Ha ha great fun Derek.
Ps It's good to find a another Aussie here.

Deleted for other use.

That is brilliant, Nico!

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Nice, Nicolas, nice.
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Thanks folks!

Jeopardy!

Competing on the quiz show killed
my fandom, though it once had thrilled
me—back when hope had room to build.
(What happens to a dream fulfilled?)

Years later, when a mom I knew
competed—and much better, too,
than I had—I tuned in to view.
I’ve never watched the whole show through

since then. I can’t endure the game
that gave me half an hour of fame.
We’ve grown apart. Or I'm the same:
tonight, I only know the name

of one in eight celebrities.
I’d aced the former century’s,
but time has passed. (And V.I.P.s).
I’ve never heard of most of these.

I flip back to the news I’d fled
when seeking trivia instead:
Refrigerated trucks of dead.
Grim graphs depicting viral spread

as, globally, economies
are sinking to—and past—their knees.
And meanwhile, deaf to doctors’ pleas,
deniers aid this damned disease.

I’ve seen my neighbors contravene
the guidelines—clueless, close, unclean.
I see I've once more passed between
the realms divided by this screen.

This by Auden seems pertinent
 

The Three Companions

“O where are you going” said reader to rider,
“That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder's the midden whose odours will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return.”

“O do you imagine,” said fearer to farer,
“That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?”

“O what was that bird,” said horror to hearer,
“Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.”

“Out of this house” - said rider to reader,
“Yours never will” - said farer to fearer,
“They're looking for you” - said hearer to horror
As he left them there, as he left them there.


Also called “O Where Are You Going”

Deleted for submission elsewhere.

An Upbeat Prophesy

That COVID-19 triggered fear in us
and our tears had made clear what was dear in us,
==but the world acted quick;
==now no one is sick,
and this fact has caused serious cheer in us.

The Cuomo Effect

By now he doesn’t need a promo:
In daily updates Andrew Cuomo
clarifies the virus for us.
Perhaps he should be our next POTUS?

Coronavirus Limerick No. 2

Your hands were so dry you could scream
from washing, so smeared on some cream,
==then washed again, moron,
==but didn’t put more on,
yet grateful those virions won’t team.

A Virus Verse

After John Davies, from “The Triumph of Death”

Hollywood is coughing from a plague
Arising from bad acting by our leaders,
Not here, but where the principals are vague
About protective gear and ventilators.

Now, as bees in smoke abandon hives
Confused, we’re wondering, should we stay here?
Or flee—the single, partners, husbands, wives
And children nearly overwhelmed by fear?

There are constraints, threats of punishment
for roaming, spreading death to many more
While Washington, its credibility spent,
Plays politics, our president a whore…

Davies (1569-1626) was a poet who lived through the plague outbreaks in London in the 1590s.

Corona Reign
 

Corona Reign

Will this virus kill me?
Little drops of spittle
rain down on my eye lids.
Little knobby crown balls
drift into my pharynx.

Death rains down upon us.
Sickness makes us stodgy;
we hide in our hovels
or our large mac-mansions.
There's no panacea
for this wild pandemic.

I would he would run
but he's wed to New York.

Hi B! I was just squeezing out the last dollops of optimism. Drat.

It's interesting that we now have two poems posted (yours and Max's on Met) with AIR as the theme. Yours shows it's a killer. Max's demonstrates it's love and an infection that's entirely welcome--air is words, is oxygen, is life, indispensable however we hear, feel, or see it. Both takes, though, are plausible! Both are fresh.

April Pain
 

April Pain

April showers COVID rain,
flowers and pneumatic pain.
Pollen seems a mild annoyance
when compared to viral poisons.

We stay home and watch the screen
that numbers bodies yet unseen.
We grow numb to grim statistics
owing to unplanned logistics.


Thanks RLC

Hi, I'm on a bit of a doggerel roll. This one even rhymes.

I'm often dogged by doggerel. . .


Love in the Time of Corona

They so loved each other’s hide
That they committed screwicide.

Doggerel happens because clever people are silly:).

In Virus Veritas

Confined at home at ease
without the dread disease
dimples in my knees
from old-age weight increase
no partner to displease
no health rules to appease
no reason to decrease
noshing wine and cheese
beneath the olive trees
so now I can release
my haydays memories.

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Mark Stone posted over on the Accomplished Members thread the latest issue of Light Poetry Magazine with the POTW devoted to topical verse on the pandemic.
Mark (along with other Spherians) has an entry. All of them entertaining and thought provoking. Thanks Mark.
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PRAYER BEFORE THE PEAK

......UK coronavirus peak at least two weeks away, chief scientist says
.................................................. ......................Guardian headline

Let me be ignorant. Let no one speak
of death tolls now, or if they do please tweak

the figures ever downward. Not one squeak
of how those microbes spread, or drifting, leak

into the air. If You must wreak, then wreak
what must be wreaked elsewhere. Just let me sneak

through this unscathed. Lord, things are looking bleak.
Grant me the strength I need to not be weak

or old. Oh let me not be past my peak
until the peak has passed. That's all I seek.

Matt, That is wonderfully vulnerable. It should be archived with a select group of other poems spawned by the pandemic. There is palpable fear in it. There is paranoia. There is a sliver of hope hung on a wing and a prayer. You captured it.


By chance I opened up The Essential Rilke selected poems this morning to this passage from the poem "The Bowl of Roses":

And aren't they all doing the same: simply containing them-
xxxselves
if to contain oneself means: to transform the world outside
and wind and rain and patience of spring
and guilt and restlessness and disguised fate
and darkness of earth at evening
all the way to the errancy, flight, and coming on of clouds,
all the way to the vague influence of the distant stars
into a hand full of inwardness.

