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Desmond the poet Sep 2017
by Desmond Makatu,

Your visits are unpredictable.
like a ghost, you're invisible.
The attacks are inevitable.
You come like a thief at night.
You seize me day and night.

"Epilepsy: an inevitable thief"

Cruelty unrestricted to age.
Victimising even toddlers.
Unrestricted to ethnic groups.
My life has time gaps.
Gaps, like discrete graphs.
Cracks depict thin line between life and death.
Grace bridges the gaps and life prevails over death.
Seizures still haunt me like a demonic wrath.

"Epilepsy: an inevitable thief"

Attacks are brief, bruises lasts forever.
You offer questions only God can answer.
Quest for answers is like probing for cure of Cancer.
Death seemed to be the answer but God thought otherwise.

First seizure shook like multiple earthquakes.
Followed by a pool of darkness.
woke up confused, crowd's ****** expressions said a thousand words.
Migraines raided my head, exposed to enormous pressure.
Officially baptised by wrath of seizures.

"Epilepsy: an inevitable thief"

You're a physical and psychological culprit.
Like a Yoyo, you take me into a roller-coaster of emotions.
Aftermaths of your theft are etched in my mind as if they’re on stones.
Behind my “poker face” lies devastating pains than physicals seen by the  crowd.

"Epilepsy: an inevitable thief"

Watch video on YouTube. https://youtu.be/VggXerYLOHY
Being epileptic for, I thought I should express how I feel about the condition.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
too much disney, too many
flashing images of a worthwhile
epilepsy... what about photo-sensitive epilepsy
what of dyslexia-sensitive epilepsy?
i get the elvis shakes fearing the worst
when seeing people spell out certain words.

then you see the word d'uh...
and you stop believing it happened,
because no media broadcast the story
with a d'uh being relevant to the countless rapes
and ontologies exaggerated as a norm basis (i.e. normal)
of being human.
Desmond the poet Aug 2018
Those you haven’t victimized fear you.
Mighty and dreadful you seem.
Little do they know, you only seize flesh and control the mind.
You seize not the soul.
Hence be not proud.

You’ve dwelled in me for many years.
Imprisoned me to anti-epileptic drugs.
You’ve dispirited me.
You attack, seize, and control my mind.
Your attacks are but brief.

Epilepsy be not proud.
For I fear not what rescind only flesh.
I fear what abolish both soul and flesh.
Proportional to gravitational force I fell.
I’ve always find the forte to rise.

Epilepsy be not proud.
For against all odds, I’m still alive.
https://m.facebook.com/EpilepsyandCpfriends
This poem to show that for as much as I've been epileptic for 32 years I'm still alive because Epilepsy has not managed to **** me.
Desmond the poet Aug 2018
It’s a good day the lord granted.
Everything seems so perfect.
Weather is sweet.
Sun’s shining.
What could go wrong?

…….Until…..

I felt you coming.
Like a hijacker through a rear view mirror.
How I wish for a false alarm.
Dear lord may this cup pass.
A moment to accept the inevitable arrived.

Oh my God! you seized me once again.
You came like a thief at midnight.
You hijacked my mind.
You exposed me to wrath of migraines.
Horrible 30 seconds in a 24hour day.
It's like a small stain on a white garment.

