The ghost of life: hi neighbor

There are all kinds of plagues, all kinds of pandemics. One constant, though, seems to be the need of many people to brand the victims as somehow deserving of their disease. Almost always that branding is framed around God—you contracted [bubonic, Ebola, influenza, whatever] because you are ungodly. You have offended God, and now you must pay.

We’re seeing that now as the right-wing evangelicals attribute the COVID19 pandemic to their Old Testament God being really, really pissed off at…well, everyone not a right-wing evangelical. They were out in force when the AIDS epidemic exploded on our horizon in the 1980s, so they’ve had decades of practice. AIDS was an obvious target of the holier-than-thou contingent, because its sufferers at first were almost exclusively gay men. Then intravenous drug users. This vector group made it easy for Ronald Reagan to ignore the public health crisis, which in turn helped spread the disease.

It took years and years—and recognition by the pharmaceutical industry that there was big money to be made in HIV/AIDS therapies—for treatments to be developed. HIV is no longer the death sentence it was at first, but many tens of thousands around the world died before we got to here.

Today for National Poetry Month, I’m giving you a couple of poems that encapsulate that arc. The first is from Tim Dlugos, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at age 40. This was one of his final poems:

“My Death”

when I no longer

feel it breathing down

my neck it's just around

the corner (hi neighbor)

By contrast, Jericho Brown lives his diagnosis in the 21^st Century.

“Psalm 150”

Some folks fool themselves into believing,

But I know what I know once, at the height

Of hopeless touching, my man and I hold

Our breaths, certain we can stop time or maybe

Eliminate it from our lives, which are shorter 

Since we learned to make love for each other 

Rather than doing it to each other. As for praise 

And worship, I prefer the latter. Only memory

Makes us kneel, silent and still. Hear me? 

Thunder scares. Lightning lets us see. Then, 

Heads covered, we wait for rain. Dear Lord, 

Let me watch for his arrival and hang my head

And shake it like a man who's lost and lived. 

Something keeps trying, but I'm not killed yet.