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The Medicine of Vulgar Rants

“Swearing… a bellwether—a foul-beaked canary in the coal mine—” - Emma Byron

Somewhere along the Nolichucky in an Appalachian July, gathered
a congress of friends: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers,
a local nurse, a handyman, a waitress newly unemployed, a pizza cook -
all upright, fried crisp and getting crocked.

The babies were asleep, the fire bright, the banter surly.
It cycled through tightfisted wages and overdrawn accounts, days choked on
Trumped up stories buggering common sense, then the regrets -
fermented dreams and philanders - they never could make sense of it anyway.  

With sheets to the wind and stumbling judgement in sore need of restoration,
the repartee slipped off the bank into the raunchy waters of Vulgaria,  where,
albeit unexpectedly, along the Nolichucky in an Appalachian July,
Hygiea rose from the foam, with shit under her nails.  She was sired that night
by conundrum and wombed in a Dickle jar, but her remedy,

in that hour of need, sat like a green persimmon on their tongues.
We have some work to do, the attending specter counseled
the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, all upright and fried crisp.
So, they huddled in, lips curled back, practiced in the perfect profanity.

It gushed into the gentle night: Fuck, fucking fuck!!
First volley - a sharp palliative, behind it, the sordid mob broke down the gate.
Goddammit all anyway, fuck that bastard and the warthog he rode in on.
Not the soccer team in the caves, they’re goddam role models
for the whole fucking world. Hell, we all know that douchenozzle

craves an arse tonguing more than an orangutan craves Durian.
I wish someone would bitch stomp him to Bristol.  Are you
throwing a fucking cupcake at a diabetic? Jesus Christ,
what kind of shitgibbon are you?

Just try that again, dickdobber, FUCKING A!

The terrible torrent streamed on and on, a reckless display
of the first amendment, in dose prescribed by the salty healer.
It searched for offended ears, daring objection or correction.  
Carbuncles needed clearing, unctuous ire needed an exit,
the fire loved the cupcake fuel.  And by one it was done, so
the kind and gentle mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers
stumbled off to sleep, got up feeling fine and fed their children
a nutritious breakfast.  Yes, the cure was blue,

the color of lewd and lascivious backlit alleys
or the color of giving voice to truth and the color
of convalescence and revival. Hygiea cleaned her nails,
never made excuses for her rude therapeutics.


And I suggest that if you find offense with this dear, dear story
from somewhere on the Nolichucky in an Appalachian July,
you are a prune-face pussy. Now take a step back. Stand there
and be agog, sometimes the godawful is healing by way of
these sacred waters, skank and steamy, of Vulgaria.

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