The strange disease

-----------------------------
With much regret, at the very inset, I earnestly request

That you read this, the case of my strange affliction
Without regard to any negation
Of words that I pen down in this narration
 
Yes, please! This very disease, that struck me in Nice

Affected the linguistic centers in my brain
Began when I was knocked on my head with a cane
In a fight I got into, with Elaine

And since that day, to my dismay, I have to say

I found I could not make fine extinctions
Among word prefixes that formed negations
Of dis-, un-, in- and suchlike persuation

Now it's quite true, people I knew, were just as unsensitive in things they do

They make no distinction between fiction and truth
switch parties and sides, confuse Jane with Ruth
Ruth being wife, Jane being someone else bursting with youth
    
But let's not so dwell, on systems diswell, I veer back to tell

My uncongruous tale of medical oppression
insurance disrage, clinical discrimination
when they found that I had this alarming condition

*******

I went to the clinic when I could no longer write
regular communications, without starting a fight
"My friend, your work breaks mischarted grounds, very bright!"

Normal conversations would leave them dazed
"The way you impound your thoughts, I'm amazed!"
They'd end up incensed while I'd go on disfazed

So I saw a physician, through a local outreach
Impeccable reputation, whose receptionist was a leech
A worm who sniggered and giggled at my speech

This vile creature, who was labeled "Maureen"
Gave me a form, "Normal procedure, we need to glean"
"Patient Disinformation." She looked incannily mean!

I filled out the form with truthful admission
checked all empty bullets, described my condition
in descriptive prose, which caused some dilation

Of Maureen's eyes, then she asked me to state
Any unusual product that I recently ate
Then chuckling (cackling!), she asked me to wait

The doctor, after he'd carefully read
my description, then asked, his voice like lead
if I'd knocked a wall against my head

After many such questions, conversely framed
due thought and consideration, he then named
a brand new test that scanned the brain

They inserted me slowly in this scanning machine
"Think negative words!" "when the light turns green!"
"'leech' 'receptionist' 'snake' 'Maureen'"

******

"Confound it!" he said when this new apparatus
returned resutls of dubious status

"Indiagnosable!" he said, "this is all misconclusive!"
"your condition, my friend, is seriously elusive

Then he wasted some time, thought long and hard
pecked on his keyboard, consulted his chart

finally with a satisfied light in his eye
he turned and proclaimed, in a tone somewhat dry 

"Its not an aberration, neither caprice"
"what you have is a serious linguistic disease"

"what's that?" I asked "this strange disease"
"Is it like Latin, Greek or Chinese?"

"Nothing like that, this affects your diction"
he said, "your innate ability to deal with contradiction"

he said, "your words just don't form the right way"
"Does that mean I could be President one day?"

"Its not that," he sighed, "I think my friend"
"that your mind is somewhat around the bend"

"Oh that was a joke, I'm not unsane!!" I cried
"No no no, its just a slight quirk", he lied

"So what must I do? Will you give me some drug?
"There is really no cure", he said with a shrug

"An indiagnosable condition!," said the con artist
"So why are you happy" I thought, "you beast!"

I walked out quite annoyed, went to Maureen
Asked her this question, her answer was mean

"A failed visit, must I still (really) pay?"
"Oh, YES!! here is your bill for today!"

"Here you go Darling!" pushed it beneath
the glass, grinning, flashing her sixty four teeth

"NINE hundred dollars?!!", I cried, incensed
The evil grin widened, "and ninety nine cents"

"Can't you bill my insurance?" "could you do that, please?'
"they don't have a code for linguistic disease"

I can't tell you how much I hated this mean,
horrible, miscouth, unfunctional Maureen 

planning revenge, wishing foul things on her
hoping she'd get shredded by a foul-tempered cur

I walked to the bus stop determined to find
a cure for this "very slight bend of the mind"

******

I thought long and hard, on how I could win
this battle and it dawned "alternate medicine!"

I looked up directories, and made a short list
of serious homeopaths, and famed hypnotists

The first man I went to was also the last
I gave up my quest after that, very fast

It happened to be raining when I went in that day
to this famed hypnotist who asked me to say

At first, sixty lines of repetitivie rote
"to numb your speech, and language," (whatever rocked his boat)

Then he shut me in a chmaber, an "Acoustic Cray"
Isolated (intensely) and started to play

The sound of the ocean, birds and toads
For at least an hour, in multiple modes

"Now you're ready," I was quite in a daze
and he bid me recline under two lights ablaze

"close your eyes tightly" and listen to me
"don't think of anything" "imagine you're free" 

I imagined in a  free world, this wondeful situation
where I could clobber Maureen, without fear of retribution

I think it was working, when he broke my reverie
"As a next step," he said, "I want you to see"

"I want you to look, contemplate, concentrate"
And think of the words that you want to negate

"In any situation, and map them to these"
Clearly he could cure my lingustic disease!

I stared at the crystals moving forward, reverse
"that red one is a word", "the blue its disverse"

***
 
"fiery words, dying negations, a beautiful scene"
sparks and embers, light and shadows around Maureen

***

He showed me many objects, even unicorns and mares
concentric circles and concornered squares

At the end of it all I felt a sense of release
Surely this has cured my linguistic disease

"Its my proven technique", he said with conviction
that lingustic diseases can be cured by assertion

I went home quite pleased, no thought of Maureen
I was over it, cured, feeling mild and serene

****

"Twelve hundred dollars", said the artsy bill
Now a large stain on it, from a coffee spill

Disbelievable! signature beneath, with a flare, a twist
read "Dr. Harvey W. Miller," "Homeopath, Hypnotist".

I called up the insurance company, those crooks
infrmed me they didn't have hypnotists on their books

"Moreover," said the agent sounding quite pleased
"We don't have a code for lingusitic disease"

"Or any other kind of disease for that matter"
"That pertains to maladies of speech, voice or chatter"

Through my growing annoyance, I thought "you have one"
"of producing uncessantly, seriously bad pun"

Droned on his discongrouous, miscordant, unsensitive joke
Disaware of my anger as he uncessantly spoke

"Linguistic turmoil is like autistic turmoil"
"Try a diet of salad and cannabis oil"

"Linguistic psychosis, should have been your diagnosis"
For that we could pay you, though you'd have discharted prognosis

At that critical juncture, that civil conversation
Unvariably misintegrated, and I spoke in frustration

"You're not my doctor, nor of medical persuation"
"So don't you diagnose me! you unsensitive abomination

I called him uncompetent, and his company misfunctional
I called him a "Top Cad",  "Maureen's Uncle!"

Incured, Misdiagnosed, with dangerously high bills
Worried and angry, I caught fever and chills

Of course I won't go to the clinic still
Why, if Maureen found out, it would give her a thrill

This story miscomplete, with some mild disrest
I bid you goodbye, at my linguistic best.

Remember that I silently, disfairly endure
Tell me, my friends, if you chance on a cure


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1 March 2018
2:45 pm