Tag: Barry Meisenberg
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Inscrutable malice: Ode to a virus
Barry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States A mere 29 proteins, it punishes the world with an inscrutable malice.Be it another’s agent or a principal, a nefarious actor,it infects, inflames and thromboses according to its nature,Leaving a wake of death, disability, grief, and havoc. But no—not an actor at all, for no agency resides in this 29.9…
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To my colleagues in Ukraine whom I saw on TV
Barry MeisenbergBaltimore, Maryland, United States Limestone fragments of the “Vulture Stele” now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. A stele is a stone pillar erected as a monument to some great event. This stele was created circa 2500 BC to celebrate the victory of King Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma. In the…
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A poet for a patient: A tenth century poem by al Mutanabbi
Sama AlreddawiBarry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States “The Night Visitor”1 Sick of body, unable to rise up…Vehemently intoxicated without wine …And it is as though she who visits me were filled with modesty…For she does not pay her visits save under cover of darkness …I freely offered her my linen and my pillows…But she refused them,…
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The sleep of doctors
Barry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States The gods who rule 2AM summon the doctor from sleep to the sequestered place where the veneer of unearned pride is bleached away. You forgot to re-order a sodium level on the whiskered old fisherman with lung cancer. It was low last week and might be lower tomorrow. He looked…