A lone mask wearer in a crowded store walks amid iconoclasts.
Iconoclast [noun] – a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc.,
as being based on error or superstition.
This American Sentence is my response to two prompts:
Reena’s Exploration Challenge #214 – Iconoclasm
social distancing
under travel restrictions
streetcar to nowhere
Off prompt for Day 21 at napowrimo.net, this senryū is my response to Colleen’s #Tanka Tuesday Weekly#Poetry Challenge No. 222 #Ekphrastic #PhotoPrompt.
~ Day 21 ~
Image source: mollyroselee at Pixabay
Parting Clouds
It’s been a year-long winter, this period of isolation for many, with seasons blending as one while the world’s population held its collective breath waiting for the passing of the coronavirus. But shelter, by definition, is confining, and cabin fever soon set in. Guidelines to prevent the spread of the disease were ignored, with many gathering, crowded and unmasked.
Those in the know gained their pleasure from the outdoors while maintaining social distancing, fearful, still, that those less wise, the many they encountered as they shopped for necessities, those who were unmasked while ignoring distancing, would bring them into contact with the scourge that had taken millions of lives around the world.
But at last vaccines have been developed, and infection rates are falling as more people obtain them. The storm has not completely passed, but there is hope that this long winter is finally over.
parting clouds
sunlight on pink and white
cherry blossoms
This is my response to Haibun Monday: Cherry Blossoms,
the prompt from Frank Tassone at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
All That Waste
lives lost
as a virus rages
souls clamor
for a remedy
to be delivered
without delay
with success
and distribution
comes denial
individual
right to refuse
vaccination
timely delivery
but untimely receipt
means doses lost
unintended
dose of reality
lives lost
This poem is my response to Twiglet #217 from Misky, the twiglet of inspiration being “all that waste.”
Image source: DifferenceBetween.com & VectorStock (images layered)
Mistaken Freedom
Swift, this death
sweeping across the globe
catching unawares
those most susceptible,
the frail and compromised,
the aged with defenses down.
Just as swift, the defiance
by those mistaking freedom
from regulation to be
the right to subject others
to the risk of death.
This is my response to Quadrille: swift,
the prompt from Sarah at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use
a form of the word swift in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.
Image source: Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center
(click image for larger view in new tab)
Socially Distant
No embrace will cure these ills.
A distance prescribed by those who know,
scorned by those who cry for freedom
when the freedom they deliver
for some is from this earthly plane,
is the place to start when the end
is masked in uncertainties.
This is my response to Quadrille 121: Let’s Embrace,
the prompt from Merril at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use
a form of the word embrace in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.
Image source: Chicago Tribune
The Shortest Distance
Between two points
there lies an understanding
with a principal purpose
Your safety
Mine
Maintaining the proximity
of community through
communication
Understanding
Respecting my concerns
as I do yours
This was written/created in July 2020 as part of a COVID-19 art anthology/collaboration that failed to materialize. At the time, it voiced my frustration with the public attitude in my area regarding the need for masks as a means to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Six months later, the use of masks in public settings seems to have swung in the opposite direction, but I still see anti-mask stalwarts.
MTB: endings / beginnings, the prompt from Peter Frankis at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, asks us to write a poem while considering endings, with a suggestion to write a Golden Shovel poem. Per Introduction: The Golden Shovel, by Don Share at Poetry Foundation, “The last words of each line in a Golden Shovel poem are, in order, words from a line or lines taken often, but not invariably, from a Brooks poem.” This was first done by Terrance Hayes in homage to Gwendolyn Brooks, with his poem The Golden Shovel. This, my first Golden Shovel, was inspired by Infirm, by Gwendolyn Brooks, found here.
For the Many
One class, one caste to include everybody.
None are immune here.
This disease that plagues us today is
intent on adding to the infirm.
One class, one caste to include everybody.
None are immune here.
Your failure to recognize this is
sure to take a toll on the infirm.
You say you have survived, but oh,
some are not so quick to mend.
You may scoff at what I say, ridicule me,
but some will never mend.
It could have been you. It may be me.
This does not make you better, a lord.
I read the signs, the news today,
and understand I am one of many, that I
am exposed when you say
you have no need to fear, to
take caution, that you are not one of them.
Despite what you say,
you, too, are of the many. Others act to
protect their fellows, protect them
with no thought to say
they cannot be troubled, to
act as though they care not for them.
