Pandemic-Blues
wuhan-corona
china-covid
travel-bans
quarantines-closures
social-distance
flatten-curve
wear-masks
ventilators-pump
hospitals-capacity
economy-slows
essential-workers
people-struggle
Month: June 2021
Whatever Country They Exist
I’m making the room
my room with
my hips,
my sighs,
my tired eyes;
and when
she leaves,
she leaves suddenly
and nothing but
her fragrance
delays,
but it’s too much memory
for me to be alone.
A Frozen Europe
Urban II, post coitus, made enquiries
into the etymology of escutcheon.
He barked instructions towards the Pleiades,
as was his most holy remit,
his casus belli, if you will.
God’s own genetic mandate made flesh.
In gowns of velvety purpurates,
semi-tumesence tenting his muslin cassock.
His slippers velour. Brocade of satin.
The usual finery designating position.
A high seat assigned at privilege’s table.
Hockey Smell Poem
Clubs you like a rank bludgeon,
it does. It’s in the hallways, waiting
at the elevator doors. Smell
like an elbow bent six years
and peeled open. Shelled
spongy scruff, a man-shed oyster
rot. Yet
that stink, like the sea’s,
is rich with promise. It’s not all
charnel. On every tide an elegance
of power in skaters
fast as gulls and as fierce.
At my parents’ house on the one-month anniversary of my sister’s death, which is also the three-year anniversary of September 11th
it snows. Too early for snow but seasons change.
On the warm ground snow falls all day,
fat white splashes not quite like ashes, but
with a purpose, a quiet, eerie mismatch of
What for, why, how can this be.
There’s a hum. I can’t hear right.
This silence is deafening.
I hate snow.
A chainsaw sits near the door of my childhood home.
The door’s knob wore down and fell off.
The door forgot its name, is listening for it in the wind.
A pair of rubber work boots stand nearby.
They rub together, rattled by a cold breeze, a
synthetic scratch, scratch, daring me to enter.
The Dogwood in Early June
I’ve waited seven days for this dogwood
to unfurl its white cups, to drink the light
it gathers. Other flowers have passed
their season, our path matted
with pink rhodie remnants,
but the dogwood shows off
in open space between cedar
and fir.
Sun fills each cup as I witness
from shaded days steeped in protests
heated to burning, to melting,
to truth yelling and tears.
Homework
In science class we learned
the hottest point of steam
is at the tip of the teapot spout—
where streams of swelling heat
rupture the cooler air.
After school, I do my homework
upstairs in my room.
My kid sister murmurs
somewhere,
playing family on her own.
When the clock clicks four
the stacks of the factory moan,
and the sky
gets smudged with smoke.
Being Young, 21
Being young, 21, is everything
For wisdom does not come with age
Only tired bones and fade
And maturity means accustomed to
The crumbling of a once great temple, you
Invisible now, featureless, faceless
That’s the rub of the wrinkly skinned
Who live in seaside towns, with mothballs twinned
And all this whilst the beautiful people
Run like gazelles, screw like rabbits, have such delicious fun
God, it’s just not fair, though once I was there
In the class of being young, 21
To Settle the Night
Sky streaks lavender and orange to lowering blue.
Night chill rises, flicking at pants legs, leaf piles,
dampens sidewalk to footstep skate.
Beyond the greasy click of a security gate,
last birds circle to settle on a sleeping roost,
scavengers slink the hedge lines,
eroded wastes of tree root, fence rot.
Phone-nervous, the late-working husband,
lover late with wine and Chinese
hustles towards an unsettled greeting.
Half Capacity
lacking logic
who is essential
who isn’t
claiming following science
churches closed
strip clubs open
gyms closed
liquor stores open
corporate box stores open
mom-and-pops closed
restaurants and critical thinking
both at half capacity
Visitant 