I’m angry.
So
I find
My seat,
I find
My feet,
I find
My reach,
And I
Find
The
Beat
That
Slows
The world
And me
So I
Can see.
And breathe...

The state of things
It’s a crisis
The shame it brings
It’s a crisis
Isolation
It’s a crisis
Mass hysteria
It’s a crisis
Senseless dying
It’s a crisis
Divided nations
It’s a crisis
Spreading virus
It’s a crisis
But the rivers are flowing
Clear. The trees are growing
Years of filth walking astray
Birds are singing
Voices ringing
Through sacred skies of blue and grey
The blind now see the sun rays shining
The worst of times have silver linings

i saw the empty streets earlier-
the ones i took going to school.
i saw how the vendors hustle
even the public drivers too.

i read the minds—busier than ever
wondering ******* the time.
the unfortunate ones who didn't mind
the dangers of the streets— they know they can't hide.

now you, who didn't need to be a bee,
who's buzz isn't necessary,
how dare you say the streets are safe?
it is because you're in the hive?

if only all of us can go inside.
if only all of us can stay alive.

Yesterday
I heard
Her
Long
For the courage
To be still,
To release
The urge
To act
And receive
Opportunities
To grow.
Today
I set
The nest,
A courageous
Mix
Of firm
And cozy,
And draped
Her spine,
And hips,
And shoulders
In stillness,
To release
The burden
Of action,
And let
Gravity
Split
What growth
Will mend.

The air is murky and infested,
Could we run far, fast enough
Before we explode our lungs under the weight of the crown of death
Could we pray now, hard enough
Before we cough out life
And be carried away to the mass graves
To be dimly remembered among the many
Lost in history of and age
That witnessed the Coronation of corpses
While wearing burial masks
To keep away the smiles of death

Which is now more familiar to us
Than in yester times,
'tis no longer a favour
Reserved for those bent over
By the weight of years
We're all at risk
No signs of redemption
Only symptoms of contradiction
They say technology has no power
To banish the misery it has brought to us

So we run and lock ourselves inside
Only to find Sir Poverty and Lady Hunger
Waiting for us with a menu that reads;
Rules of staying indoors and eating and eating little
In idle feeble brittle fickle minds,
Conspiracy begins to breed.

Sirens fill the empty canyons, heralds of a deadly spring,
while the images repeat and repeat and repeat across the screen.
Masked faces telling desperate stories of flooded hallways
and gasping hours, of fear, exhaustion, and despair,
of knocks on nursing home windows, of face-time deaths,
and worse, the prospect of triage roulette.

But outside, many fall silently, alone, as they lived,
remembered only by a neighbor’s tardy knock,
or atop the sidewalk grate, as they lived, and have now passed,
quietly, still forgotten, untallied in the daily count, to fill the trenches
of potter’s field that beckon the unclaimed, to be bagged and sheathed
and to soldier in neat rows, uncounted once last time.

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

I approach
Her
Gently,
My body,
Sheepish
With a dash
Of hope.
And she
Turns
And opens
And welcomes
Me back
Into my skin
To settle,
To rest,
To find holds
And pulls
For moving
And for staying.
And we
Create
The rhythm
We follow,
And we
Create
The light
We have seen.
And I am
Grateful
That
She is
Gracious
When we rest
As she will
When I
Can no longer
Be.