[Jim Moonan]

x
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.
x
x

[Nicholas Stone]

[never mind]

[Jim Moonan]

x
x
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?
x
x

(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.)
x
x

[Jim Moonan]

x
x
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.
x
x

[Douglas G. Brown]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

x
x
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?
x
x

(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.)
x
x

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.

[Mark McDonnell]

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.

[Jim Moonan]

x
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.

x
x

[Jim Moonan]

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.
x
x

[Mark McDonnell]

I like that, Jim.

[derek fenton]

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!