tormented every neighborhood of every city of every
                         continent.  The world deteriorated.  Dolphins washed up on
                         beaches.  Dumps stretched fists of garbage into the clouds.  An
                         evil halo circled  the Earth. 

                        A company invented Kicki, a pill you popped before sleep.
                        It kept all the bad feelings jailed in dreams.  The governments
                        approved the drug with no red tape.  Citizens took Kicki and
                        woke refreshed.  Some were so happy they gave up coffee
                        and cocaine.  The evil halo turned invisible.  New Yorkers
                        designed a giant balloon in  the drug's likeness and floated it
                        down Fifth Avenue.

                        The world was not such a bad place, as long as you took
                        Kicki.  Soon almost everyone had the disease.  Kicki parties
                        became the rage.  The governments relaxed guidelines so you
                        could get it over-the-counter and from vending machines.  

                       Rebels wanted to experience the disease.  They asked questions
                       like "What is the purpose of life?"  The media stopped the
                       interviews.  The governments called them "nihilists."  The rebels
                      were rounded up by the  police and force-fed Kicki.  The ones
                      who hid the drug under their tongues had their tongues removed.
  

                      And the Earth was a better place—diseased, yes—but a planet full
                      of hopeful, industrious people.       

E-mail: kirby33@earthlink.net

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