haiku

『Public Health Haiku』

What originally started out as a half-joke, half-soliloquy on Facebook back in February 29th, 2020 has now aged into something quite prophetically sad.

Below is copy & pasted from the original Facebook thread of haikus I created. Friends and family added their own, which I am not including here.

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We never get funding

Coronavirus outbreak

We get blamed again

"We're all gonna die!"

Is where we are at right now

Plus stocks went down, too

Everyone panics

At the wrong fucking bullshit

Like stupid stock shares

Someone now in charge

Who thinks science is made up

Will control health comms

At what point will we

Consider human lives as

More than stock markets

Health is not money

Yet the media only cares

When money is attached

Twenty percent cut

From CDC outbreak team

Because walls, not lives

"Dow Jones dropped a lot!"

Do you think I fucking care

When people have died

It is now the point

Where my job is annoying

Dealing with fake news

Outbreak fake news from

Racist hypochondriacs

Annoys yours truly

"Asians are dirty!"

Screams the racist on the train

Looking at yours truly

So in response to

This ignorant gross asshole

I cough right on him

I worry about

The elderly and the poor

Who lack protection

How are the people

Who are old and so lonely

Faring right now?

How will the people

Who have no money or home

Find treatment, at all?

To all public health

Responders and providers

Thank you very much

So please be kind to

Those trying to help the sick

Without funds at all

Human lives must be

More than politicizing

Ego over truth

I care more about

The vulnerable and poor

In this giant mess

So save your stock share

Woes for someone else who cares

Because I will not

In epidemics

Please be kind to those who work

To protect your health