5.30.20 - Pandemic Poetry #0 - Back Porch Booms

Are you having trouble tonight?
Sitting on a tired wood porch
listening to concussive ques
Two drum beats before a fight
wondering if it’s fireworks or shots
Two horrible truths unleashed
in these burning city nights
Is it in your head, you wonder
ghosts and scars from a former life?
Is it real? The bag you pack
to bug out to the mountainside
Is it that time, or the moment to
step outside, despite the real threat
A virus that kills men in scores
Illuminating the true divide ‘tween
Left and the right, under hospital lights
I don’t know which path we’ll choose
so I listen to the crickets and booms
Watch the dog run ‘round the yard
”Lean in,” I tell you, “I figure we’re lucky.
We walk this road together. Way better
than living six thousand miles from you
We ain’t perfect, we ain’t right.
We wear the pain of disappointed lives
but I know we’ll face it together
side-by-side, guts or glory
brains or sly, I want to face it
all, with you by my side

*due to uncertainty on how to best utilize social media, I have elected to not include tags that might be needed for providing important information regarding the current crisis facing the world. In Atlanta, 2016. I was there and witnessed people peacefully marching for equality that has been promised for centuries yet never truly delivered. I hope we find a way through this and in the meantime, I’ll be here, listening, writing down stories. I would love to hear yours and share a few tears.

5.4.20 - #coronavirus2020 VIII

I miss my wife. I hate it when she’s gone.
Sounds like the lines of a country-western song.
She’s on the road with the girl, again. I’m alone
On the couch, eating feelings and worrying about
All that might go wrong. Even the dog is gone.
Before she left, she hugged me tight and whispered,
“I promise to keep this marriage safe.”
Even though I don’t want to, I wonder,
The inner demons start to play
I worry that she’d rather be in other company
Though she’s the one who begged me to stay.
I want to believe her so bad, I need to
What other choice do I have?
I love her, let her lie, let her go, live a lie?
We hope for something better to grow
Dressed the wounds and sank down below
Layers of sheets and tree, fog and breeze
Even if it hurts, even if it’s the worst outcome
Of a million ways I can see our story going
At least for me, it was worth it to know
Love deep enough to get hurt, live through it
Do no wrong, try to pass no judgment
Tell them you love them, though the hurt shows
Be a better man, do the best you can
Let them know you love them, every time they go.

Anyone else scared out of their mind about how bad it’s gonna be by June? Asian killer bees, a likely explosion of pandemic cases in Georgia. People out like everything’s fine, not wearing masks. In a few weeks… Jesus. It worries me. Seems like the worst possible sci-fi plot.

I think my money is now on “Rushed Vaccine Causes Zombification,” at this point. Or we go to war with China over the lie of who manufactured the virus? That puts the Red Dawn scenario at play. But I’m lucky, able to arm-chair speculate from the relative safety of a back porch. Crickets are in the background. Some people aren’t so lucky. The virus is ravaging minorities at a savagely disproportionate rate, evidence of a medical system in need of desperate and complete reform.

Maybe it’s the fatalist in me, but I’m trying to make sure I tell my family I love them. Even when things hurt. Even when they hurt.

4.19.20 - #corona2020 VII

A bed under my head, a roof o’er my feet
Cold fear, a fine mist o’er empty streets
Alone, grieving in stained pajama sheets
Wondering if the end it was a virus that led
To a half-remembered phrase, prophecy 
Worn couches masquerade as deathbeds
Lives spent streaming, WiFi, windows shuttered
How worlds end, not in bangs, but whispers