Now it lies free of cares in the open roses.



How time flies.
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Matt, I have been and continue to be extremely anxious in this awful time. Your poem captures many of my feelings. Bravo

Thank you, Matt.

Thanks, people. I thought this one would be lighter when I started it.

I'm doing a poem-a-day challenge this month for National Poetry Writing Month with about 50 other people on another poetry forum. This was today's poem. I thought the challenge would be a good a distraction from the pandemic, and sometimes it is, but as you can see, not always ...

Stay safe.

-Matt

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I found this this morning, in paragraph form, in the NYT. It is an article about the doctor in China who tried to warn authorities of the pandemic that was brewing but was silenced. He later died of the coronavirus.


It is found poetry:

Wailing Wall

They come to say “good morning” and “good night.”
They tell him that spring has arrived
and that the cherry blossoms are blooming.
They share that they are falling in love,
falling out of love or getting divorced.
They send him photos of fried chicken drumsticks,
his favorite snack.

They whisper that they miss him.
x
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I called it a hoax, yes that’s true;
Now I’m blaming the whole thing on WHO.
Still, I said, what the heck,
Put my name on the cheque
Let’s have credit where credit is due.


OK, I know WHO isn't pronounced like that -- call it an eye rhyme? -- Maybe I'll find something better when I've calmed down.

Jim, that found poem works very well.

Trumpsters in Lansing, Michigan
Expressed their Herd Impunity.

Scarily, Warily,
Shopping for groceries
Holding my breath till I
Nearly pass out

Health’s a priority,
Super-imperative,
Heaping my basket with
Ciggies and stout.

Mattironic!

Thanks Jim! I missed your response.

Mouldy Pangolins

Who just gave me tea he’d spat in?
Who has taught the greyhound Latin?
Who just let that rabid bat in?

It’s the pangolin
with his mandolin

Who’s a second-rate anteater?
Who can’t cure your drooping peter?
Who’s a virus meet-and-greeter?

It’s the pangolin
and his manky skin

Who’ll be sad when lock-down eases?
Who thinks his long tongue will please us?
Who has never bowed to Jesus?

It’s the pangolin
he’s a fan of sin

Who gets kept in bamboo jails?
Who is rarer than most whales?
Who gets hunted for his scales?

asks the pangolin
in Mandarin

Splendid, Matt! And thank you - a pleasure to read. A tone salutarily apt - after Wyndham's - for these days. (Or should that be 'aptly salutary'?) ;)

Peter Gabriel's Red Rain;
Wells's Martian Red Weed, spreading.
Fraught humanity in pain,
Worrying where this is heading.
Strangely-dreaming soldier digging
(In between his cards and swigging)
Bids the journo share a cup.
Don't Give Up. Please, Don't Give Up.

I wrote this about a month ago (end of March), and it won a little prize in a weekly poetry contest.

Pandemic

A jillion germs now smirk and grin,
grinning (like one aware he’s vicious)
at those who thought the pangolin—

scales and blood and flesh—delicious.
A jillion germs knock at our doors
around the world, both mine and yours.

I’d like to think this all fictitious.
Everybody is suspicious
of anyone who coughs or sneezes,

a protocol I think judicious.
The virus does as it damned pleases.
“Keep your distance! Don’t get near me!”

I shout inside my mind. You hear me?
I fear you and, I’m sure, you fear me.
And so they grin and so we hide

and throw away the travel guide.
Look how they smirk, those jillion germs,
knowing the battle’s on their terms.

EXPONENTIAL EXFOLIATION

It's not only the markets that collapse
in these trying times of isolation
as women miss out on upper lip zaps.
It's not only the markets that collapse
as botox purveyors take enforced naps,
as botox beauticians turn off their taps.
It's not only the markets that collapse
in these trying times of isolation.
Still they can be fashionably masked
without worrying about being asked
to show their identical upper lips
and exposing their collapsed botox blips!

To show I can take it as well as dish it out!


IN TIMES OF TROUBLE, A STIFF UPPER LIP

Women today are much stronger.
Ubiquitous stiff upper lips
ensure they are weak no longer.
Women today are much stronger,
a resolve that lasts much longer,
if there aren’t any botox blips.
Women today are much stronger,
with smooth, strong and stiff upper lips!

And, me too, with a little prick
some botox might just do the trick!

A bit of erasure poetry.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d3ea9bda_z.jpg

Same Weapon, Different Target

Let’s sneer at the barbarians.
They’re backward through and through.
To kill and cook up wildlife is their favorite thing to do.

Let’s sneer at the barbarians.
They’ll swallow anything.
They’ll buy whatever batshit cures their snake-oil salesmen sing.

Let’s sneer at the barbarians.
They spit on Western science.
They give our doctors’ expertise derision and defiance.

Let’s sneer at the barbarians.
They’re stupid and naive.
It’s really unbelievable, the nonsense they’ll believe.

Let’s sneer at the barbarians,
and openly deplore
their love for Trump—since sneering's never failed us Dems before....

Doh!
 

The Rapist Republicans Respond 2020

Don’t ask about health science
Don’t ask about the virus
Don’t ask about our conscience
It’s just a hoax to us.

Don’t ask about the lock-downs
Don’t ask about closed schools
Don’t ask about protective gowns
Such questions come from fools.

Do ask if we like stealing
Do ask about The Street
Do ask if we like dealing
Cause we do love to cheat.

Do know we’ll hide our taxes
Do know we’re self-promoters
Do know our fuck-you lapses
Let the virus thin Dem voters! *

*That is, the brown, the black and the ugly. As well as nursing home seniors (who, as Fox's idiot says, "are on their last legs, anyway.")

We sneer for lack of options against implacable stupidity?