Category Archives: Poetry

House Arrest 23 (Masks)

Posted on April 9, 2020 by sputterpub

Protection’s in N95’s, but wait! We need to save those units for the docs. A surgeon’s mask will decontaminate the air; they need those, too. Whatever blocks the spray of droplets seems good strategy. Last week we didn’t need a … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 22 (Acrostic Rispetto)

Posted on April 8, 2020 by sputterpub

Now all I know must shelter in our places, Or venture out for food and exercising. Most people are restricting their embraces. Our introversion may appear surprising For such a social species, but I wonder: Of benefits that come with … Continue reading →

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Tunnel Vision

Posted on April 8, 2020 by sputterpub

My best friend’s friend, a woman known to thrive until this year’s retirement, declares that everyone she knows past sixty-five has lost at least a little brain. She swears it looking husband-ward, at hers and those of half a dozen … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 21 (Interlocking Rubaiyat)

Posted on April 7, 2020 by sputterpub

It felt severe and drastic when proclaimed, when most of us were sent inside or shamed. “Stay home,” we were directed, “for three weeks.” We hunkered down as world contagion flamed. We’re watching so much news. Whoever speaks has listeners, … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 20 (Service Heptameter)

Posted on April 6, 2020 by sputterpub

Abed I lay at 3 a.m., my worries in full swing, my brain alert, eschewing REM, conjectures wandering. I fantasized about escape from rampant viral flu, but soon recalled the awful shape from graphic points of view. No matter where … Continue reading →

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Delayed Indignation

Posted on April 6, 2020 by sputterpub

I never was submissive, but my aunts and mom and girlfriends acted lady-like. Without insisting that I wear the pants, I power-grabbed and never tried to psych myself into compliant frame of mind. “Who says?” was like an axiom to … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 19 (Heroic Couplets)

Posted on April 5, 2020 by sputterpub

The media reports successive spots where virus graphs condense their dire dots, as if the plague had patterns like a map of weather systems turning on the tap, evoking pollsters analyzing charts of primaries ascendant in our hearts, informing us … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 18 (Terza Rima)

Posted on April 4, 2020 by sputterpub

Alive, we haven’t yet abandoned hope, although we’re half-forsaken, leader-lost, and turning to the power in our soap, by media and propaganda tossed together toward a herd immunity, no matter what the economic cost, to venture in a future none … Continue reading →

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House Arrest 17 (Ottava Rima)

Posted on April 3, 2020 by sputterpub

It’s hard to be a fan of bureaucrats – we’ve made them rigid figures, comically. But now they’re stand-up heroes, on the mats of surreal contests, speaking honesty to power. Clerks and agents in white hats are damming up the … Continue reading →

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Committee for Unintended Consequences

Posted on April 3, 2020 by sputterpub

It’s obvious our species has evolved through paths of unintended consequence. We own a history of having solved some problems, met some challenges with sense, but then results go otherwise than planned. The car that moves us far: extinguished birds … Continue reading →

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