My leg's livid long from the hip pawed raw on down,
I begged the fake, "Can you give it to me,
A nix-pain for red nettlin' me toe to head?
I'm in bed, epidermally gloomy.

I've got road-rash-like bedsores, rent the skin, now tush is more
Scabbed than red bumps a feral face'd lend me.
My rude quip is "stooge"; you ridicule my rouge
And assail with Fauve epithet "Murrey."*

A shivved look, my side--it appears that I did slide
Down the baseline at Fenway in Boston,
Or was in fracas, broke by cowboy's bighorn rope;
Dragged me; made smooth skin like chaps well-seasoned.

Contusions and burns on my russet-as-beet derm--
When they're touched, full of oaths I am squealing.
My pate is so bright, looks like infrared light;
This is worse than a windburn that's peeling.

My skin is on fire, like a rattlesnake found
Me and then sank those sharp fangs like nails in.
Dental dent'd be blue, but the rest of the hue,
Red, as venom road venous were trailin'.

Upon my pate, scalp's got breaks, cast roseate.
Am I ailed by toes-renderin' rash 'n'
Could you ease the pain, freeze with Lidocaine
Or stuff face with some hurt-abate med'cine?

When shtup 'er time came, I unrolled, made a check,
Placin' cellophane-thin sheath on pre-screw.
That's got me thinkin', doc, that shocking-pink skin
Ain't cells that's responding to NGU.**

Besides, from my pin there's no waterfall drippin'.
What do you think all these symptoms herald?
Is scabies*** my plight? I'm a blight; outlandish sight,
Hey, I'm flecked with the red bumps, imperiled.

Doc, please tell me, no! it's not impetigo****
That makes me look like a rosebush flower.
The researchers say, scarlet fever's at bay;
It can't be grippin' me in its power.

My skin is split, suppurates. Maybe cat bites
That poked me prior to dinner's slaughter?
It gave me ptomaine, but it cannot explain
Why I'm hived like I'm sunburned but hotter.

Aches, hurting hole; posterior stings--
I feel doomed, as if iPod plays Hanson.
As micturant streams, my full lungs rant screams;
I'm mistaken for Marilyn Manson.

And farther below is my scary toe,
Bulbous as Fields' beak on a bender.
Or an iron that glows in a ferrier's hot coals--
I was pale, now resemble an ember.

Are those mumps on my balls? My pee joint is frayed.
Like mariner's line, that catheter's held.
A thrust: you ply my heinie with it, and I
Then make tan shoes with shed dump imperiled.

My leg's etched with brown from the sphincter prod on down,
In bum-bilge lake whose falls git me gooey.
Exterior's shed red, my enemy's my friend.
I feel hale; that foe enema cured me.


* Les Fauves (The Wild Beasts), early modern artists whose works emphasized the use of deep color. The movement's leaders were Henri Matisse and André Derain. Matisse's The Dessert and Derain's The Two Barges, for example, use powerful reds. Murrey: dark reddish-purple.
**Nongonococcal urethritis
***a common skin infection that causes small itchy bumps and blisters due to tiny mites that burrow into the top layer of human skin to lay their eggs
****a contagious skin infection that usually produces blisters or sores on the face and hands