SAVING BLOOD
I met a fellow, is starting a blood bank for virgins
and the mutually monotonous, since the Virus arrived,
in America’s very own Bantustan, among the born again
who conform to I Thes. 4, 3 as well as
21 CFR 600;
and on the tilting RISD couches
with the #15 needles all stuck in
he’ll tell them all about the Saving Blood.
And I think he believes in the Easter Bunny
and in Mary Phagan, and for all I know
little Hugh of Lincoln, bleeding among the cookies.
I have no truck with these hematological metaphors
but will go with my three strong daughters
for whom no PVC plastic, Barbie or bag,
is immolated upon remembering altars,
and with all of you, when I don’t hear nobody pray.
-
Author:
Robert Southwick Richmond (
Offline) - Published: January 13th, 2021 14:39
- Comment from author about the poem: Written about 1990. I had been a community blood banker years before, when I met a colleague, the Virgin Blood Banker, and this poem uses the jargon of the blood donor room. – Bantustan: Oklahoma. – 1 Thes. 4,3 (KJV): For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. – Virus: HIV-AIDS. – 21 CFR 600: the portion of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations that regulates blood banking. – RISD: Rhode Island School of Design (pronounced rizdee) couches: portable Web couches for blood donors. – Mary Phagan and Hugh of Lincoln: references to old anti-Semitic libels. – PVC (polyvinyl chloride): the plastic once used to make blood bags. – Nobody pray: where whiskey and blood run together, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z73IOGAkI6U
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Offline)
Comments3
I hate to have to ask you, but can I have the whiskey?
Apart from that, sorry you've lost me beyond the fact of blood donation and attendant hazards.
As an aside: Years ago I was a blood donor in London. The collection point was The Crypt, St Martin in the Fields - I still have the invitation card somewhere.
I've long been interested in the incorporation of technical language into poetry, but I don't think this particular attempt was entirely successful. – I had to quit donating blood when I got permanently anticoagulated after having a heart valve replacement 19 years ago – I go argue with them occasionally. – The Crypt! The Dracula metaphor is used in blood donor recruitment in some limited circumstances – works with college students.
Dont want to get that Devils bug HIV
HIV has been almost entirely eliminated from donor blood - probably one positive unit slips through per year in the US - among something like 12 million donations. Hepatitis C has about the same statistics.
Keep that whiskey stuff out of your system I'd say. Try whisky instead, it's the genuine article.
I guess you mean Scotch, which I rarely drink. That country song would specify cheap bourbon.
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