May Golden Shovel #8

source: Job Growth Slowed in April, Muddling Expectations

 

She had been searching a long time for a job.

The pandemic was nearing an end and growth

Was assumed. Her search slowed

Despite everyone thinking jobs would open in

her area. But she found nothing in April.

Rent was due, her savings depleted. In the future muddling

Through could not continue. What were her expectations?

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I’m continuing to use Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.

30/30: Golden Shovel poem #25

source: Despite Losses, CEOs Prosper Amid Pandemic

The money pot grows larger despite

pandemic lockdown losses,

So why does so much go to CEOs?

Who is truly responsible, who should prosper?

When work exposes to illness, who is essential amid

Viruses whose spread competes with conspiracy theories. What is the true pandemic?

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.

 

Poems for Before I Die, 5

Dear Coronavirus,

What made you decide to leap

from the bats to the pangolins?

Was it the bat diet of insects?

Was it the bats’ habit of

eating on the fly?

Why did you choose the pangolin

for your next host?

Was it the sound of their name,

jingling like wind chimes,

Pan-Go-Lin, Pan-Go-Lin, Pan-Go-Lin?

Was it their layered scales,

creating a fearsome surface,

protection from predators?

What made you move on to

humans?

Was it the variety of our innards?

Was it our larger size,

more meal in one place?

What attracted your proteins

to our proteins?

What made us so tasty to you?

What lured your spiky proteins

into our lungs?

Don’t you understand that when

you weave your webs inside

our lungs,

you kill us, and you must

find another human host?

Why is the mindless replication

of your proteins so necessary?

Why have you declared war

on humanity?

What will you do when

you’ve killed us all?

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It's National Poetry Month! Poetry is hard, but I keep trying. The pandemic has set my theme for this month. You can sign up for Poem-a-Day and find out about all sorts of online poetry celebrations at the Academy of American Poets website

Poems for Before I Die, 4

Your doctor says, “Do not go outside.”

Alarms clang, “Incoming!”

The virus aims right at the target

on your chest,

Until this moment,

you matched a couple of

risk categories,

but theoretical.

Now it’s personal.

Now fear threads through your body.

You learn new habits,

Washing your hands after the toilet,

even though you don't pee on your hands.

Washing your hands before starting to cook,

even though every cooking show’s chef

has always modeled that.

You are alone with your risk categories

wondering

Is covid-19 the name of your death?

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It's National Poetry Month! Poetry is hard, but I keep trying. The pandemic has set my theme for this month. You can sign up for Poem-a-Day and find out about all sorts of online poetry celebrations at the Academy of American Poets website.

 

Poems for Before I Die, 2

I will die.

I am a human.

Death is always the end

of each human’s story.

Death is there,

Invisible,

Not announcing itself,

Waiting for its chance.

Sometimes it will catch you

Unaware

The sudden heart attack

The massive stroke

Blood clots wandering

through veins, arteries, capillaries.

Sometimes it bangs on your body,

The breathlessness that alerts you

To those blood clots

Collecting in your  lungs.

The abdominal pain that alerts you

To the cancer on some organ

that’s playing Bach’s Requiem.

The cough that whistles

Lung cancer.

Sometimes it’s caught by surprise,

the mammogram,

the pelvic smear,

the EKG.

So many diseases

Waiting to sneak up on you.

If you thought about them

All of the time

There would be no future.

Usually Death comes singly.

You might not know anyone

Who died

All of last year,

Or the year before.

Pandemic is Death made global.

It waves its name in front of your face.

It prances and cavorts and plays

With the doctors and nurses

Who stand between we humans

And Death.

Pandemic assaults everyone

Whether you get sick or remain well.

You are marked

by the fear

by the anticipation

by the relief

of waking up each morning,

Still breathing.

SOL24: Word of the Year?

            I’ve been noticing certain terms in my journal I never used before: “respiratory droplets,” “social distancing,” “Zoom” (the website). Then I thought of the American Dialect Society.

           The AmericanDialect Society chooses a Word of the Year at its annual conference in January. (Last year’s word was “singular they,” and it being the end of a decade, they chose “(my) pronoun” as the word of the decade. Okay, they’re not always single words: alternative facts and milkshake duck have also been winners.)

            So what will be the word/phrase of this year? “pandemic”? “coronavirus”? “COVid-19”? My suggestions above? I hope it won’t be “social collapse” or “depression.” The Society takes nominations all year long at woty@americandialect.org. (Can't seem to make this a clickable link, but you can always copy and paste.) Here’s your chance to weigh in.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 24 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL17: Pandemic No Place for a Hypochondriac

            I am a person who is very sensitive to how my body feels, yet have no interest or aptitude for medicine. This tends to make me hyperaware, and hyperanxious, about pains, aches, twinges, with only my logical mind to interpret them.

            At least I know this about myself, so I tend to not go to my doctor every time I’m worrying because I don’t want to be the person who cried “wolf.” And then  I worry that I’ll  miss the symptom that I really should have worried about.

            While I was awake in the middle of the night last night, the headline for this post popped into my mind. It probably deserves an essay, but I will work on that later. For now, this is only my slice. A loaf may come later.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 17 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!