Homeopathy
A homeopath
is a sociopath
in your home
putting drops into everything
and you don’t know about it.
Who knows where your water has been?
Memory persists in water.
Memory persists in me.
I still see the faces staring up from under the ice.
When that frozen water melts,
what memories it will carry to the sea.
*****
I’m not picking on alternative medicine this week, though it might seem like that. I don’t trust any medicine. I like the old Chinese way, you only pay your doctor while you are well. I don’t like their medicine though. Homeopaths water down their treatments to the nth degree. Memory persists in the water, they say. But what else has that water seen? What other memories is it carrying in to me? What poisons, what disasters? Water from drowned lungs, water from flooded cities, from industrial processes, the urination of the dying … I don’t want it in me, I don’t want the memories of it all. I’m trying to get rid of memories, I don’t want new ones.
****
Marine Boy
You need your gadgets boy,
and how cool they are:
rocket propeller shoes
electric boomerang
oxy gum.
But you will never fit in.
Everything underwater will always be blurry before your eyes
obscuring the truth
that the mermaid is never taking you home to meet her parents.
You are a fish out of water, boy
Always just one stick of gum away from death.
That’s no way to live.
*****
Technology obscures our weaknesses. There is no record in prehistoric times of humans requiring underwater breathing apparatus. At first the ancient Greeks had no need of it, until Archimedes required a device with pump to explore under water. Ancient humans travelled great distances across seas without boats. It is only with the development of civilisation that our ability to breathe underwater has disappeared. Do our developments make us weak, or is there a more sinister explanation? Has the ability been deliberately removed, through genetic manipulation, or other means? DO NOT TRY TO BREATH UNDERWATER, YOU WILL DIE. Not everyone can be as strong as me. Not even me.
*****
(The Joe Chip portal has been updated here.)