Today (yesterday as I type/upload this) was a tough day. Hump day I suppose. I worked on a few poems, some in the researching, some in the drafting, none really caught me or took off. I felt feverish & dizzy & headachy for long parts of the day, so in a way it makes sense that the pome I’m choosing to upload is about a medical condition relevant to cattle; & a lesser extent humans; though thankfully the number of cases for both have declined dramatically. 

It’s basically the draft I had at 11pm yesterday when I gave up for the day & went to bed. It has been tidied & tweaked a bit, though I think it still needs work.

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mad cows

who would have suspected
when non-cannibal cows
eat ground up blood — or bones — or brains
of other cows — or sheep — or pigs
bad things might occur

i. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)
physical transformations — abnormal gait : poor balance : loss of muscle control :  coordination : tremors & hyper-responsive to stimuli : ataxia 

changes in temperament & behaviour — becoming : aggressive : nervous : frenzied : anxious in certain conditions

as well as — weight loss, decreased milk production, lameness, ear infections : & teeth grinding caused by pain : persistent pacing : rubbing : licking

over : weeks & months : eventually recumbency : coma : death

ii. variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD)
one man who caught the disease
from eating contaminated beef

— had trouble sleeping — his handwriting deteriorated — lost interest in trains, his lifelong passion — regularly fell down stairs — slurred his speech — forgot things, PIN cards — hallucinated — defecated in his clothes — died

all so that baby calves
could grow up quicker
be sent to market faster
be eaten sooner