They say; but who are they, that say,
That cloth is my armor
It shields me from the unknown and unknowing
It hides my nose and mouth but doesn’t hide my shame
I am unrecognizable, unnatural, and anonymous
I lose my unwillingness to protest my anonymity on the ignorant
I have waited a thousand lifetimes to hide in the open
To see and not be seen
To breathe the stale air of my breath
And exhale the poisonous gas that would otherwise be words
Lost are those with false entitlements seeking to resurrect past ailments
Pity me and madness, they say
They are to whip up a storm; a gale
Phones at the ready, for another star, will explode
A supernova at the entrance of Walmart
They dim before the Sunsets
They turn into a Black Hole and Donut Holes then,
*** holes.

The pandemic, that ****, inimical plague enveloping our world. So it all started in China, or so they say, yet in what seems to me in a very short time, it has circled Earth. Really, that fast, and everywhere, even Okinawa? Moreover, does it not seem a tad morally "grostesque" that so many look to "profit" from the scourge? This is not the way I want our world to work. "Gee!' many will say. "The more corpses, the more money!" Life, any life, should never be predicated on monied worth. Life is sacred. It is not meant to be financially profitable. The indigenous peoples of Earth for the most part knew intuitively that human lives were not meant to be spent on the 103rd floor of some skyscrapper. They realized that all forms of life on Earth were inextricably intertwined, inter-connected. They realized profoundly that all are one. The way we have sectionalized politically our Earth into arbitary nations (over 200 now) is both ludicrous, as well as illusory. The wind, the waters--even the pandemic--do not recognize borders. The divisions of mankind have resulted, over millennia, in aggrandizement, which has inexorably lead to wars on top of wars on top of even more war. And what happens during wars? Millions and millions and millions of human beings have been murdered, a military pandemic of untold proportions. And what if we wanted to love instead of ****? You can't hug someone who is 6-to-10 feet away from you. You can't kiss the one you love with a mask over your face. But phamaceutical giants are all furiously trying to become the first to create a viable vaccine and thus make billions and billions. But that is not love--just the opposite. And what of all the poor human beings on Earth, so many of whom already have contracted the virus, or eventually will--how are they going to be able to pay for the vaccine? The coronavirus is not the only plague circling Earth. Uncaring has been doing the same it seems forever.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Let it take me,
those towns I move through,
and those I claim to know.
Let our Institutions fall—
crumble down through the
failed foundations of our
own self-possession.

Some years ago I fell off a cliff.
Somewhere between the mazes of memory and thought
I have lost my mind in time.
I have lost pieces of my soul in the moments of my life that provided the bricks that made up a skeptical foundation in my heart.
Layered in an angry mortar the emotional bricks settled into the walls that make up the fortress that surrounds my heart.
The cracks that riddle my skull are a specialized Victorian texture technique- I wonder if you can afford it?
The clocks on my walls are tired and my curtains are tattered.
Over time my fortress has withered.
I watch it morph its shape in the mirror day by day.
I watch the laugh lines settle around my frown.
Day after day,
The mirror inhales my youth.
My bed absorbs my tired weight.
And the dragon's head mounted on my door wards off the company.

Church services will resume shortly,
so, get ready to crowd the rectory.
Confessions are in session
cause these are concessions to con men
plying their moral dissent
to compliment other idiots.

Success, cause intellectual blindness
and devotion to a deity who
doesn’t give two *****
about all of you who
are not rich republican men.

We win, my gullible friends.
Come on in.
Kenneth Copeland
and Cresflow dollar
will be taking your money
to support their private jet
go out and get
more stuff while the poor
struggle in debt.

Why care for those who despair?
Why share what we have
instead of bailing out
big businessmen?
We got to open the country again
and we can start with religion
cause they already believe
that science is fake
and magic is reality.

So, lets get them out and about
who cares if grandma get the disease.

We need to please these rich dudes,
these fox news
red hat attitude
gotta get a clue
red state race bating
confederate flag wearing
NRA make America great…

Wait……

Yeah, go to church
your pearly gates await
just please stay in
for at least two weeks
when you get back from
hearing your preacher speak.

As twilight deepens, angst begins.
In a tender light of lavender
your image may appear,
in fields or woodlands,
among tall tombs where
tension hides in silence.

Wings of angels seem to glide
on ice across the sky, and in
a drone of babble, some strange
arcane language, is this how the dead speak?

We live in these erratic times,
searching for depth through
the opposite of being. How can
we say that life will find a way?

Perhaps through these black holes,
there are other luminous worlds.

While **** continues to refuse to use the DPA to nationalize
the production and distribution of effective testing and PPEs,
which would save taxpayers 100's of billions of dollars over-
spent on gouged prices, and 100's of thousands of their lives,
he continues to preach his 'corona schmorona' policies at his
super-spreader of disease rallies, exterminating republicans.

They say, 'time is longer than twine', and 'to err is human,
to forgive, divine'.  It's unforgiveable, n'er forgettable.  Yet,
Joe's persistent perseverance in reminding our nation who
"..we(e),.." are and can be, not just life, relation in motion,
being evoking art, and illimitable potential, indivisible as
life, growing communally, yet also citizens of a great Union.