Social Distancing
 

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You never know, in times like this, when you’ve crossed a line… But I thought we could have some fun (that might be the line) with streaming a thread of virus-themed verse or otherwise wordy wit to soothe and salve the mad world we have all retreated from and into in these United States. (And Elsewhere?) The drain has been swamped.

I’ve seen a virus-themed verse or two (Susan’s Sequestration on metrical for one) but would like to read more pandemic poetry and what kinds of thoughts, emotions, behaviors, inspiration it has spawned. Has the same panic griped the UK and elsewhere? I could google… But that’s so isolating and disorienting. Online searches give me vertigo lately. Has the term, “social distancing” crept into the dictionary elsewhere? Social distancing — now there’s an oxi-irony not lost on me.

Does anyone have some poetic pandemic-related doodling they’ve been doing? I've done some.

Here's one:

Fear; noun, verb
An alternate definition:
When all of life becomes a slurry of metaphors spiced with puns and double entendres topped with a dollop of irony.
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But if we're going to post our own stuff, best start a thread on D&A.

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That is exactly the salve I had hoped for Annie. Thank you. Now pass the tissue.

Here is a live link of how capitalism has made the adjustment to a cleaner, less germ-ridden shopping experience. We are doomed (for the time being).

(We crossposted.) You're right. Maybe I can request it be moved.
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I'll move the thread to D & A, Jim, but I'm in the middle of helping friends move house right now, and writing this quickly on my phone. Can everyone hold their horses just for a few hours? I'll be back...

Jayne

...Game on!

"They're hoarding toilet paper! Why?"
I hear my husband scoff.
His own hoard towers eight feet high,
but it was marked half off.

He buys in bulk when it's on sale.
He loses all control.
I've pleaded "Stop!" to no avail.
He can't. He's on a roll.

But when the stuff's in short supply,
its price reflects demand.
I think without a bargain buy
he'd rather use his hand.

And so I'm worried anyhow,
despite my husband's stash.
I fear he'll trade his stockpile now
for less-absorbent cash.

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Wild stabs at fleeting thoughts conflating even as the world deflates.


Out of Touch

“Ouch! You’re squeezing. That hurts, Sir.”

Look. At the eclipsed sun.
Touch. Your orange face.
Shake. The carrier hand.
Comb. Your hair into its strategic place.
Face. The nation from a safe space.

I breathe in and out the sequestered air.
My elbow has become the safest space.
Never mind him now. My attention still
suffers from all its usual disorders.
There ain’t no cure for crossing borders.
(I have all day to make sense of this and smooth the rhyme and meter and perhaps make it shorter)

..........

Alignment Blues

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Give me that old time ruthless droll
The kind of ruler who numbs the soul
All this freedom has taken a toll
Give me a tyrant who can take control
Someone to hide behind and viral troll.

..........

Bide

“Very well. I'll bide my time. But I’ll get you my little pretty — and your little dog too!”

There's no place like home.
The Time of Panic has come and will go
and in its wake someone (not me) will know
how (and why) we did what we did to get by it.

Who is it that bought the tainted fish in China
just because someone said “Try it you’ll like it.”?

..........

I Let Her Do It

She is quite particular about the brand to buy
Me, I like to squeeze the Charmin’.
(I always do, I don’t know why)
But there's another kind she likes better.
On certain things she's the best judge, so I let her
buy the kind that her behind prefers; on that score
I wouldn’t dare upset her.


..........

Whosoever it is that melts the tips of their fingers in protest will be the last one to get into heaven.

..........

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As the virus arrives, and it schemes
To outwit our containment extremes,
We shall soon see the proof
Of the troubling truth
That nothing spreads faster than memes.

Now, now, friend, no need for that. I know it's intended in good fun, but no one in China intentionally bought tainted anything.

The Chinese at the end of this inspiring video (of Italians singing from their balconies while on lockdown) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q734VN0N7hw

... are saying something that literally translates to "Add oil," which may need some explanation.

Or maybe not. It's a message of solidarity. We're all in this together! Humanity against the virus!

Some think that distancing
must involve strife,
but I have been doing it
all of my life.

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Julie: Now, now, friend, no need for that. I know it's intended in good fun, but no one in China intentionally bought tainted anything.

True. I was groping for a rhyme (and it wasn't even a rhyme). Irresponsible of me. The video is awesome, thanks. Add Oil. Strength in numbers.

I heard something interesting today. An observation on NPR was made that pandemics have historically spread beginning with the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. This one not so much. The relatively affluent — travelers, vacationers, politicians, schmoozers, socialites — appear to be the fast track. You schmooze you lose.

