They surveyed my every mood
They established surveillance
Harshly punished defiance
Had me locked up, well, for good

They forged ideas in my mind
Had me believe I was blind
Shaped me into a pariah
Repeated they were the Messiah

Repeated for hours on end
A virus had plagued the cell
To this litany without end
No one was safe, they could tell

Words echoed into my room
We were either set for doom
Or grateful to be rescued
By their remedy, they cooed

My every step was measured
Some rebelled, they were injured
One mile is all we had left
To run and not go bereft

While the media explained
The pandemic knew no end
They monitored our thinking
A ceaseless, clueless talking

If you believed me to be
Some prisoner in a facility
Well, I am very sorry
I am just, like you and me,

A human being in 2020...

11:23-11:40 pm
Nancy

The only cells
In my body that
I love are
The dead ones

It’s those goosebumps
From your sweet and soft kisses
In my neck
Which make
Every cell of my body
Feel so alive

Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch...
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.

And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.

But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the hope that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.

Keywords/Tags: Man, Dream, Love, Vision, Fantasy, Aspiration, Hope, Sin, Madness, Cell, Prison, Real, Reality, Touch, Tangible, Contentment, Comfort, Consolation, Prey, Trapped, Snared, Prisoner, Captive, Hope, Fears, Tears, Elusive, Elusiveness