Plague Poems, VIII: "First Thing"

"First Thing"


When the virus rolled in,
I developed the habit of checking,
upon my grudging return
to consciousness each morning,
to see if I was dying.

Fever? Nope.
Sore throat? Maybe, since I
haven't kicked cigarettes.
Shortness of breath?
No, but if yes, see above.

I'm no longer checking my
AM vital signs first thing;
the heartbeat's horizon,
the imminence of non-return,
is everywhere now.



4.25.20

Plague Poems, VII: "Limited"

"Limited"

Quarantine and its attendant attempts
to put pen to paper, to say something
about anything,
reveals, repeatedly,
a smallness of soul, the tightness
of the heart's fibers.

There is no shame or
self-pity in this;
man is a limited creature.
Words fail, concepts decohere,
emotion is quickly and
thoroughly spent.

So let meaning be evasive and
feelings half-formed, clumsily voiced.
See being for what it is,
or seems to be in this sealed-off world:
contingent, halting, interlaced,
somehow endless.

4.18.20

Plague Poems, VI: "Condensation"

"Condensation"

streetlamps bore holes
into my eyes

neighbor's voice loud
but hardly clear

Hamish the cat
perambulates

the night: condensed

Plague Poems/Poemas da peste, V: "Na rua"

Segue abaixo um poema meu escrito em português neste tempo de peste. Peço desculpa pela minha falta de domínio dessa língua, mas espero que você, caro/a leitor/a, possa tirar alguma coisa significativa do poema.


"Na rua"


Sempre ouvi dizer que
em tempos de peste
não há ninguém na rua,
que a vida cotidiana
dos peões acaba subitamente,
como caísse um véu de luto
em todas as casas
e os seus habitantes
teria ficar dentro,
chorando e rezando
para o mundo como era
antes da peste
ou o mundo vindouro.

Mas parece-me que
não ouvi bem,
visto que vejo na rua
as multidões, armadas
com cães, bebês,
bicicletas, telemóveis,
sacos de comida, cervejas,
com máscara, sem máscara,
os rostos coloridos
com preocupação,
alegria, resignação,
falta de atenção,
medo meio disfarçado.

Não se engane, pá,
sou parte, pelo menos
às vezes, dessas multidões,
de bicicleta ou a pé,
fazendo compras semanais,
a vigiar o comportamento
dos vizinhos,
de saco cheio com as paredes
que estão a
aproximar-se de mim,
desejoso de viver,
apesar dos riscos,
na rua.


8 de abril 2020

Plague Poems, IV: "Big Questions"

"Big Questions"


The latest sci-fi book club
movie pick was Coherence. It
more than met the minimum requirement
of giving us something to talk about
while we're locked away in
our houses and apartments,
peering into one screen to discuss
what we saw on another
(or maybe the same one).

We like big sci-fi questions, philosophical
what-ifs. We got plenty:
Schrödinger's cat. Comet hysteria.
The multiverse.
How to deal with an alternate-reality you.

Watching other universes multiply
and collide gave us the chance to
flex atrophied social muscles,
talk to someone other than ourselves
or our cats or significant others.

The big questions remained satisfyingly
unanswered when we said goodbye,
took off headphones, closed laptops.

Now we get to figure out how sci-fi
those questions are
when fictional universes collapse
and we're left with concrete,
minimal-dimensional quarantine space,
inhabited by just one version of
each of us.


4.7.20

Plague Poems, III: "Sprouting"

"Sprouting"

undisturbed weeks
indirect sunlight
ambient moisture
force of vegetal will:

sweet potato
may soon become
plural.


4.3.20

Plague Poems, II: "Timekeeping"

"Timekeeping"


The 6:10 alarm on my phone held out
longer than expected, and only got
turned off last week.

I haven't been wearing my watch regularly
for a while; no reason for that
to change. Keep on ticking on your own, Timex.

Schedules are toast. Being somewhere
when the hour and minute hands say so
is over. Time is dead—

until you realize that well, shit,
you can't point out its absence
without being in its presence.

Might as well keep an eye on the clock
a little longer, I guess. After all,
there's another Zoom call coming up.


4.3.20