The cruelty of an epileptic seizure is inevitable.
https://m.facebook.com/EpilepsyandCpfriends
This an expression of how a 30seconds encounter with with an epileptic seizure can ruined the whole 24hour day.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i once loved, and it's a shame to
agree to: better have loved and lost,
than to have not loved at all.
and as i browse the pages of
a saturday newspaper article
i like to think about virology applied
to mental illness...
and how they: life is ****
   story could really be a viral infection...
i don't know, it's not exactly
h.i.v.,
                oh i can contain my own
*******, i'm writing it on the flag
of colour white,
next time you get a brain haemorrhage
and then get diagnoses as schizophrenic:
i'll take you the crucifix on golgotha:
and imbed your head into
the cross... silent anger, contained:
and all the more concern for inhibited
humour... because as Borat said: jak sie mash:
i like. so please, don't tell me
you weren't gagging for the new golgotha...
because i wasn't...
         and i know, most of the time i have
my mouth attached to a head of a struś
gagging himself in a pit of sand...
yes an ostrich, the grand inspiration for
francis bacon attempts to redefine geometry...
oh coming out of communism and into
capitalism, for a kid?, can be a rough ride...
you don't know what ideology to appease
and what ideology to dictate...
         but i'm wondering whether or not
mental illness can have the potency to
        become virus-like...
     and drain,
and i mean: drain the soul out of you...
or whether man as mammal ever did exist...
or whether this new fashion of
feline existentialism can ever take off,
narratives about spending time with your
bonsai tiger... you'd really think japan was
a bit freakish... but it just has a large
ageing population and no one thinks
that euthanasia is a standard of humanism,
unlike ******* ***** into a face of
a woman... because right there, no
one died... if had any of those anemic
tadpoles actually lived...
    which brings this about to concern me:
so... we live for nine months, in, let's
basically say: in an environment without
oxygen, you got gills stashed in there
with that umbilical chord...
how can it ever be a miracle of birth...
that's what a god might say...
a human would look at it and say:
huh? you joking? i'm part of this horror?
     but not until you have a brain
haemorrhage and get diagnosed as schizoid
and then you think: so what was the point
of forgiving your enemies come into this?
      i can't believe it has become so, so personal,
to actually have this nagging, decapitated
doll-head on your shoulder telling you to:
repeat! repeat!
       i could literally be writing this in
Auschwitz and be like: Neddy needs a jumper
and a diaper... cos like that really needs
you to fathom the logic of assembling an
Ikea chair...
                          i mean, talking in the west
is a bit like farting into a hippotamous' nostril
for a ******* jackuzi effect...
  jack! i said ***! what's with this jacuzzi?
English, mein gott... confusion everywhere
you pigeon **** onto a top-hat.
by the way: everyone becomes
dyslexic on the word hippopotamus -
there's a reason why hippos exist...
        you want acronyms, you get shortening...
and yes, since english society has abolished
asylums, the society has become a breeding
ground for asylum instigators,
rich russians, bewildered chienese...
it's en masse, one, massive, cesspit...
   i mean the part where you don't get the brown
steamturd floating about like some
  celebrity you'd love to slap with much
more than mere paparazzi epilepsy...
because violence matters, esp into language games...
i was just asking, because there i was,
working on a roof on some construction site,
and she calls me up and says that
she hears voices...
          that's what i mean certain mental
delinquents and their choice of Samaritan...
  what does a roofer know about "voices"
if it doesn't equate to a bad conscience?
    that's why i'm wondering whether certain mental
illnesses have a virus-like profanity attached to them...
oh yes yes, the unison: bob marley: we're one
type of ******* to boot, like i'm supposed to get
a hardy and a 'ard on about it...
               ******* spoof of a light-bulb moment: PING!
and there... ain't that just dazzling?
phantasmagorical blurp at the feet of
Eros at Piccadilly Circus... my ego is a canon
that just simply shoots out viagras! and questions.
and yes... that's what we call being part
of the clown...
    and if there's a lord of flies...
what's the guy mentioned by beelzebub drunk
doing about the mosquitos?
           ah... boundless at the crucix, once more!
i'm just wondering where
does mental illness become solipsism,
  and when in fact it becomes a sort of virology...
   i can romanticise mental illness as a type
of solipsism, that it has a cage, that it can be contained...
but when mental illness goes outside of the novel,
strolls outside its cage and becomes
something akin to kissing a *****,
     i want to know.... because i swear i have been
affected by someone's mental illness being
hidden in the shadow of taboo...
   look... i'm ******* exfoliating with vocab!
        how can you become normal after someone
exposes you the symptom of "voices"...
that's demeaning given the past history of
having relationships with angels and demons,
that's like a neuter noun.... voices brings up
more concern for a pronoun-****-up than
a clear, noun association... angels, sure,
i could start looking more closely at pigeons...
demons, doubly sure, i could start
chasing bats...
              but i need to know whether mental
illness is worthy of taboo, i.e. it's worth
the category of being physical, in that it can be
contagious... whether it can act like a virus....
whether it can become an epidemic...
    and to be honest, i think it can,
but that seems pointless, since western society
has exchanged asylums for taboo...
                  look at me now,
a once budding roofer, reduced to writing poetry,
i might as well be an ******...
            safe-guarding king Solomon's harem...
oh sure, eunuchs were able to **** his *** slaves...
they were slaves themselves,
what they weren't allowed is to usurp
    the ******* crown of the king passing his
d.n.a., mind the frivolity, never the seriousness
of geneticist, yawning when their genesis was to come...
    i'd love to see hans andersen on the trail of
dolly... the sheep... and dolly really does become
a trinity of animal prior to human in the out-reaches...
what with laika (man's best friend)
and later fiztgerald... oh wait (man's worst enemy,
the money) Baker....
   thanks to de Sade and baron Sacher-Masoch
we could truly begin the orthodox occult of science...
   how the two patron "saints"
interpolate... it really is a dualism worthy of
dangling a crucifix... shame the first monkey in
space wasn't called Brian...
    i don't know, then, perhaps, the Caesars at
the coliseum wouldn't boast so much about
   the: lacking the ambidable thumb
(yes!) googlewhack no. 4 / 5 -
mandible thumb you idiot! d'uh...
but still, a googlewhack at the end of it...
type in: lacking the ambidable thumb
and, yes = 1 result in the google algorithm...
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Thumb-Deformity/728760,
i call this the alternative version of, or rather,
the digital version of fishing...
     a tail like a thumb, the grip baron...
   but my peacocking the tongue shouldn't
be deemed as: straitjacket panic button prone...
  why would it?
****! he used the colour azure in his blue period,
that picasso did! chain him! gag him!
stash him in a kitchen stove!
i mean the inspection of genuine viriology
dynamic concerning mental illness,
the anti-thesis of solipsism, as the proper counter...
or should i say: membrane / barrier?
    can mental illness make ranks, i.e. spread?
like a virus can?
            well, if you take to explaining a zeitgeist...
ideology akin to communism and ****** can
become virus-akin... so i guess... yes...
it had to become a self-serving question easily
answered... mental illness can be very much
akin to a common cold... it's not really a case of taboo
being the lock-and-key to contain it...
nor the asylum... i suppose the best prescription
is the idea of solipsism...
              but isn't this grand,
i'm actually lethargic, coinciding with
    a tax on robots... and the French slashing
their 35 hour working weeks to 32 hours...
    and the Finns paying their unemployed
    (2K, placebo dosage for the actual
   237,000 unemployed) - a random €560 a month...
such are the times...
           it really has become a sort of
year 0 orientation lesson... because it's just
gagging for a guillotine to snap it awake,
so a decapitated head of Charles I at Whitehall might
say it's final farewell...
              and is mental illness capable of
being akin to a viral infection...
     it probably can... you probe the waters in an
environment of poets... they're good enough
to succumb to a white rabbit experiment...
              question is: do you apply the rule
of solipsism or an actual asylum? in a post-asylum
society, i don't think there's an option
whether solipsism should, or shouldn't be used
to counter the more serious form of the flu...
   but, as ever, it comes down to the age-old
cartesian model of dualism... or as any siamese twin
might attest: i'm not that further away from
my sister as you might think...
  the dualism that served so well for so many years
to appear "peaceful" became a real dichotomy...
  the ergo suddenly failed... when people realised
that the fact "i think" didn't necessarily
precipiate into "i am"... given what the media is
interested in, and how many people become missing
and all that... the numbers were too much
for player uno to simply give up the canvas
of newspapers and t.v. to some poor schmuck
trying to impregnate his canvas on which he worked
his paint-brush (power) and paint (wealth) onto...
   the cartesian ergo simply failed...
    oh sure, the other two facts worked... but they
didn't necessarily congregate universally
in the crux of ergo,
        i was told it would be a monsoon of thought
established on earth... instead i got a light-shower
   and the Gobi desert.
in the same way the subconscious exists
as a fake of the trinity...
           to me it has no need for a chisel...
as a realm... treat the conscious as a realm
akin to Hades, and it becomes wholly
de-personalised... there's not individual in it
that might require it... it's a covert mechanism
of subterfuge... but if we're talking
making rabbit heads with our hands
   in the shadow form... we're talking
nothing but puppeteering...
   or like saying, let's create an evolved
version of the definite (the) and the indefinite (a)
article...
                      well... there must be
a direct and an indirect article...
                well there is...
con                                 and sub-con,
       un-con is an indiscriminate article...
meaning: what are the evolutionary gains
of dreaming, given the cinema?
Johnny Zhivago Aug 2013
Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill


Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.
unfinished but did you bother to the end?
WendyStarry Eyes May 2016
I have epilepsy
It did not go away
Temporal lobe surgery
Reduced seizure accuracy
Without medication they will come back to stay
I have epilepsy
This I have to say
To live in denial
Will cause self decay
I have epilepsy
Every single day
It is a disease that I carry
That will not go away
I have epilepsy
The conclusion I must face TODAY
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray
The joyous comfort I have found is to pray!
Kate Eddy Feb 2020
Today I hoped to achieve something great,
Something many would consider a heroic trait,
Giving plasma to those in need,
With the hope that the doctor's treatments would succeed.

Taking me back after a two hour wait,
I realized there were things which they needed to set straight,
For while I appeared as well as could be,
There was my underlying problem of epilepsy.

I suspected beforehand what I was to be told,
All things considered I kept myself controlled,
For even though I'd have to wait 3 years,
I realized that I had no great fears.

As I refused to be distressed,
For I knew that I'd done my best,
I knew what seemed like a setback to some
Was still a chance of a lifetime to come.

So I'll continue to help those in anyway open to me,
Until that path can at last be seen,
My chance will come again someday,
So I refuse to let such enthusiasm fade away.

  
                         ~What people think~




Sarah Gosa - I wondered while I was reading if it was the medication or the condition of epilepsy that kept you from being able to donate your plasma and what is the significance of three years. Enjoyed the voice of someone wanting to help out in their community. There are other ways to be of public service if this is not a good fit for you. It is defeating when we want to help but for some reason we can't. I had epilepsy as a child and have also donated my blood in the past so I could relate to the feelings in your poem. The last time I donated blood they separated the platelets out and pumped saline back into my veins, if I remember correctly. I hope you find an enjoyable way to spend your time. Thank you so much for sharing your poem with me.


