making a living (writing poetry) in the time of Pandemic

listening to priest Leonard, while locked in my library-cell,
isolating my body to spare all the rest my very worst,
not forgetting that the heart that needs guarding,^
comes along to make sure I stay within in-sane lane

this poems allegorical title arrives like a hit pop song,
one you firm believing, of course, you know all the words,
no way, you don’t, like make a living writing poetry,
nah, you just make living, writing poetry

every lover found and lost, recorded, every turning point turned
into a lyric stylized, every incident memorized, timed ‘n rhymed,
so total recall even in a disorderly meter still unvarnished survives,
and that’s how my living became such well paid poetry

playing my own life backwards, praying for all life forward,
don’t intubate me if it comes to that, cause I’ll be needing vocals,
them chords vital to record my fellow Jerusalem-bound pilgrims who
appoint a poet-in-residence as recording secretary of the Covid ward,
to make their living, not their dying, poetry, in the time of Pandemic




April 10, Twenty-Twenty
10:53am
Good Friday
Passover, 2nd day, 5780

for her.

<>

“you will laugh with surprise, as the anointing oil of relief
crowns your head, slicking down to caving cavities,
river running in crevices, that feed the buried places, replenishing the almost forgotten secret of letting go”^

                                                         ~

the mind caches certain skills, once learned, never to return,
but tucked away, just in case, maybe, in the nightstand junk drawer of: “don’t need it now but, ****, you never know”

kept around in the lost and hopefully, not to be searched for & found,
a skill set painfully gained, a muscle memory, flabby from no use
but quick taut tightly, snapping back when ****, here we go again

I loved you in ways theoretical impossible till you enabled the possible

lost you for no good reason, in an act history labels beyond belief,
refuses to record, lest by memorializing it became/becomes re-realized,
this intolerable, would be past the ****** eroding barrier reef

the difference between junk and treasures is in which drawer placed,
the steps to letting go once learned, cannot be forgot, the cost,
way way too high, kept around, in a damnable place beyond grief

not to close, handy, findable but easily, avoided, but strange, when
living in the epicenter of the virus, you do some cataloguing, ridiculous,
this touchy-feely escapade, nothing ****-it to be gained, all-too-brief

head shake, took a pandemic to make you go back, rustling among
the ancient, old hand-writ poems, another keepsake kept for reasons
known and unknown, to be **** sure you once owned it, survival skills

In the Pandemic Days of Almost,
somethings will die, some go forgotten,
but the almost-forgetting-skill will survive,
a necessity of the how-to’s:

how to grieve,
how to believe,
how to leave
but live on,
hoarding
all the **** necessaries
ready to be retrieved


<>
Tuesday Mars 24 Twenty Twenty noon

In the Epicenter, New York City

Plenty of time to write,
now as the doors stay closed
at the knowledge factory
and we wave goodbye
to  common sense.
Plenty of time to write,
as we keep our youngers
home and teach them
distance education
the art of befriending
from a socially
acceptable distance.
Plenty if time to write,
small shopping lists,
so one can dart
in and out of local shops
Plenty of time on our hands
as we realize that our house
may not be as large as we thought
Plenty of time to think
the thoughts we probably
should not think..but do
Plenty of information shared
but how much of social pages
armchair experting is truth .
Most importantly plenty of love
and hope and joy to be found
hidden amongst the angst.
Plenty of time to write
of this, to spread the love
and not the fear..
Plenty of time..

The dog firmly placed his chin upon the old
man's knee, stirring him from sleep in his chair.
The only light in the room coming from the
television screen. The dog's gentle message
being, "Time we go to bed" dear friend.
A ritual event occurring more often now
and most likely tomorrow night again.

As the man slowly stood the dog pranced towards
the door, to go outside and do his required business.
The man also to the bathroom did retire, brushing of
teeth and to attend to his own urgent business.

Six years of twenty four seven companionship had
bonded them forever, each knowing the other as
only best friends or family can, both fully habituated
to the other's needs and routines.

The dog sat upon his own bed, close by to the man's
bed,  patiently waiting as he always did. The man leaned
down and took the dog's face and head into his hands,
forehead to forehead they paused while silent endearing
messages were, like every night, conveyed and mutually
affectionately received. Love as real as any.

The man climbed aboard his own bed, donning his CPAP
mask like a pilot before take off and arranged himself
in his fully-automatic-adjustable bed, then clapped his
hands twice to extinguish the lamp on the bedside table.

"Good night buddy, we'll have some more fun in the
morning." the man murmured, closing his eyes to sleep.

Another day ended as most now do, as will, all their
remaining shared tomorrow's.

~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived