We started to hear of a new virus in Wu-han, China, early this year.
Began in an open-air market, with a bat, they said,
It had the same name as a light Mexican beer.
While we were still travelling and teaching,
It became something serious to fear.
Deaths on the rise everywhere, and lockdowns began,
Into the brave new world of isolation we peer.

So we are cooped up at home, experiencing connection of a different kind,
Realizing even with all our technology we were not prepared,
And our plans for the future seem to unwind
As we are so uncertain now,
Our fates suddenly revealed as all intertwined.
Those who keep working help us see compassion,
As we wait for the vaccine the scientists are hoping to find.

Corruption in governments and leaders leer
Quarantine laws slow and inconsistent.
Calamity soon ensued, and conflicts that were already here
Continue to put the poorest of our world at the most risk.
There has to be a different way to steer
Our society onwards and afterwards...
What will be the story the new generation hears?

COVID-19  forces confrontation.
We must take a long hard look
At what else is communicable besides disease,
At our common fate, contingent on each other,
At capitalism, as it wavers and our stock markets crash.

The creation of more borders, the continuation of bitter divides will not do.
Can we grasp hold of our commonalities, see clearly how human we all are,
Capable of contracting the same deadly pathogen?

This pandemic can be a call.
For a more compassionate and cooperative world,
For living together more carefully,
To refuse to stand for cruelty and wanton consumption.
Perhaps this will harken the paving of a new path,
the creation of a new code,
So we can take better care of our little blue marble in the sky.

things stolen and broken and empty promises are why you trust
no one.
I've learned not to believe a word that falls from their mouths.

Wishing wells can't do anything but collect spare hopes
in the form of spare change.

My whole life is a poem.
I walk
I run
I feel and i thinkandido
and everything is some grand art project for the gods.
They must be crazy.
Setting the universe spinning for entertainment purposes only.
My cynic meaning of life.
We're just a blink of an eye,
a firefly flash in the night.

coffee.
we meet at starbucks and i can almost pretend nothing changed until i feel the distance in your voice.
i am calm and quiet. i did not expect this
yet here i am sitting in front of you as you explain how you feel (a rarity).
and you and i are alike in more ways than i realized before.

cantalope.
flying through the young night air
i feel alive and free and happy again.
i meet theresa j hanson. dancer, 19, long thin hair and long thin body.
she says she's heard a lot about me and i am surprised and i like her very much (or my first impression anyways) even though you told me that one time that you had *** with her and other girls would probably instinctively hate her. but i can't. she's just so nice and anyways that *** had nothing to do with me.
she gives us cantalope and me ice water.

cigar smoke.
we go out on the little apartament porch and you smoke the cheap cigar, the kind your grandfather smokes. get a red solo cup for the ashes and i found an old ***** butter knife out here. and we sit. and unexpectedly you say can we start over. and im shocked(you've suprisde me so much tonight) but so grateful and of course we can. you blow smoke rings and when you say whooo are youuu i cannot help but think of alice in wonderland and you are the smoking catepillar who asks life's hard questions and am i alice or the queen or the mad hatter or lewis carroll

coming back.
we reinact a a scene as if we just met and i kiss you as if it's the first time and that is how you will remember me and my lips are cold and your mouth is full of smoke and the kiss is fire and ice it's a wonder we did not steam. something so you'll remember me{i will never forget} and i guess we'll figure out on the way.

I am driftwood on a sea of though.
I am the sweet smoke from your mouth
and the ashes that fall.
I am ice
that your too cold hands cannot melt.
I am the truths unspoken.
I am subtlety screaming to be noticed.
I am
raised flesh
I am
eyes wide open
i am the insatiable hunger.

the gasp for air
the bite mark
the taste of laughter
the scent of desire
                               left behind,
still lingering in the air, and burned in the brain.

dazed
    time slowing to a halt or simply not existing at all.
                             Nothing except sunlight & leaves & you
Escape from a harsh and cruel world

infinite moments

Softly falling with music and laughter in my head.

half-light,
              SKIN
feeling nothing
                   but the calm in the darkness behind my closed eyelids
        and the body underneath me.
kissing a shadow, a silhouette,
                           someone without a face.

feathers and flowers anoint my head
                        the wind is my sermon     the birds my choir
                                                   the sky my chapel,
the earth below my feet my prayer, & the rainstorm and the river wash me of my sins.