It hit us all in the middle
of the second week
of an undistinguished month —
it was spring, mud season,
not yet dry enough
to make us feel comfortable
that winter was over;
everything was average,
and that was odd enough.
We had thought
it would be a mad season
and that there would be chimeras
alighting on all our roofs
after the insane weather
and raging plagues
we’d been through.
It was nearly unbelievable
that we could trust reality
to do what it always did:
keep boringly on track with
equinox and seasonality.
We kept waiting for
golems to come knocking
and when they didn’t
we started daring to hope mythology
would stay put in our memories.
Even though we saw people
still dying, even though
there were still insurgents
surging and guns were everywhere,
somehow the fact that we’d seen
mud before just like this —
thick and laced with ice,
concealing old snow under a jacket
of filth — somehow the fact
that it was mud season and it looked
the same as always made us feel
plagues and idiots were finite
and would pass as surely as
this muck would likely dry out
and go green.
Tag Archives: covid-19
Mud Season
For the Fancydancers
revised from march 2020
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
within days
of the contagion’s start
something
took me over
rolled my hands into chafed red fists
started punching through my pale shell
I spend my mornings now
watching fancydancing videos
little girls in jingle dresses
little boys in full regalia stomping
all raising their arms against contagion
on small and common
snow-iced lawns
on the edges of empty roads
in furrows left
in winter land
by spring and summer plowing
all of them elsewhere west of here
beyond this city
crowded still
with unbelievers shopping
for safety from what
they don’t yet fully believe is already among them
is no longer a rumor of plague
east and west of here
but no, not here
west of here
people are dancing
toward healing
I think of my sister
sick as sick can be now
in her jingle dress at eighteen
whatever is inside me pokes me gently
reminds me of smallpox blanket stories
says
this is how you survive
Morning Rites
Newly added to the ritual:
hanging freshly washed
air-dried masks on
the back of the front door
so it’s easy to grab one on the way out.
You stack them in a certain order: on top
the favorite, then back up to the favorite,
back up to the back up, fancy dress, then last resort.
There they hang, playing their role,
reminding you of a danger
out there that you can’t see coming;
here is armor,
a hook full of cotton prayer. You’ll see them
the second you lift your favorite hat
from the neighboring hook and say to yourself,
“can’t forget this,” and then go on your way.
It’s now as much a part of your ritual
as clipping your knife to a pocket, tucking
pepper gel into a hoodie. Those
also sit close to the door when not in use,
reminding you of where you live
before you get out into it.
The phone, with its camera
and list of emergency contacts.
The car keys with the panic button
and the handy bottle of sanitizer.
The wallet that these days
offers no help at all.
Columbus Again
waking again surprised to be
still alive this far out to sea
so far from the shore
and grounded living
awake same time daily
then fall right back to sleep
upon seeing and feeling
the same old drift
you have to wonder
if this started with Columbus
thirty five days into his voyage
not knowing the next day
would change all forever
you have to wonder how
he expressed his hope
to his men and to himself
that they would land somewhere full of plunder
and how many today
are rolling their hands
over and over against each other
with the same hope
that the new world on
the other side of this long drift
will offer them good luck and fortune
(no matter who else dies for it)
once this rotten ship
scrapes bottom upon
a yet unknown shore
Guidelines For The Summer Of Corona
Admit that we are stopped cold
Say that and acknowledge the pain of cessation
Turn away from one another and into ourselves
Resist the longing to touch and hold
Fall to your knees and demand something from above
Speak as if nothing was needed except a bluff to survive
Run with the smallest beings in pursuit
Act bewildered with the first cough, fever, moment of fear
Ask and ask for certainty from fog
Dismiss fog as a hoax from behind a bitter mask
Hold a gun and imagine it will be enough just to hold it
Put it down to take a shovel and lay an elder to rest
Roll dice any number of times and boast of your glad numbers
Pretend snake eyes are not as powerful as boxcars these days
Remember scenarios with strangers, historical figures, family
Demand of your mirror that it say something unexpected
Stand at the window crying for the ten thousandth time
Turn from the window and square your shoulders again
Forget and remember and forget and become aged
Spring up new but then again still be your old failed self
Hold your breath
Hold on to your breath for as long as it takes
Loosen your tongue
Loosen your tongue until this hard moment breaks
Getting To Tomorrow From Yesterday
Getting to tomorrow
from where we are now
is like preparing to take
an overseas trip on
a small old ship
in hurricane season;
we don’t know
a thing about sailing,
it’s been so long since we
had to leave our country
to seek safety
we can’t imagine
it’s more than
an afternoon away,
and we certainly
aren’t dressed
for the journey,
but we’re going anyway
since staying here
in yesterday
is terrifying
and impossible
and the only shot at joy
we may left
is, possibly,
over there on
the storm-crushed
far shore.
