The Poetry Marathon

As promiscuous as the first buds of spring
nudging into each other for attention
was the first droplet on our side of
the Atlantic.

And, so quickly it captured its prey,
we knew not which direction to turn
without becoming its next victim.

To know who was the spectre of Death
required only looking into the bathroom mirror
as we galvanized ourselves against others’
unassigned entities and unheeded precautions.

We sat or stood in front of monitors, glazed over
by free-associating lies and partially curated truths
until none of us were certain of anything
other than critical thinking and common sense
were on the same extinction list as those
deemed
at-risk.

The young took pleasure in eating the elderly,
or would if the “flu” induced cannibalism.
The hapless of all ages crowded, unconcerned,
into Prince Prospero’s red-bloomed party until laws were made
to nudge them back like the de facto lab rats they
failed to see their behavior marked them.

Weeks became months, and the place from where
our slow-motion disaster arrived has almost settled itself
and ebbed from daily news, other than the ceaseless barking
of candidates who want to throw us off the scent
of two-point-four million infections.

2.4 million.

Does that sound like this just went away on its own?

Remember the good old days?
This would be March, when
most of the country still had jobs.
Remember the “curve?”

When’s the last time anyone, anywhere,
said anything about “flattening the curve?”

Adieu, Curve. We hardly got to see you before
you became a mountain.

You’re in a movie

You are.

And the extras, for a change,
aren’t walking into you.
Everyone parts for the invisible camera
that pans along your quick gait
as you walk into the Utopian Cafe
where there’s always an empty seat
by the top floor window
and
“everybody knows your name.”

The baristas’ Pandora station
has the right mix of ’70s and current soul music, so
you put away your earbuds
and enjoy someone’s else’s soundtrack
for your day.

The smell of roasting beans
wafts up to the rafters
as you reach for the ceramic mug
of dark blend, and wonder how long you
should wait before ordering a grilled pepper and tomato sandwich on rosemary bread.

There’s time.

It’s your movie. This day was the gift you
wrote for yourself
and nobody else.

There’s time,
and, for once,
it’s not your enemy combatant
or fellow prisoner.

It’s just there,
and you’re just there,
together, and so are
Al Green and Isaac Hayes.

Long shot: Sun and blue sky overhead.

Both of us knelt by the boat,
and ensured the light – using our last two batteries –
would stay fixed.
My knees, already scraped by the rocks when I washed
out your shirt,
nearly buckled
as I rose up too fast
and simultaneously felt dizzy,
an electrified scarecrow on
the shore of sustenance
or oblivion.

You caught me
and smiled.
“They’ll see our campfire from here.”

Too tired to argue
whether “they” were on our side
or not,
I said nothing,
but looked out at a night
too beautiful to believe
we weren’t simply
on vacation.

Fridays are Saturdays
and I forget you
play your virtual game with friends,
all fellow D&D nerds.
I retire to another room to read
while your character wards off evil.

Sundays are Mondays,
and we play 70’s music
and call it Coffeehouse Day.
We might work on a home project.
Or, if it’s cloudy/chilly, I say,
“let’s walk.” The park is congested on sunny days
and no one’s wearing a mask.

Wednesdays are Fridays.
I always wanted us to go out on Fridays.
Now we do, except it’s “Wednesdays.”
We take turns paying for take-out from
various Asian restaurants. Likewise,
we take turns picking something on Netflix.
Every time it’s your turn, you ask about Space Force again.
“Maybe next week, babe.”

Thursdays are Tuesdays.
Both are foot soldier days.
And are shifted into position as necessary:
Shopping, laundry, getting gas. Check on the lettuce and tomatoes
growing in the common area behind our building.
By the time we have dinner, I’ve given either of these days
permission to leave quarters and do whatever the hell Tuesdays and Thursdays
do when they’re not in service.

We couldn’t decide where to go,
said we, and you and I have no choice but to follow.
So we went nowhere in our minds and very heartily.

For the following, should we need to live virtually through others‘ travels,
pictures do exist:
US, sitting on France, pulling off her beret
and throwing it into the Seine.

US, walking in front of the Queen,
and invading Buckingham Palace
long enough to take selfies
and a long dump in Her Majesty’s private loo.

US, smiling next to a frowning Pope Francis,
too miserable to throttle US for our inhumanity
but we take his quiet for a pass and eat extra hamburgers that night.

No one in Europe will see US now.
We have a little vial of garlic just in case
Romania – wait, isn’t that Rome, again?
No, US, don’t interrupt when your mouth is full.

