improving our collective lives, one pandemic poem at a time...

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a stray-dog-thot that bites my ankle,
saying ouch, you see a poem here?

it’s 1:14AM on a Sunday and generally I see at this generalized
pre-dawn, can’t sleep pleistocene period, non-extinct poems
roaming everywhere.

but the pandemic on my mind and giving me pause to wonder
how much can I love, and a questioner-poet needs and desires an answer,
post haste, pre apocalyptic.

S. travels for two days by airplane to fulfill a promise
only to find out, upon arrival, the promise made is
pandemic cancelled.

but the-promise-I-made silently, to her, faraway, that she never heard,
for why, stir-up-the-ruckus, asking for a visit from the evil eye,
if she falls ill, coming back to me, is stone cold stolid, no cancellation policy,
I will:

nurse her, brush her hair, anticipate the achey need normal, before she can ask,
hold my body’s warmth full and frontal, a cooling blanket for heated times,
retrieve her ***** tissues from the floor and make lousy jokes about her lousy aim.

and what I wrote, “improving our collective lives, one poem at a time,”
is here institutionalized, organized, galvanized, mesmerized,

legitimized and lionized,

proving only that stray-dog-thots @nite, they  bite,
hard immediate, and that
later is never better

she would say,
“what would I do without you, my children so far away,”
my reply instanced, nuanced, instantaneously, non-Amazon delivered with a double frosted eye twinkle, no-extra-charge,
“hey! that why I get the big bucks, god’s love to deliver!”

she, a profound atheist, snorts with practiced derision, which is fine,
cause I see the welling, tear droplets, laced with viral virus communicators, smiling weakly, asking, instructing a cure:
“play for me some Janis and some Joni, some Mozart and Mahler, climb in beside me, my old man, let us, let us rock our gypsy souls, drinking a case of each other.”

who could refuse such a invitation... to become the plasma of the sun’s corona, if only for a moment

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1:38am Sunday March 15th, Twenty Twentyfold

“On Wednesday afternoon, Lynn Ungar — minister, dog trainer, little-known poet — sat down at the desk next to her kitchen table and began to type. A friend had posted something on Facebook about how much we need poetry in this anxious coronavirus age and she thought, “Yeah, you’re right.””

——————————————————

“Pandemic" by Lynn Ungar

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

ten thousand shall sunrise arise
with confidence and no surmise,
their only skill, a declaration made

I am poet, my eyes see and my tongues
unravel what overlaps, overloads, what
connects us, our sinews are tongue tied

the heated transfer of our gut alpha juices
in ways invisible but fully sensory sends
impulse ******* scouring clashing galaxies

we are a war of worlds, a war of words,
a war of class, gender, crossing boundaries,
creating new ones at our intermittent tangentials

I slip and fall, my face deep punctured, leaking
notions that cannot be stemmed or reacquainted,
alas, alas I-am now poet halved, the clock will soon

leap forwards, words anoint my unhealed scar,
longer for daylight tries to save my taste of immortality
but the year twenty twenty is for the younger poets

their simplicity fancies itself as creatively bold,
but this poet in his declining times of old
knows only my reputation is the being being shortened

their succinct pierces nothing, but egotistical ism
by dawning early light, weep copious for us both,
my holed face gushes what they don’t want to know

poems constructed and constrained by words near expiration,
use or lose the mind muse unkindly warns, the never of now,
by sunrise, ten thousand new and one old poets will meet their expiry date

one old one, be mortality lessened, lesser, used up by the dated date

march 6, twenty twenty
10:48am

oh no!

another fateful overlooked poem title,
ensconced in a message not initially gripped tight enough,
the entitling command, the wish, this commish-on,
angry for having been ignored, overlooked,
calls the poet out, what, a deadline missed again?  

again.

an inherent compliment contradiction,
the well wisher, wanting an enlarged heart, like mine,
is wise in the ways of double meanings,
knows full well, that the enlarged heart is burdensome,
that weight of those afflicted with enlarged hearts,
walk with the stooped bent of responsibility.

so I write and weep, weep and write,
what a thing to wish for, defer it, deter it,
and yet here, I affirm it!

for in my possess is a sure and certain knowledge,
that a new born girl, has surely already stretched the measurements
of Pradip’s own heart’s boundaries, no wishing necessary,
a natural occurring phenomenon, a first grandchild grasped,
raised up to the light on high, a chemical reaction, an eclipse so
when the body’s brain commands it minions,
ordering messengers, sent to every province, to every *****,
piercing every cell’s shell with a kingly commandment scroll:

heart! all body parts!
grow, enlarge, engorge, for a fearsome wonderful injection of love arrives, a new baby will heartily enlarge, make room for more.

the wonderful burden of love.



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a commission satisfied. perhaps I will sleep tonight...

Feb. 10, 2020
2:04 pm

There you are through the seasons
quietly standing
in your humble green
not seeking attention or glory
even in spring your little magenta flowers
peak out from your branches too modest
to make a loud fuss.

The scent of your body
transports me
to the place of your birth,
the plains of heaven.

May I take your simple doctrine
of acceptance and humility
to heart and rest silently
unconcerned with appearance
happy to let a soft inner light
be the meek gospel of the universe.