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