A History Of Masks
In many cultures throughout the world, a judge wore a mask to protect him from future recriminations. In this instance, the mask represents a traditionally sanctioned spirit from the past who assumes responsibility for the decision levied on the culprit.
— from an article in the Encyclopedia Britannica
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunglasses may be worn
by a poker player or peace officer
to conceal their glances, their tells,
eyes grown wide in pleasure or surprise.
Judges may hide their faces
from the people they judge.
Fear of recrimination, they say, or maybe
it’s performative impartiality;
there’s a reason
Justice is shown blindfolded,
though we assume these days
that Justice has always cheated
and peeked at who is to be judged
before going to verdict; likewise,
riot cop helmets are there
for saving face as much as for
any other reason. There are reasons
executioners wore hoods.
There are reasons the condemned
wear them too.
Plague doctors strolled,
flower beaked and fantastic,
through the streets of
cadaver cities into
popular misunderstanding —
they weren’t medieval,
they weren’t trying to scare
diseases away; they were trying
to save themselves. But
they look good to us now
as we mask up and creep
our own half-empty streets,
thinking they could
lend some elegance
to the fear
we are wading through,
seeking some spirit from the past
to inform us about the spirit
threatening us: not only the sickness
but the now-unmasked dangerous men;
the judges,
their rogues,
their hired and self-appointed
killers.
Waking In The Dark In These Challenging Times
It’s not from a fear
of death; I’ve been in love
with the line between
for decades now and
to finally step over would be
a relaxation more than
a terror.
It’s not from
a fear of the dark itself
as I know there’s light
beyond it, even if I never
see it again myself.
It’s not from something
bodied within, no clock
or silent alarm
that burns through me
till I sit upright in the night.
I can’t name what awakens me
in the dark almost every night,
but it feels new and ancient at once;
the scent of a tomb
that has just been opened;
that old stench
on a new wind.
Everything Not Here
Can’t explain
what we long for
beyond the shrug that says,
“Everything not here.”
The presence of
having company and of how
we used to long for them
to go home.
The joy of going out to eat
and saying afterward,
“next time, let’s just
stay home.”
Frenzied sex followed by
falling asleep, waking up
late for work, deciding to be
naughty and stay right there
in bed all day at home.
Home sick, home
with a sick child, home
exhausted after a road trip,
boring Sunday afternoon
at home.
Can’t describe it completely —
for some it was hell,
for some it was peace,
for some it was just a place
to sleep, to eat, to fuck or yearn to fuck;
a laundry room, a tub and shower,
a toilet bowl wobbling on a bad floor;
landlord making false promises,
off-street parking, garage, good yard,
curb appeal, transient housing
on the path to a dream palace.
What we long for:
pastel light in bay window home;
view of the ocean mountain desert home;
proximity to the hot new neighborhood home;
childhood rhyme home —
home again home again jiggetty-jig.
Home is where you end up,
that place to stay that feels like home
after you are done being elsewhere;
anywhere but here because
call here whatever you like but
we’re done with here.
Casual Friday
Started out as Friday
but became a Monday
and thus the weekend
became confusing. I baked
a flourless cake and wept
over a Sunday dinner
that felt more like Tuesday’s
leftovers, like the whole
leftover menu from the whole
week. Why do we bother naming
the days anyway — it reminds us
we once had schedules and places
to go on specific days.
I used to put on someone else’s
Sunday best, someone else’s
casual Friday wardrobe. Who
that person was I am not sure
I ever knew. Even the language
is missing its marks, drifting
from its targets, not achieving
its objectives. We used to talk
of safety and job security and
professionals and expertise
and those things meant something.
Maybe they will again, on some
future Monday that finally feels like
a Monday, a day on which
to resume our sacred hatred
of routines and dress codes
and learn to walk in lockstep
once again. I cannot wait
to see who it was
who used to wear these clothes.
Incident At Price Chopper
He’s standing in the dead middle
of the meat section at Price Chopper
screaming “HOW CAN THERE NOT BE
ANY FUCKING STEAK?”
Someone comes out bearing chicken
from behind the steel clad gates
of the backroom where they cut meat
and stage the cases.
“Hey, you got any steak back there?”
“Steak? No sir. None.”
“How is that fucking even possible?”
“Sorry, sir.”