Anyway, thanks for the dope-slap. That's the second slap you've doled out today Julie. Me and Bob Dylan : )
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Yeah, on second thought, I really need to keep my hands to myself....

(As you noted in the original post, humor is a way of figuring out where the boundaries are, and that means we'll all occasionally transgress them.)

I'm not coming out
I'm ignoring the phone
In self-isolation
I'm here all alone.
I'm shutting the curtains
I'm locking the door
I'm reducing my world
To the living room floor.
I'll read all the books
I've been meaning to read
I've got music, a chair
And a half ounce of weed.
My loo-roll is stacked
Like the pyramids of Giza
I've got pasta and ice-cream
And chips in the freezer.
The virus is awful
But to tell you the truth
I'm always like this
I just like the excuse

Corona
March 2020

From Khabarovsk to Arizona,
from Wellington to Barcelona,
the nuttiest caper
is toilet paper
we’re panic buying against Corona.

PLOT SUMMARY

The government accidentally releases a new, despotic and self-appointed
triffid poison. The narrative begins with Masen in prison, bandaged,
constantly under threat: Smartphone alerts. Venomous, carnivorous

misinformation lined with public health scavengers. A strictly enforced
contact-tracing programme. With military personnel chained to his eyes
he finds large numbers have tested positive. Disobeying quarantine,

the escaped triffids drive an armoured car and urge people to wash.
Assigned numbers of international visitors decide to form their own settlement
on the Isle of Wight. After discovering her hoarding medical supplies,

militaristic representatives establish a colony in a young sighted girl.
Anyone can be called by officials, who have harsh penalties
for triffid cultivation. Nearly everyone is ghostly. Masen suspects

public transport, large with staff and patients, is a mask. Stations are hung
with those who break guidelines. After the unbandaging,
the triffids leave the streets. The novel ends in Sussex, with the blind

burying a boy around the fenced exterior. In chaos, triffids pour in.


----------------------
cut up from: This article in the Guardian and The Day of Triffids plot summary on Wikipedia.

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.


Here is a great article on a different attitude toward the pandemic.

https://sapphostorque.com/2020/03/

I reckon the late great Warren Zevon said it best:


SPLENDID ISOLATION

I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don't have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the World of Self

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Don't want to wake up with no one beside me
Don't want to take up with nobody new
Don't want nobody coming by without calling first
Don't want nothing to do with you

I'm putting tinfoil up on the windows
Lying down in the dark to dream
I don't want to see their faces
I don't want to hear them scream

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awhGI0_o90s

Julie, “He’s on a roll” is worth at least $8 HK. Hilarious.

:)


Although no drug can fight this thing,
the germ will fall to Irish Spring.

Authorities worldwide attest
the virus peels apart in Zest:

C'est vraiment difficile à croire,
mais ça nous sauve: Savon d'Ivoire.

Give up despair! Renounce denial!
Roll up your sleeves! Turn up the Dial!


Inspired by https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/h...ing-germs.html
(Note: The New York Times is making all of its coronavirus-related articles available for free.)


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


For Trump to be a bigger jerk
now takes proprietary work.


Inspired by https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...avirus-vaccine

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Julie — You've written a soap opera!

Btw, of the many silver linings this dark cloud of social distance has bestowed on us, here's one I'm particularly grateful for:
The Metropolitan Opera will be streaming operas daily from their website beginning tonight at 7:30 p.m. (Carmen tonight, I think)


Here are a few coffeed corona virus-themed ramblings from this morning...

Dawn Can Only Come In Shades Of Gray.

Something strange has come our way
and spread itself in spoken spray.
Silence now will rule the day
and from its blooms a wide decay
Dawn falls in shades of gray.

Stay silent. Let the light burn away
the spittle fallen from the fray
that humans made and now must pay
for — not with a kiss, but sequestra-
shun. Oh! How I want to kiss it all today.
I miss it all terribly today.



Test and Treatment

There are tests and treatments for everything,
for blood and money and love
(though let it be known right here and now
there ain’t no cure for love—L.Cohen)

Imagine this:
kiss me all over
(a thousand kisses deep)
I’ll do the same to you.
It's one way to treat
the senses we have lost
on our way to distancing ourselves
to our own deserted shore
where no one touches surfaces
and the tender-hearts abhor.


Sorcery

What kind of sorcery is this?
No hug? No tongue-twined kiss?
Ok, I’m game. Let’s do this.
I’ve buried myself in books,
slathered myself in ice cream; I will try
to dream in sleep and sleep in dreams
for twenty-one days—or more if required—
It’s been such a long life and I am tired.
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I want to be alone, a-
way from foul Corona,
feeling the dizzying effects
not of Corona but of Becks.

