The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
The Pandemical Scourge of Modest Proposals

I cannot discern which 
is the greater pestilence 
upon our gentle society
priests or doctors
full of the fetid faith that
breeds self-righeousness and
the obtuseness of the astigmatistical
they paint blue lines to mark 
the ghettos they will not serve
parrot their colleagues as if 
they heard their patients speak
for they are as deaf 
as they are mute of saying
anything other than the 
gutteral gibberish of the
doubly blind masters of cohorts 
tattooing ICD codes on the unfortunate
and handing them over to the 
wardens of the wizening wards
begaggled with cohort-iculturists 
of the ungrowing yet overgrown
who prune what they cannot graft
and peer through scopes to perceive 
the color of our skin though 
they can hear death through a 
plastic stethoscope once the
rotation of magnets has stopped
and secreted them the answers
they jot their notes into a wall
of condescending smiles as they
refer then briskly dip their digits
in the nearest washbasin and omit
the incantation and spritz of a blessing
as they move on to yet another exotic
that looks close enough like a horse
they once met of a different hue
pox be upon your kind who pass
judgment by day to fill your houses
with opulences they have no time to admire
though deference, I mean reverence 
demands the heads of so many chickens, and
I guess we all look like we have untarred feathers.
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