Both men talking and everyone watching
has a mask on, at least; everybody’s standing
two carts apart. Looks like the last scene
of a spaghetti western right before the last shootout.
The man with no steak turns his back on
the man with no name in a black mask
to start putting out the chicken. Spell’s broken —
it would never happen that way in a movie,
after all; no one would turn their backs
on anyone else, then all would pull
their stoic triggers, just business really, and
someone would fall. That’s the way
it goes. No one would get any steak, of course,
but the steak is beside the point
in those films. What matters there is
the satisfaction of killing, of existential affirmation
through virtual elimination. It’s all
just a reason for the squint, for the stone
shine of focused gaze. For art, not for life —
for now at least; but maybe tomorrow…
“How is that even fucking
possible?” “Sorry, sir.
There’s nothing. No sir, none.”
“I don’t believe you.
Liar.
Fake news.”
Then, gun.
Then, done.
Where The Great Work Begins
We were all bone-tired
before this
exaltation of humility
came upon us.
We may have looked
more madcap, more animated
from a distance, but
if you’d looked into
our eyes, you would have seen
years of restless sleep
and no true relaxation,
regardless of what
yoga magazines told us
we’d gained.
Scoff as you want.
Had we been truly mindful,
we would have forsaken
our lifestyles of abandon
decades ago.
Now, we have
deep dreams
in our sleep and they
drive us mad. Now,
we sit at home all day
chafing behind the ears
and in the center of our chests.
Now, we try to see a way forward
back to that manic past
when half of us
walked around pretending
we weren’t waiting
for a crash into hell
and the other half
walked around pretending
this was just the ramp up
to some temple of gold where,
at last, we’d truly
get a chance to rest.
Meanwhile,
nature
(or something like it)
made other plans.
Once upon a time,
before this real exhaustion
set in, we were all bone-tired
but we invented a phrase
to cover it up: “and they lived happily
ever after.” Something
to which we aspired. Something
that kept these dreams at bay.
A phrase where every word
now needs to be redefined.
Get some rest.
This is where
our Great Work begins.
The Grand Mask
Some say we must mask ourselves
to save ourselves and others
Others say we must unmask
to save America
and as for the world
beyond America
it can kiss
our collective unmasked ass
Then again
the face we know of
America itself has
always been a mask
covering hypocrisy
with good intentions
Contradiction
is how it stays on
Putting a mask on a mask
like putting a hat on a hat
is as American as
viral pie
Ask anyone
Ask Batman or
his predecessor in that
all-American myth of
the wealthy fighting oppression
Zorro
Ask the bleached out
Lone Ranger
They’ll sing you
the Star-Spangled Banner
through the blood
clotting in their mouths
and so many people
masked or unmasked
will likely stand up
and sing along
as the Blue Angels
fly over trailing
the ties for the grand mask
behind them
We Are All In This Together
but not in the way
some folks mean it
with all color slipping off of others
and all sexuality of others draining away
All accents homogenized
All devolving into shapeless
and nameless love targets to shoot at
and miss and miss again
because they have become
invisible
We are all in this together
but not in the way
some folks mean it
with a nod and a banged up
pot and spoon put to use every night
promptly at the same time to turn the heads
of the weary endangered folks
dying in droves to keep
some folks
from dying in hordes
All in this together
though there are some folks who want
more of us together than seems reasonable right now
but they’ve got the right skin to make them
more audible and the perfect copper-jacketed
megaphones to amplify themselves in front of
the perfect places to be heard that some other folks
can’t even get near on a good day
and these are not good days
I don’t know who this “we” is
that is supposed to be in this together
No “we” I’ve ever seen
No “we” I know of that is different from
the “we” someone has always insisted “we”
need to think of
whenever “they”
need us
3:30 PM
slippery
as a day getting away
from you
you look up and
it’s 3:30 PM
how did this happen
when there’s so much time available
just to watch the clock
it is possible that
the clock is dreaming you
and it’s the same time all the time
always 3:30 PM
and the day isn’t slippery at all
instead it sticks
is stuck and
that means no one’s
getting away with anything
except for memory
which is sliding down
the road away from you
all you’re going to recall
of this is how 3:30 PM
keeps trying to kill you
staking you to a dull moment
and making you believe
there will be a tomorrow
different from today
less sticky
you’ll seize that moment
and though it will wriggle
like an eel to escape
you will win and 3:30 PM
will do your bidding evermore
never again sneak up on you
never again offer such dread
you swear you will never be unproductive
at 3:30 PM ever again
once you get past today