Category Archives: HIV Here & Now

Poem 4 ± World AIDS Day 2017

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Julene Tripp Weaver
Miracle Meds

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being.
—Jane Kenyon

I refused AZT. Eventually, my T-cell count
fell to fifty, only then I agreed
to a non-protease regimen:
Epivir, Zerit, Viread and Viramune.
Their chemistry made me manic,
unable to sleep, deprived. A walking
time bomb waiting to explode.

A friend asks, Why do you call it sex addiction?
Often I want to hide from everyone—
no one comprehends—only in my own time,
with my own words and slow space is there peace.

There was no choice but to start a protease.
Hell to take meds every day with meals that must
contain fat. Surprised I survived this far
with a relationship, a man who stayed.

Eventually the pills sorted themselves out—
and I had to agree the drugs are a miracle—
but death will not stop, pernicious and cruel,
laughing it will enter, a common infection,
my skin will turn ugly, isolate me from the world,
ravish my insides, steal my energy.

There are days I forget to take my pills—
days I live normal—want to feel the breeze
without the neuropathy, enjoy a quiet moment,
sit by a window with a book
and a pen, ready to catch words.

 

logoJulene Tripp Weaver is the author of Truth Be Bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, Paddock Review, and The Seattle Review of Books. A psychotherapist, Weaver worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.

SUBMIT to the HIV Here & Now poem-a-day countdown to World AIDS Day 2017 via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books, the publisher of HIV Here & Now.

Poem 3 ± World AIDS Day 2017

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Dennis Rhodes
Passing

They think no one dies anymore.
The worst is over. Time to move on
with their uninfected lives. The truth is
men have struggled for twenty years or more
trying to get their “cocktails” just right,
fearful as ever of night sweats, random sores
breaking out on their bodies. They
have been chronically underweight
and gaunt, some with walkers. Yes,
life has gone on for the many.
No one deliberately ignores the few:
they are largely, but kindly, unnoticed.
My friend Frank passed yesterday.
They think no one dies anymore.

 

logoDennis Rhodes is the author of Spiritus Pizza & Other Poems (Vital Links, 2000) and Entering Dennis (Xlibris, 2005). His poems and essays have appeared in BLOOM, Chelsea Station, Lambda Literary Review, The Cape Cod Times, New York Newsday, Fine Gardening, Avocet, Backstreet, Ibbetson Street, bear creek haiku, Aurorean, and Alembic, among others.

SUBMIT to the HIV Here & Now poem-a-day countdown to World AIDS Day 2017 via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books, the publisher of HIV Here & Now.

Poem 2 ± World AIDS Day 2017

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Al Smith
Tribal Survival

A part of me wanted to shed a tear,
But my well of feeling was so deep
It felt more like mourning’s nadir.
Profound feelings managed to seep
To the depths of my weary soul.
I was reading stories of long-term
Survivors of the HIV and AIDS toll.
They coped while others became infirm,
And tended them until they expired.
The survivors living on to become
Victims themselves, overwhelmed and tired.
In some cases getting to be scum,
Too sick to work, but too healthy to perish;
Ending up in medical and financial limbo.
In an effort to avoid more nightmarish
Emotional trauma, they isolated in woe.
Still living and struggling to adjust,
In trying to keep it all together,
Some days it’s been a case of just
Putting one foot in front of the other.
But it’s not over until the fat lady sings.
Disappointment, joy, loss, love, despair,
Boredom, hope and gratefulness are fillings
For their individual stories of life’s scare.
In a few cases older men have connected.
Ultimately, who will be the last man standing;
The last man to tell his tale, respected
For enduring to the final disbanding?

 

logoAl Smith tested positive for HIV in 1988. He lives in San Diego, California.

SUBMIT to the HIV Here & Now poem-a-day countdown to World AIDS Day 2017 via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books, the publisher of HIV Here & Now.

 

Poem 1 ± World AIDS Day 2017

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Vernita Hall
I Knew a Man

for Gregory

I knew a man
who could charm the coin from Charon’s hand
or Midas’s, too, squeeze lemonade from sand,
hula rings like Saturn, drum thunder like Jupiter
whenever he laughed, and he laughed some.

I knew a man
who could dance on the head of a pin
or the top of a bar. Around the pole he’d spin
like a compass needle. His word—true north.
He never called the shots—they begged to come.

This man, my friend,
could thread a needle with a baseball bat,
eclipse the sun, or wheedle cream from an alley cat.
Always top dog, the black elephant in the room,
he never took a back seat lest he throned it, Paul Bunyan-esque.

The man I knew
could spin a yarn like Rumpelstiltskin
or negotiate extra wishes from a jinn.
His laser eyes could weep a secret out from a stone.
He walked with Jesus upon the waters, two abreast.