We’ll just sit here, not going anywhere, thanks.

We can see your electronic missives, US.
“We’re not wanted in Europe, they’ll miss our green!”
Maybe, but not our germs, mais oui!

We approached March like a lamb in gloves.
Coughs of strangers were not yet met
with wary hunted looks of wounded wolves.

We sat, waiting for the droves
out to vote for changes not set
by the paltry, petty and corrupt-to-the-bone Conservatives.

And, we harbored winks, as alewives
in their MAGA hats shook out their pet
necessities, privilege and immoral objectives.

We said nothing but handed them sheaves
we knew they would blight
and we would later count their motives.

Newly minted voters, it pleased me to serve.
Their earnestness and pride fed
my hope for new energy in diverse reserves.

The last hour, a young man in work clothes and dirty sleeves
stood in front of me and seemed to fear his fate,
so rooted to his purpose and dutiful in motives.
Provisional ballot in hand, he took one step to join the doves.

We never asked for the multiple overtures from the Bahman bums
who took none of his creeds to their grasping chest cavities,
but there we were,
spreading out the adverts masking as letters,
all claiming to know exactly
the bind we were in and what they would do – for
a nominal fee – to get us out of a debt
our understanding informed us
didn’t exist.

All through the next week,
we debated, this lawyer or that,
and what approach and how would we pay, and why should we pay,
when this debt was a matter
that didn’t exist?

All through the week, too, invariably,
our attention turned to the nature of debt and who was shaken
and who did the shaking.
Our better avatars never used the
words “shyster” or “scumbag,”
but we are seldom at our best
when our enforced seclusion
is shattered by forces
that proclaim they can rip our paper worlds
and be perfectly justified in so doing
and make it appear that
at no time
did we ever exist.

The other morning, both of us at computer screens,
madly searching avenues for pro bono representation –
true Bahmans –
when you emit a joyful whoop.
Before I can ask, you hold up your hand,
reading the response from
the entity to take us at our paper words and make the bums
retreat into the shadows like a recoiled snake.
Who knew such a deus ex machina moment could
happen, all while the world had supposedly shut down, and with it
the summons no one skimming the public teat
has to prove the right to exist?

I wrote some quarantine poems in April, and baked and hunkered down in May. This is my first attempt at anything resembling a poem this evening before bed. I’m looking forward to June 27.

We couldn’t remember his name
at first.
That one actor always plays
the same madman.
No wonder this film was so hard to find.
Every one, the cops
are all evil.

That’s another thing
that has to change,
we agreed.

I smell nicotine,
though neither
of us smokes
in the apartment.
We open the front door
and the warm night air
welcomes us
more than
we’re safe to venture.

Nothing like
going to the movies
in your bedroom
to remind you
why you’re hiding
in your bedroom.

Helen Reddy song
for women to claim their voice
poets have songs too

1. At four, I am nearly stepped on by my mother, who finds me camped on the floor under her side of the bed each morning. I have no recall of this, but I do remember hiding all my toys under my bed and then taking over my sister’s to her chagrin.

2. From five to seven, I learn I can’t have everything when I accompany my mother to the store, that she won’t tolerate tantrums, that I eat too slow, and that I love to read.

3. From eight to 12, I pretended many things. I pretended to be a movie star, both popular and faded varieties. On the property adjoining our duplex, there was a stone well; here I pretended to be a gypsy. My gypsy phase fed my notion that there was a witches coven behind the wall in my and my sister’s room. My mother later painted the walls light purple to hide the scratches I’d made looking for the secret doorway to the coven. By the time I’m 11, I begin to take back my hair from my mother’s machinations. Finally free of braids, pony tails and foam curlers, I next stand up to my father when I inform him I plan to be a vegetarian.

4. From 13 to 16, I watched my parents’ marriage dissolve. The first unraveling began when we moved to a suburb. My mother would turn their fights into a spectator sport, that, in retrospect, I think probably made her feel safer about raising her voice if my sister or I were in the room. When I entered junior high, my father moved out and began living with the first of two girlfriends, who became wives 2 and 3. Both of whom are with men who make them happier now.

5. 16 to 18, I begin investigating my pop culture options. I have become a fan of the Beatles and the Clash, and the first concert tickets I buy are the Police. Later I cut my hair short, like Sting, whose name I draw in block letters on my notebooks. At 18, I still had not lost my virginity, I still had not had my first heartbreak (though I felt differently at the time) and I had years yet to accumulate the scars that received when I was old enough to value them.