For they do, with no thought to lord
it over the many. Their desire to look
out for their fellow man, you and I,
is a sign that you are, that I am,
valued, and that is beautiful.
When the common and the beautiful
are seen as equal and viewed with
compassion, that is when my
true respect for others takes wing.
Our strength rises when that
understanding of equality is
wedded with a desire to spare the wounded.
There should be no “my,”
only “our.” When we see eye to eye,
when we come to realize that
the key to our survival is
best served when the many are bonded,
we will prevail. That, or
suffer the loss of my
sister or your mother, a deaf ear
turned to the grief that will not
serve sentiments funded
towards the consideration of others, or
even ourselves. Your regard for my
well-being should come unbidden. We walk
the same path. A beginning. An end. All
else may differ, but all else is a-wobble.
All is insanity, to think that I’m
insignificant to you, little enough
to trouble your mind, to
mask your pretension of superiority. Be
more than that. Be beautiful.
Let the world see that in you.
Join those who believe that others are
no less than beautiful.
Be one who thinks of others, too.
As a side note, this may be the longest poem I’ve written.
Poetics: travels in the wild, the prompt from Sarah at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, offers seven lines from “Surfacing,” a book of essays exploring the natural world and different histories by Kathleen Jamie, with one of those lines to be used as the title of a poem.
Those lines are:
• Travelling in the wilderness
• She said if a red fox had crossed somewhere, that area was safe
• They say only the south wind flattens grass
• We are teachers to our grandchildren
• Lead dogs are very smart
• Squirrel hunting in the mountains
• A story of when the ice detached and the people floated away
Let’s call my response a stream of consciousness.
A story of when the ice detached
and the people floated away
Fear not, for this is merely a matter of conjecture and prognostication,
one that could come to pass given the habits and tendencies
of people when restrictions are placed upon them,
such as food rationing and curfews meant to restrict movement
that might make them the targets of an enemy during a time of war.
Not that that would ever happen or be willingly accepted
by a populace as a matter of pride in a joint effort to end the loss
of life to matters completely out of their control with an end result
of victory over a force that threatened the entire world.
Yes, this is about the restriction of movement, if one considers
maintaining safe distances as a means to limit the hardship
of others when close quarters may mean the difference
between suffering a great loss and the eventual freedom
to move about freely once the crisis has passed.
But this is not about food rationing, unless one considers the inability
to socially gather at either fine dining or fast food dining
establishments as the establishment of food rationing,
regardless of the availability of food at home,
despite, or as the direct result of, the hoarding of essential items.
What seems to plague the people of this tale is masked in the vanity
of people determined to do as they please and in an exaggeration of the loss
of freedom in the face of an economic hardship that would have been weathered
in the past by a determination to bring and end to that hardship.
And so the tale is simply this.
In a cold-hearted world, where the efforts of the people
might be seen as less demanding than during times of war,
where little thought was given to the health and safety of others,
and where simple sacrifices were disdained,
the ice detached and the people floated away.
~~ background music track for audio poem ~~
Ice Flow, by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Graphic image: Amazon image layered with Wikipedia image
Playing the Odds
What are numbers, but a manipulation of the facts?
You can make them say what you want,
and what you want is to place restrictions on our liberties.
So they thought, as they ignored the numbers.
And so they fell ill, adding to the very numbers
they had chosen to ignore. Some felt vindicated.
Their survival was all the evidence they needed.
And those who fell by the side, never to rise again?
They were nothing more than numbers to be used
by those who were trying to rob them of their freedom.
This is my response to dVerse – Poetics 428 – Poetry as witness, the prompt from Peter Frankis at dVerse Poets Pub, which is to write a poem that bears witness to local happenings.
Missouri continues to be considered a Red Zone state, with COVID-19 positivity rates far above acceptable levels. Those who express concern for transmission seem to be in the minority, and the numbers continue to rise, as many people in my area ignore mask recommendations, wearing them only when required by a shop or store. In a county of 60,000 people, there have been more than 4,000 cases of COVID-19. Of those people tested, the state has a positivity rate of over 20%.
I tested (negative) prior to traveling to New York, then quarantined and tested again (once more negative). As I stay “out of circulation” during my stay here, I feel safe in visiting with my daughter before she has her child next week, and following that when I see my new granddaughter.
After that? Well, after that I drive back home to a hot spot where people seem content to ignore the numbers that continue to rise.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons (edited here)
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