Did you know my friend?
He was the father of invention—and a muthuh, too.
Switched the Grim Reaper gay, broke the back of convention.
He rose well-heeled, sprinkled motherwit like seed,
his tongue, oil-slick. He could listen through the tips of his toes.

When Gabriel sounds
that trumpet for the day of rest
New Orleans-style, he’ll strut at the head of the blessed,
arm-in-arm with Peter and Michael, too.
He’ll be leading the band, prompting them their cue,
this man I knew.

 

logoA Rosemont College MFA, Vernita Hall placed second in American Literary Review’s Creative Nonfiction Contest; was a finalist for the Cutthroat Nonfiction, Rita Dove, Paumanok, and Atlanta Review Poetry Awards; a semi-finalist in the Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Contest and Ruminate’s VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. The Hitchhiking Robot Learns About Philadelphians won the 2016 Moonstone Chapbook Contest (judge Afaa Michael Weaver). She serves on the poetry review board of Philadelphia Stories. Poetry and essays appeared or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Philadelphia Stories, Referential, Mezzo Cammin, Whirlwind, Canary, African American Review, Snapdragon, Grayson Books anthology Forgotten Women, and five other anthologies.

SUBMIT to the HIV Here & Now poem-a-day countdown to World AIDS Day 2017 via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books, the publisher of HIV Here & Now.

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 30, 2017

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Michael Broder
I had a dream that I was back.

—dreamt on the night of April 23 and recorded on the morning of April 24 at 9:24 a.m.

I had a dream that I was back. It’s not clear where I had been. I was married to my husband. A man I loved many years ago who had died was alive in the dream, and he had a husband too. They lived in an apartment on Brighton First Road abutting the beach and the boardwalk that he and I had lived in once, but then we broke up and got new partners and they kept the beach-front house while my husband and I moved farther away. The husbands decided we should swap. At a certain point in the dream, I think the idea was that we were swapping husbands, and I was getting my old love back. But later in the dream it seemed we were sticking with our current husbands but switching apartments. I would be living at the beach again. Nothing could make me happier. Friends gathered, they welcomed us back and cheered us on. Doormen and security guards were so happy to see us back. We passed by a retired teacher or political figure we had known and admired who lived in the street now, scribbling bits of memory on a writing pad. We talked. We read what he had just written. Back in the Brighton Beach apartment, I complained about certain decorating choices my ex and his husband had made, including a carpet with an elaborate design in the pile. I talked about redecorating and a friend said better to save your money at this stage in your life. You’ll need it.

 
 
Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books, 2016) and This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is the founder of the HIV Here & Now project, Indolent Books, and Indolent Arts Foundation. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Write a poem based on a dream you had. Or write a poem about a dream you didn’t have. Find a way to connect it to HIV. Can you find the connection to HIV in today’s poem?

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 29, 2017

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Iris Lee
We’re Still Here

We meet and speak
less now
about pills and T-cells,
so glad to be here
when so many aren’t.

We meet and speak
less now
of memorials and tears
and the fear,
and more now

about “what now?”
when we meet now
in the old bars.
We speak about the theater
and other pleasure those others

who aren’t
are missing because of
no pills, vanished T-cells.
But here we are,
meeting and speaking,

pill-poppers extraordinaire
trying to tell
dumb youngsters in bars
our stories but
they aren’t interested.
Kids!

 

Iris Lee is the author of Urban Bird Life (NYQ Books, 2010). She conducts a writing workshop at The Actors Fund, which originated as a workshop for theater professionals affected by HIV/AIDS.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poet wrote today’s poem in response to a prompt that she presented to her own students in an advanced poetry class. We share that prompt with you today: Write a poem in the voice of a first-person plural (“we”) dispassionately discussing a very serious situation—in our case, some aspect of HIV (risk, testing, treatment, prevention, living with, being affected by, etc.)—keeping the tone restrained, using repetition and cadence to achieve a light touch despite the subject matter. Thank you Iris Lee for the poem and the prompt.

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 28, 2017

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Barbara Rockman
As My Lover Dies of AIDS

As the clear cut mountain
so the boy incarcerated for a crime

he did not commit he wanted to
bring his mother bags of gold

As the disappeared wolves
and crabs so the juniper turns to rust

As the boy sought his father’s
arms to wrap round what his brother shunned
what his every pore and prayer craved—

simple love a body twin to his own
so the forest so the tide and glacier
turn ashen with refusal

The boy turned man is dying
of what was natural as spring run-off
as turtles shuffling young to salt water

He has watched the earth corrode
As contagion corrupts cells so
a country’s veins rupture

As he grows old
as the mountain’s scraped raw
so flesh blisters

Sea afloat in plastic
and yet tufts of spring grass

His body frail as drought
and yet he wets his lips and hums

One riff for the continent
one for the self

 