Noble Knight - Epilepsy there is a subject I know to well grand poem amazing job


ALW89 - I really enjoyed this. Your tone went from excited to give yourself to others, then you showed your defeat. Seemingly having an illness like epilepsy can be an internal set back, since you appear well on the outside. Your writing showcased that and the poem ended with hope and put a nice spin on the defeat. Being in the medical profession I was really inspired by this.

Inspired me.
I won't give up on this idea. Even if I can only do this once. For now I'm going to try blood donation.
NeroameeAlucard Nov 2015
I'd like to thank eveybody for their time,
as we conduct this interview in rhyme.
If you have a disability such as mine,
Everybody wants to pry into your mind.
So in this piece im going to address,
all the questions im asked, i intend to put that to rest.
But i can't do this alone, i require some help
Bluestar , thank you so much for providing assistance
Yes thanks, ladies and gentleman, here we go,
What we have here is a fine young specimen,
A young age male with a disability no one knows,
And what is it, you ask?
Why, I don't mind if I do begin to explain him
Epilepsy, that's what it is,
It's what he's got inside
And before you start to ask, no it's not a mental disorder
Do you want to hear the facts or think the fiction, you have to decide
Shall i dispense with the facts?
Hmm with the mighty sword of knowledge ignorance i shall attack!
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder,
It causes me to be prone to seizures.
Not the kind that causes the removal of property,
But occasionally my brain will fry, and my body go crazy,
Like a vampire exposed to holy ether
But don't worry, he's not going to die,
If you're with him when it happens you cannot run and hide
He'll need you to support him, to make sure he's okay
Make sure things are out of his reach and do not force him to obey
In conclusion dear friends, im just like you,
I may have neruological quirks, but im still Neroamee Alucard,
Not some show at the zoo,
So if you know somebody, with any form of fault or disability,
Dont patronize or be overbearing,
Just make allowances for their need
Thanks For the Help Pirate!
Julia  May 2014
Epilepsy
Julia May 2014
Swollen tongue,
And cuts all over.
If only she'd have known
That the epilepsy would take hold.
Dry throat
And an aching head.
She's been taking her meds just like they said.
Body worn down
As she's trying to stop her racing mind.
"Just sleep it off,
Maybe that was the last one this time."
Lacking understanding
Of why the drugs won't work.
Questioning everything
From when it happened to why it happened to her.
"Control the stress,
They'll become less consistent."
Maybe that would work
If she didn't feel like her faith was missing.
*jm
Desmond the poet Jun 2018
I’ve had myriad seizures in my life.
I’m however, still alive.
An obscure force constantly attacked me.
A force directly proportional to gravity.
God granted serenity to accept the certainty,

Epilepsy, you’re in my life.
You don’t own my life.
My cognitive function has been dented.
I’ve been labelled and painted.
Sometimes even laughed at.

Seized, fell and rose countlessly.
I soldiered on courageously.
Giving up has never been an option.
I never took my eyes off the goal posts.
Epilepsy tried to shift the goal posts.

Against all odds, I graduated.
Applause as I approach the podium.
They applaud for academic success.
I however applaud for overcoming epilepsy.
Hospital was my other home during studies.
Marks capped, academic record not true image of success.
During my university years, I used to constantly get admitted to hospital due to epilepsy and it reflected badly on my academic record due to supplementary exams.
Rick Campbell  Apr 2014
Epilepsy
Rick Campbell Apr 2014
Epilepsy-
Feeling as I been here seen this heard these sounds in my life at this time of my life before I feel this déjà vu come across me before the fear of death and hell is the warning the aura the before I feel. Deeper and deeper I go into this fear and abyss wanting to tell someone around me how I feel my fear and ask am I alive? As I try to speak I say no such thing for I believe I say what I say but all is mumbling. After all is done my body and brain are all worn out for I am tired from my clenching and doubt. I am confused at times at where I'm at or who is there but I thank the Lord for being by my side every time I have my seizure.
Richard Campbell
Desmond the poet Apr 2018
Every morning is a chance at a new day.
It’s never a bad life but a bad day.
Appreciate every seizure-free day. great feeling of rising post every fall.

Life's perkier focusing on what truly matters.
Each day may not be seizure-free,
There’s but, something good everyday.

I don’t live once.
Instead I die once.
I live every day.
I’ve been broken.
I’ve been hurt.
I’m however still alive.

https://www.facebook.com/EpilepsyandCpfriends/
As usual I share my experience living with epilepsy. This poem is about focusing on the positive because I'VE learnt a lot from living with this chronic condition.

— The End —