Battle Medicine

Your heart’s machinery

must be a mess 

of soldiers

all on the same side

trying to keep formation

but breaking rank

with increasing 

regularity

when one goes assassin

and the rest spend 

their energy

quelling

no one speaks 

to this as admission 

leads to admonition

so all keep quiet

and steadfast

each illustration

of your broken heart

coming quicker than the last

For Kerry’s June word list @skyloverpoetry on Instagram

Reminder that I am also there @runawaysentence

In These Times

Pandemic poems are elusive

like snapshots

seemingly from another timeline

remembering mostly unretrievable

as if a dream sequence

Did I have small children once

did they love the backyard

kiddie pool

soft serve

what is soft serve anyway

and were they afraid of bees

Words fade forward and dissipate

before the chance to write them

as new horror barges in

rendering poetics irrelevant

But still some stay

as if to hold me in their arms

(I need you to atect me)

May Flowers

66,000 dead?

Unsure and unknown

where to find out

or whether it’s true

once I do

But I do know

we’ll suffer in June

for our collective enjoyment

of May

in America

Broken Heart Emoji

Unmasked chant 

     FREEDOM

while demanding to work

as cogs 

    in the machine ~~

At Ten

Ten years

meanders like riverbends

then soars

ever cloudward

peeking shoulderwise

Everyone blinks how

we arrived at this place

damply imagining

what lofty follies might follow

at such heights

The Runaway Sentence is ten years old today! *cheer*

Now

I like

the way it feels

lying next to you

the way it looks

outside our window

and the way your breath

warms the unspoken

everywhen of this moment

soft like sunrise

brilliant like fresh snow

clear like yestervision

hopeful like tomorrow morning

but still persisting

in cracking just a bit

like I am

For Friday Flash 55 offered by Joy at Verse Escape

Proper Usage During a Pandemic

This week

marked my first use

of panic-spiral as a verb

to describe us together

washing cans of black beans

packages of basmati rice

and birthday presents

as though they held 

land mines

ticking to explode our hearts

already full up

with quarantine anxiety 

but then a sudden rush

of sequestered desire

incited in me 

a gratitude-spiral so profound 

that I pray this kind of love 

goes viral

Math Problems

Math was never really my thing

but I used to take

3 trips for groceries each week

There are 4 people in my family

and 13 veterans died last week

at the local Soldiers Home

They say best-case scenario

is 100-240,000 Americans dead

there are 16,000 people in my town

162,000 in the whole county

7 million in the Commonwealth

where we’re to stay home this week

And for the foreseeable future

so you’d think in this circumstance 

the streets would be empty 

Against exponential increase

but from my front door and screens

I’m watching everyone walking by

We should NOT be taking it to the streets now, friends

Day 2 of Poetry Month in the Imaginary Garden

Poems From a Distance

April

is poetry month

And we fools

now are told

100,000 to 240,000

Americans will be dead

by summer

So this is my poem

for April

The Imaginary Garden is open in April for Poetry Month!!

The Virus Is the Clock

The virus is the clock

we’ve learned

struggling to do our part

protecting

While others

like schoolyard bullies

calculate what they’ll do

with nobody watching

But now is different

with clock-watchers

following rules

of both charlatans and saints

When breaking them 

means vainglorious achievement

in running out the clock

or that we’re out of time

For Friday Flash 55 offered by Joy at Verse Escape

Contamination

Close your eyes

for messages

at doors locked

against heart-sick

pinking from grey

Some Kind of Legacy

This 

is your inheritance

nothing valuable

or all that interesting

unfinished poems

scrawled in ballpoint

stash of coffee beans

frozen vegetables

in case of emergency

your own drawings 

on paper scraps

and placemats

handmade greeting cards

from every occasion

all of your baby teeth

how to hear birdsong

listen to trees

and for catch of breath

indicating shock

pleasure 

or deep disappointment

In the end I hope

you find there is value

in kindness

empathy 

and all the love

For Kerry’s March word list @skyloverpoetry on Instagram

Reminder that I am also there @runawaysentence

Skirmishing

If I could only start

my words would race

pandemically across pages

threatening the unsteady détente

nurtured for this long

between nightmares and daytime tasks

organizing the immediate

and planning a future free from what 

is impossible to write down

waiting impatiently

for reconnaissance skirmishers

distracting just enough

for constrained imaginings

to go viral

For Friday Flash 55 offered by Joy at Verse Escape

Going Out In a Blaze of Maybe

Foolish 

enough to fall

for the idea of a person

so that even after fireworks

when seething ashes

have turned bitter-blue

and almost forgotten

the idea of that person

remains

faint but always present

one still-warm ember

brooding below

capable of igniting

the memory 

of the idea of this person 

and tending it to full-blown

catastrophe

For Kerry’s February word list @skyloverpoetry on Instagram

Heart-Root

My heart’s 

like a succulent

retaining 

a lifetime of wrongs

fleshy with nerve

Hardy

equipped with tools

for surviving 

long periods of neglect

blooming infrequently

if at all

In feast times

I’ve learned 

overstoring leads to rot

and after long drought

replenishes

So I adapt 

but it’s hard to cultivate 

new growth

in this climate

For Friday Flash 55 offered by Joy at Verse Escape

Sorrowing

I am a mourning dove

considering what to do

about a day grey with worry

and consternation

Have I saved enough

studied taught enough am I

what is enough?

Uncertainty

like pigeon milk

roiled in morning’s belly

sunrise swaddled but I am

erect

perched with coo

It is up to me to decide

no permission required

sovran and innate

so I am

bragging my old wings today

Conflagration

We’ll require

more helicopters 

to enforce compliance

with the national curfew

and ensure that nothing

gets out of hand

during our regular

celebratory bookburnings

Weekly challenge at Earthweal: FIRE