To make my life more complicated, as well as doing GloPoWriMo I’m also participating in #TheDirtyThirty2020 (hey it’s not like there’s anything else going on ATM right). Every day they offer specific prompts. Today, Day 11 is #haikuday. & so, in the interests of my mental health I’m doubling up today’s poems. The haiku I wrote for Dirty Thirty I’m also using for today’s pandemic poem.
*****
storm
garden sunshine spreads : grey cloud curves overhead — the world changes in an afternoon
As well as writing several poems every day, I’m reading at least one book of poems a day too. A couple of days ago I read little known Portugeuese poet Fernando Pessoa’s Selected Poems. He frequently uses Petrarchan sonnet structure & I was admiring how nicely those poems hung together. When I was trying to work out how to format the initial blurrrgh of ideas spewed out in the first draft, I was surprised to notice I had (apart from 2 lines in the wrong positions) written a miniature one of my own. Sans rhyme. Which is a good reason why poets should read other poets’ poems.
It’s always funny how you start off with an idea of a poem is going to go, only to watch it veer away from you. Funny, but exciting too. This one came pretty quickly … & is perhaps the one I’m happiest with so far this GloPoWriMo.
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the fidesvirus
not all pandemics
start in wet markets
or an insect’s sting
or a species-jump
& they don’t spread
by sneezing or particles
left on a hard surface
or in the blood stream
they are created by us
disseminated by us
& they infect only us
& regardless of conviction
— none are protection from
a truly committed pathogen
There’s more verses half written for this poem, but I couldn’t work out where they should go. This is a WIP.
*****
Homo economicus
for over 40 years free trade has been touted
as the solution to all social & economic ailments
— trade is really code for countless uninvited invaders
the Chinese went to Africa for sorghum
brought back camels then used them to establish
one of the greatest invader routes ever — The Silk Road
Columbus traded (if that can be the term)
European disease for New World gold — yet
smallpox, measles & tb killed more than sword or gun
hitchhikers today hijack the best transporters
money can buy — shipping containers which daily import
thousands of animals, insects, microbes & diseases to ecologies
ill-equipped to deal with them — because profit is paramount
& preventing illegal human immigrants is far more pressing
One of the things I hope to do over this month is come at the theme PANDEMIC from a range of angles. Looking at, if possible, a little like a cubist Picasso painting where we can look at all sides of the subject at once. It’s still a bit stat heavy but this poem really is about the big elephant in the room. (Not it’s not really an elephant.)
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plague species
a mere ten millennia ago when we first
trick tamed cattle from wild aurochs
humans & those critters that would become
our domestic buddies (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep)
represented around 1% of earth’s biomass
wild animals (using the most basic maths)
represented 99% of all living creatures.
now humans & the beasts we own as pets
property or product are somewhere
between 96-98% depending on the study cited.
basically earth has been stolen from free-living
animals for those species we most love to pat
but even more so for those we lust to eat.
the plague has spread — & continues to …
Not much explanation needed tonight.
*****
hypochondranoia
in these anxiousladen : hypertensile times : over doctor googling : affects mental health : almost more than any virus : attacking flesh
a pre-exisiting history of weak lungs : can’t account for : this shortness of breath : when walking : into the next room : to make another cuppa ; every whimpered cough : bubbling up like lukewarm lava ; the-not-quite-hot : but-definitely-warmer-than-bugsnug : flushes ; the soft aches of exhaustion : in every cell ; the intermittent bouts : of nowhere-near-migrainial misery : but discombobulating enough : to warrant frequent napping ; all adds up : to not quite anything
simultaneously : not wanting to : over-react : read too much into it : complain : cos it’s probably nothing : don’t want to : over-whelm : the local medical centre : probably : just a hangover : from last month’s laryngitis : after all : other than living in a : designated cluster area : what chance has there been : to jump on : this global pan-wagon
Um, this still isn’t the poem I promised yesterday; that’s the “trouble” when there’s lots of ideas bouncing round all the time. (You might get that poem one day or you might not.)
But this isn’t quite the poem I was hoping to present today either — hence the brillo idea of making it a 2 part poem. Part 2 will make it’s way onto these pages in a week or so. (I love it when form & content inform each other.)
