Approaching 2020 from two years
beyond that now, reviewing verse from then,
I cringe because I know Covid appears
within a month, to shorten lives of men
and women, narrow presents, foment fears,
to make of every habitat a pen.
And though I’ve written daily since that time,
I’m dreading editing most every rhyme.
(Ottava Rima)
I always travel light. I like to be
as unencumbered as I can arrange.
I want my back relaxed, my fingers free,
and so for airplane comfort, I’ll exchange
some toiletries and extra shoes and gear
for compact case (I barely take enough).
I savor foot room. I don’t want to hear
“Reserve the overhead for larger stuff.”
It’s like the punishment conservers get
whose water use is ever at a low.
Then comes the drought, and regulations set
a lower level than accustomed flow.
So overusers needn’t much contract,
and careful are the penalized, in fact.
A day of heat last week beset this place.
The air was cooked to 25 degrees
above the usual. Like most, my space
has no AC. The new catastrophes
of climate change may prompt me to embrace
an installation that will chill a breeze.
But I for now will weather what I can,
sincerely thankful for my ceiling fan.
(Ottava Rima)
I travel nervously. I’m best alone,
and any quiet helps me get along.
I leave with time to spare – I check my phone
too often and I stress I’ve scheduled wrong.
So I appreciate the hidden zone
between two terminals, away from throng,
where there’s a bathroom no one often uses:
a pit stop on my way, without abuses.
(Ottava Rima)
Morose comes close to capturing the tone
I first encountered entering their place.
Initially the mood, in loading zone,
was almost joyful, and the greeting face
wore happy looks from mouth to curving eyes.
But when we left the car to eat our food
I sensed a crack, a slippage, a demise.
I sat among a group in testy mood.
The kids seemed teenage-normal. The adults
were teetering on bickering, I thought,
although there were no arguing results.
Conversing, shoulders eased and overwrought
appeared relieved. I think my presence made
an audience and buffer while I stayed.
I always thought the office overblown –
Executive just means to make it work,
and I when young or even fully grown
sized up each President as ego jerk.
Admittedly I was in fact impressed
with Congress as it processed Watergate,
but that was then. Reality confessed
its members venal, ignorant, or late.
I still retained some hope about the Court
supposed to settle issues honestly.
But now I’m left without a hope or doubt.
I didn’t need last week’s deplored report
to see the strikes have added up to three.
I’m mourning but admitting: we are out.
I flew away from home and then took ill.
At first I thought it was the edible
I chewed so fast, but as fatigue went on
and as the cough increased, it came to dawn
on me I wasn’t free to sit and be
a wakeful member of the family.
I followed soma sense. I stopped all moving.
Ten hours on I felt myself improving.
You showed that grumpy passion as a child,
and even now you’re pushing 46
your attitudes are anything but mild,
and I no longer hunger for a fix.
You’ve always been yourself – uniquely styled:
impatient and decisive and a mix
of hot and cold, of spring and angry gloom.
You simply need more hours in your room.
(Ottava Rima)
Still negative, although I’ve got a cough,
and feel fatigue most every afternoon,
my chatter with a doctor made me scoff –
I’m tired cause I’m out of bed too soon
each morning, and the reason breathing’s off
is hanging with a 5 year-old in June.
My body took his virus (or his phage),
and napping is the ticket at my age.
(Ottava Rima)
If you forgot some time you meant to keep,
although you wrote and may have snapped a shot,
perhaps you needn’t criticize. Don’t weep,
if you forgot.
Your memory is adequate. It’s not
infallible, but stores some visions deep
and loses lighter memories a lot.
The years seem shorter now. The decades sweep
like second hands; each season is a dot.
But here’s today – so lovely I might weep,
if you forgot.
(Roundel)
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