PAD April 2020: A Recap

So, to sum up, I wrote 38 poems in 30 days, including:
22 free verse
5 haiku
3 triolets
2 tanka sequences
2 "hay(na)ku sonnets"
2 light verse
1 curtal sonnet
1 concrete poem
Of those, twenty have at least a passing mention of the current pandemic and its effects, and two more could be construed to refer to it. Maybe theirs a chapbook in there somewhere - my friend Anna Evans wrote pandemic-themed tritinas all month and is planning to assemble a chapbook of them.

I always like to pick my favorite poems that I wrote during the month and showcase them at the end, so here are my "top 5", at least in my opinion. (Feel free to browse my daily posts if you prefer to form your own opinion of which are my "best".)

Day 2: 

Civic

A round rubber foundation that moves

with a simple key turn, a shift of a lever

and a pump on a pedal.

My new safe space. Not living in it,

but in a sense, living through it.

No crowds in here, few germs (I pray)

and a decent sound system.

The dark gray dashboard is fuzzy

with a film of dust, and random papers

litter the floor, but it's my mess.

I'm not too far from anything here -

my favorite takeout is 1.6 miles

down the road. They open their window,

and I open mine, the bagged transfer

of victuals - minimum contact.

A turbaned guy pumps my gas

(Jersey is still full-service),

and we pass my card back and forth.

If I have to exit this steel-glass bubble,

I don my gloves and mask,

stay a person-length away from anyone

avoid chit-chat, get my necessities,

and walk out into an invisible haze

of particles that look like tiny golf balls

studded with tees.

Many, but fewer, of us are moving like this,

self-isolation on the highway, keeping

a safe distance, just as they always told us

in Driver's Ed, so we don't crash

into one another and die.



Day 8:

The Future of the Hug

I was not ready for anything to happen.
- Sylvia Plath

The first thing they said was Don't shake hands.

Soon after that, they banned intimacy.

Stay apart, the length of a person's body.

Wash your hands. Don't leave home.

If you do, wear a mask. Wash your hands.

Don't let anyone in your house. Wash your hands.

Wash your hands.

I watch my first-grader talk to her teacher

from a laptop screen.  At the end, she leans in

and wraps her arms around herself, a virtual hug.

The teacher should be inside those arms.

I can see her tears welling.

None of us were ready for this.

A kiss, a handshake, a hug -

these days any could be deadly.

Those closest to us at home still get them -

the reward outweighs the risk.

But when we come out the other side of this,

how much warmth will we resurrect

in those social gatherings that right now

are called death traps?

Some of us have already adopted "Namaste" -

the pressing of our own palms together.

It feels wonderfully sincere, but

it is not the same as pressing  another's flesh -

hand to hand, lip to cheek, arms

around another whose arms enwrap you.

The hug will not become extinct.

When we come out again, blinking in the light,

we will see those whose absence was an ache,

and we will seek their comfort.

We will dissolve our personal space,

become blankets in each other's arms

and squeeze.

Day 10:

The Man Who Went to the Supermarket During a Slow Apocalypse

donning

battle gear -

wipes, gloves, mask -

clusters

of humanity -

cart snaking past

standing

six feet

apart in queue -

victuals

on conveyor,

card swiped through -

the only issue:

no toilet tissue

Day 22:

Go Bite the Bed Bugs

Our grandmother used to tuck us in and say,

Good night, sleep tight,

don't let the bed begs bite.

It was a quirky little rhyme, one that didn't

make a lot of sense to us - What's a bed bug?

Then they made a comeback, popping up

in unexpected places like luxury hotels,

so we had to address them again,

just like we're addressing an invisible bug

today, a hundred years after the last

such bug killed so many in the world.

I can thank my Jewish college friend

for the gift of another quirky idiom,

one that turns my grandmother's around:

In Yiddish, it's Gai strasheh di vantzen -

literally, "Go threaten the bed bugs,"

meaning, "I'm not afraid of you!"

Her bubbe actually translated it,

"Go bite the bed bugs,"

such a colorful reversal.

It comes in handy today, as I

strap on a mask to enter this world that has

so radically changed in these few months.

I must take precautions, but I can't let

the times dictate my fears.

I want to use it like a mantra,

shout it through the cloth on my face

over and over till I actually believe it,

Gai strasheh di vantzen,

Gai strasheh di vantzen.

Day 26:

Aprilcalypse

A light spring rain falls on Sunday morning

and the dandelions on my lawn.

I am here, not far from Independence Hall,

while democracy shakes like a leaf,

just as shaking hands is going out of style.

Squirrels dart across deserted streets

and tornados, my childhood nightmare,

rip through the South. This world can turn

on a dime, a dirty dime like the one I found

by the curb yesterday. From cornfields

to tenements, change is rattling the husks

and window panes. Some have spray painted

anarchy symbols and swastikas anonymously

in the alley by the trash cans; others boldly

brandish them on protest signs.  My wife and I

watch the news looking for facts, while others

eat up Pizzagate and the Deep State,

jumping into a chasm of disinformation.  

They fear Spanish and Chinese like I fear heights.

I grew up in a pink split-level, wear jeans

like Springsteen, build a playhouse for my grandkids

and read them Goodnight Moon.  Now I have

a President who asks if we can inject disinfectant

to kill the virus in us, and I think of the film

Idiocracy. (Dear Mr. President, please sit down -

you're not helping. Very truly yours, a citizen.)

I wish I could just fly away from here, mount

a poetic Pegasus and lift us both into the clouds.

But solace will have to come from the real world,

like the empty boulevard lined with cherry trees
that bloom in the rain in my home town.

Honorable Mentions:
Zombie Moment (Day 5)
Spirit (Day 12)
PM (Day 18)
Give and Take (Day 19)
Parenting in the Plague (Day 21)
Somewhat Cynically after Listening to James Schuyler's "Hymn to Life" (Day 25)
Total Blank (Day 29)