An interesting Ted Talk entitled "Coronavirus Is Our Future" by Alanna Shaikh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw-9yMV0sI

Also, this article about how deadly the disease is.

https://www.livescience.com/is-coron...apTMNW8Rl1wkFr

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FYI, the terminology is changing. "Social distancing" is now becoming "physical distancing". More accurate. (It reminds me of when the nuns used to eye us up at dances and separate us if we danced too close — Though never me. I don't dance. I can dance, but I don't dance.
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Poet Ian Duhig posted this on Facebook and it gave me a genuine tea-spitting guffaw.

Ich am of Irlaunde
Ant of the holy lande of Irlaunde
Gode sir pray ich ye
Come ant daunce wyt me
Notte too closele
In Irlaunde.

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Ha! The nuns would circle the dance floor perspiring and watch for the incorrigibles: "Head up! Arms out!"..

Dancing on the Titanic: https://youtu.be/KtiqlIy57GY
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I enjoyed this:

https://lithub.com/shakespeare-wrote...l-the-writers/

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Shakespeare sequestered.

I hope not to drag anyone down with this message from Jane Goodall, but I saw this on Mary Meriam's FB feed and ached for all the victims of the damage done to our environment by humans. It seems unending. But it will get better. The Jane Goodalls in this world will help us make it get better. Little by little.
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I wonder if we could bend this thread a bit and write a collective poem of couplets that interact and create a mosaic of emotion, etc. — or are people just not in the mood to poetically socialize?


Here’s a few:

Our chances of survival unfortunately remain the same.
No stock market revival will allow us to reclaim

the paradigm transformation undergone by our nation
slowed to a crawl by an overload of information,

misinformation slung has knocked the feather from our caps—
Everything feels viral, everything sounds like Taps.
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[never mind]

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Is poetry not as vital as I thought?
Is no one able to add a couplet or two fraught

with the exposed insecurities the virus has wrought?
Are we not able to see the poetry in the onslaught?
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(I know there are metrical/logic issues with my couplets but I'm just spitting them out; not spending too much time making them perfect.)
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Springtime During The Pandemic
(Long Haiku)

Pure brocade of bluebells carpet the meadow
Mushroom bloom breaks out in the hollow

Spring starts and stops on forsythia wings
Tulips sparkle in the snow. A swallow sings.
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In no particular order ...

I think that I have never seen
A Covid nasty as nineteen.

Across the crowded room, she looks desirous
But I am staying put, thanks to the virus.

You're lovely, dear, but I'll use self - control
And touch you only with a six foot pole.

My school is effectively closed as of today. All the exam revision sessions, open evenings, essay marking, the grip and slog of it all, has suddenly ended. I have no parents left living or needy elderly relatives close by. I keep feeling terribly guilty when the thought pops uninvited into my head, as it has been doing, of just how pleasant government-imposed isolation sounds right now. I have a warm house with books to read, food to eat, movies to watch, board games to play with my kids and my wife. I'm probably a terrible person. I have an elderly neighbour who I'm running shopping errands for and that makes me feel better. Along with the guilt, these lines from Poe keep running through my head like a sinister refrain:

The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death".


The world feels almost too weird for poetry right now. I'll probably feel differently tomorrow. I think I overdosed on news at the weekend.

I wish you all well. Stay in and stay safe folks.

Edit: those are funny though, Adrian. :)

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Nice couplets Douglas. Couplets seem to require the exact amount of air we have in our lungs.

Mark, Yes, the wave has hit hard here and we are underwater. For me, the world has turned into a coughing, gasping poem. It is spewing truth like phlegm as we harbor ourselves and ride the storm out.
We are safe inside. I feel connected to myself in a way I haven't felt in so long I can't remember. There is a collective sense of vulnerability and a peeling-of-the-onion feeling I get from it all.

I love the Poe quote.

Anyway, distractions from the former normal continue to recede and what is left are only the things and people that matter to me; and I care about those people and things more deeply than I ever have before.

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New Normal

If you must kiss, kiss a flower.
If you must hug, hug a tree.

This is no longer the place or the hour
to be the way we used to be.
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I like that, Jim.

MY CORONA

It used to have pleasant connotations
especially with a lemon on the top
and at all kinds of celebrations
having only pleasant connotations,
but now it means commiserations
as all festivities come to a stop.
It used to have pleasant connotations:
now it causes our faces to drop!

Except when...


All of my geriatric mates and I
are expediting conference piss ups.
Unfortunately, we have to say bye,
to non virtual slappings of the thigh
and engaging in a Mexican high
to avoid any corona mishaps,
but my geriatric mates and I
are still skulling Corona on piss ups!