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Quarantine: part 1
8 things Donnie did last week instead of staying at home
1. Disembarked the Ruby Princess … & caught a plane back to Adelaide
2. Bought some toilet paper, he had plenty … but was on the shelf so why not
3. Visited his grandmother, gave her a hug … & the loo paper too cos she was out
4. Spent the day at the beach … probably the last warm day before winter
5. Got his hair cut, sneezed once or twice … those chemicals always set him off
6. Caught the bus, coughing as he did … people looked at him, big deal
7. Returned to the shop three times … cos he kept forgetting things
8. Visited a few mates for a brew … though Bill, the bastard, wouldn’t let him in
What Donnie’s doing this week
1. Feeling under the weather … so decided to have a couple of days in bed
Was intending to write a poem based on exercise from yesterday’s Na/GloPoWriMo site. However, I spent so long collecting words (part of the task) that I had no time left to actually write the thing. So I’ll try & get to that tomorrow using the words gathered today.
So this then is a quick stopgap, started only an hour ago, based on one of the dozen or so ideas I’ve got stockpiled to work on this month. As such, it’s a bit rushed, but it’s okay. As I always say, Na/GloPoWriMo is not about crafting perfect poems but trying new things, having poems to work on post April; & occasionally if you’re lucky catching a lightning bolt or two in a bottle along the way.
*****
decurving
i.
the challenge with the whole lockdown
don’t leave the house, isolate yourself
curve-squashing philosophy is if it works
all the instant expert naysayers will neigh
see it wasn’t as bad as your henny penny
sky’s falling economy-killing hysteria predicted
— which although technically frustrating
is surely not as grave as the alternative,
ii,
despite this, some debate whether the cost
of flattening is really the lesser of the evils
— which in a way overlooks an essential issue
the fact that we as a species are living
way above our credit level & treating earth
as a giant hypermarket where we can grab
anything we want without needing to pay
— well, debts are starting to be called in.
Slowly working up steam. About Defcon 3 I’d say. Alert but not alarmed.
This doesn’t quite say what I was intending to say (or at least, not in the way I was trying to say it) when I started the poem, but it will have to do as midnight is approaching.
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not so little chickens
while the wet markets of Wuhan & elsewhere might be
(rightly) copping criticism as hotbeds for terrifying new
viral species-hoppers even scarier prospects face every
one of us at much closer distances to hearth & home
for our modern factory chicken facilities are now far closer
to laboratories than farms where the paltry poultry are more
like drug-addled addicts than the cutesy feathered friends
we envisage scratching round in green country gardens for grubs
today owing to genetic streamlining, stress, & overcrowding
vaccines, sulfa drugs & antibiotics are routinely added
to feed to combat the toxic bloodbath of immunodeficiencies
cancerous tumours, pus, faecal matter, & bacterial contamination
it is from one of these noble agribusinesses many virologists believe
the next great pathogen will emerge to indiscriminately kill
both fowl & man
Hmmm, another nice one. When does the apocalypse get here?
Patience, I’m going over some of the books I’ve been reading recently & gathering all the bits I need. Soon the dystopias will start.
*****
slippage
what is being termed
social isolation by every
suddenly ultraexpert
medical practitioner
& socialmedia maestro
on the digital planet
sounds less like weeks
of solo soul hellage
cut off from the world
& all that other so-called
important stuff
& more like a couple
of normal gareth days
slipping stretchtinglingly
into several lazy idyllic
weeks of sublime solitude
— even if that slippage
means i’m not sure whether
it’s sunday or september
(so long as nasty things like
curve flattening & latest
statistics are somehow
over looked)
Photo: Villette enjoying a lazy autumn day at home, unaware of the term, “social isolation”. (Also, I didn’t realise she too is half-slipping until I uploaded the pic, so a double whammy)
Well, April aficionados. It’s here again. Na/GloPoWriMo. Was wondering whether I should participate again this year given how exhausting it can be. But given it will be my 7th consecutive year participating & given there’s been a bit of a poeting drought recently & given that we all have plenty of time on our hands, I thought, well why not.
That said, I’m gonna try something I’ve not done for Na/GloPoWriMo before: that is, to write every poem around a theme. That theme is quite zeitgeisty but it is the thing my brain (& I’m sure many others too) is most occupied with at the moment.
So brace yourself for 30 fun-filled poems about the plague. Well, pandemics & other cheerful TEOTWAWKI style things.
A gentle one to lead us in. (The apocalypse comes later)
*****
chasey / 21st-century style
by the cries / next door’s kids
are inventing a new form of an old game
they’re calling out the rules
over the fence as they create
Audrey’s got coronavirus
& she’s got to catch us
& when you’re caught
you’ve got to isolate yourself
it’s ring-a-rosie all over again
which sounds fun for a while
till they realise being only 6
Audrey doesn’t understand
the rules of social isolation (like many others)
it ends the way all such games
have for millennia / arguments
a collision or other accident
a banged up knee / tears
& someone crying / running
/ to be comforted // by mum
gareth roi poet boi 