Barbara Rockman is the author of Sting and Nest (Sunstone Press, 2011) and Absence of Wind (University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming). Her poems have appeared in Calyx, Bellingham Review, The Pinch, Louisville Review, Nimrod and elsewhere. Barbara received the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award and the National Press Women Book Prize. She lives in Santa Fe, NM where she teaches poetry and leads writing workshops for victims of domestic violence.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

As Na(HIV)PoWriMo draws to a close, we’ve encouraged you to write poems in form. Today we encourage you to write an abecedarian—a poem in which each line begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, or some variation on that basic principle. A couple of HIV Here & Now poets have contributed abecedarians, including this poem by Jenna Le and this sequence of five abecedarians by Kathleen A. Lawrence.

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 27, 2017

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Korbin Jones
The Epidemic

An erasure poem based on Ports of the Sun by Eleanor Early.

The graves are a tangle of rust and tattered leaves. There are gay guests. “Your Health.” “My Health.” Sounds something like possession. They abandon the place. The first to die in horrible agony was too much for the rest, and they were rather worried.

“You see,” he said, “we know what an invasion is like.”

 

Korbin Jones is a senior at Northwest Missouri State University double majoring in Spanish and Writing with an emphasis in Creative Writing and Publishing and minoring in Art.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Inspired by today’s poem, write an erasure poem about HIV. Today’s poet took inspiration from a travel book that received a rather lackluster review from Kirkus Reviews, but made for a rather stunning erasure poem. Here’s one place where you can read about erasure poems.

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 26, 2017

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Andrea L. Watson
Requiem in Radiant Time

for B.

Your soul-of-doves flew from Chama toward heart
of Antonito, over the 1911 Jewelry Factory, half-past 2
drug dealers marking time in front of the Palace Hotel,
nesting finally at the hilltop near your 80-lb mother.

You had a good time. The time
your 3rd grade teacher kept you after study-school
to give you watercolors from the Narrow Gauge Gift Shop;

the time you painted your step-brother’s barn
Buddhist gold, adding a colors-of-the-rainbow flag;

midnight, by mountain central time, when
you boarded the airplane for New York City with 24
other guys, sassy rally ribbon on your right shoulder.

Remember, you sewed on 11 ripe rhinestones?

I kiss the time you nicked my neck with thinning shears;
pale beer was your antiseptic: I was not afraid.

Today, the hospice is cold. Your bed is a coffin,
white-muslin lined, waiting; you do not recognize me.
The illness snips at your brain like a comb and scissors set.

In your strands of dreams, your mother is not drunk,
and you are not alone, at age 7, watching
for her to come back; you are sure she is dead
but you are dead; rain on her window fades to 0.

 

Andrea Watson is the founding publisher and editor of 3: A Taos Press. Her poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Rhino, Ekphrasis, International Poetry Review, and The Dublin Quarterly, among others. She is co-editor of Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined (3: A Taos Press, 2011)and of Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle Press, 2013), the proceeds of which are donated to the Malala Fund for Education for Girls.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Na(HIV)PoWriMo is dwindling to a close, and we have not seen many poems in form in the series (perhaps a few sonnets). Write a poem in form touching on HIV: sonnet, villanelle, sestina, haiku (perhaps a series of haiku), ghazal, pantoum, etc. Use our old friend the Internet to find out about forms you are interested and to learn or review the rules for their composition.

Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 25, 2017

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Dennis Rhodes
At the Monster

My body is as undetectable
as the virus lurking within it,
standing in the heated crowd
along the dance floor. Old
and sober. That’s the best I can say
for myself, the finest example
I can set for all the young men
around me. I’m not nostalgic
or sentimental: I just want
to feel what transparency is like,
to put old memories in their place;
If this were thirty years ago
most of them would want to screw me.
Now they look not at me but through me.

 

Dennis Rhodes is the author of Spiritus Pizza & Other Poems (Vital Links, 2000) and Entering Dennis (Xlibris, 2005). His poems and essays have appeared in BLOOM, Chelsea Station, Lambda Literary Review, The Cape Cod Times, New York Newsday, Fine Gardening, Avocet, Backstreet, Ibbetson Street, bear creek haiku, Aurorean, and Alembic, among others.

SUBMIT to Na(HIV)PoWriMo via our SUBMITTABLE site.

To support the mission and work of HIV Here & Now, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books (HIV Here & Now is a project of Indolent Books).

Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

One of the exciting new developments on the road to ending HIV is the discovery that treatment is prevention—than an HIV-positive person on treatment with an undetectable viral load cannot transmit the virus to HIV-negative partners. Write a poem about treatment as a concept, perhaps thinking about different uses of the word: treatment for a condition, treating someone nicely or badly, window treatments, etc. Can you connect these different types of “treatment” in the same poem?