Mourning # 7

Mourning # 7

 

Your body is infected

germs in camo vests run

into the halls and offices

of your whole healthiness

looking for a pinhole weakness

they’re on drugs yelling crazy shit

banging on doors with fists

and they find the pinhole

there are plenty all around

how did they get in?

why did they come?

 

You are infected now and could die

can you imagine

your last gasp

your final tweet

closing your eyes

for the last time

all so sad you’ll say

and preventable.

 

---- former Connecticut trooper

a first responder at Sandy Hook

his name is Patrick Dragon

he died at Hartford Hospital

deputy chief of East Brooklyn

Fire Department after retiring

from the State Police, 34 years

on December 14, 2012 in Newtown

at Sandy Hook Elementary where

28 were killed, 20 young children

his sister called him ‘the bravest

person I know’ he rushed into the

school and what a scene!

are first responders doing their jobs

heroes? they do it for the paycheck

but they also do it as helpers

find the helpers, support them

mourn for them, even if they are

not gunned down on duty but are

taken away by the modern black plague.

 

 

Mourning # 6

Mourning # 6

 

“music began 

in the midst of the mourning”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

 

The shriek glissades to a moan

A major to F# minor

then the whimper on the exhale

in straight D on the upbeat

the palm slaps the chair arm

or pant leg or pillow case

a few staccato pulsations in double time

even the silence that enters the house

is musical, at night, when the guests

leave, the virus leaves with them

until there’s breathing on two notes

inhale here exhale there, over

and over.

 

---- Armando Manzanero, 85, died of COVID-19

in December 2020 after 6 days on a ventilator.

He was Mexico’s premier songwriter and pop singer.

His romantic ballads were performed by Sinatra,

Elvis and Perry Como. Manzanero won a life-

time achievement Grammy in 2014. He wrote over

400 songs and made 30 records. He was still working

when he got sick. The Mexican Society of Authors

and Composers called him, “the romantic soul of Mexico”

and said, “the world is in mourning.” He was married

four times. Manzanero was rather short, but he was

a giant of Mexican music.

 

Was that sound the swish of a brush on a snare drum

or his spirit flying away to wherever those things go?

 

And tomorrow

Should you ask me for the world

Somehow I’d get it

I would sell my very soul

And not regret it

For to live without your love

It’s just impossible

 

Siempre novios

Solo novios

Impossible.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is dead.

"The world is a beautiful place"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1919-2021

          The world is a beautiful place 
                                               to be born into 
if you don't mind happiness 
                                        not always being 
                                                              so very much 

fun 
     if you don't mind a touch of hell 
                                             now and then 
             just when everything is fine 
                                                  because even in 

heaven 
                             they don't sing 
                                                all the time

          The world is a beautiful place 
                                                to be born into 
if you don't mind some people dying 
                                                   all the time 
                 or maybe only starving 
                                              some of the time 
         which isn't half bad 
                                      if it isn't you 

Oh the world is a beautiful place 
                                            to be born into 
       if you don't much mind 
                                      a few dead minds 
              in the higher places 
                                           or a bomb or two 
                    now and then 
                                        in your upturned faces 
    or such other improprieties 
                                          as our Name Brand 

society 
                           is prey to 
                                       with its men of distinction 
         and its men of extinction 
                                           and its priests 
                     and other patrolmen 
                                                    and its various 

segregations 
         and congressional investigations 
                                                      and other 

constipations 
                      that our fool flesh 
                                               is heir to 

Yes the world is the best place of all 
                                                   for a lot of such 

things as 
          making the fun scene 
                                            and making the love scene 
and making the sad scene 
                                       and singing low songs and

having

inspirations 
and walking around 
                            looking at everything 
                                                       and smelling 

flowers 
and goosing statues 
                           and even thinking 
                                                  and kissing people 

and 
     making babies and wearing pants 
                                                  and waving hats and 
                                    dancing 
                                             and going swimming in 

rivers 
                              on picnics 
                                        in the middle of the summer 
and just generally 
                         'living it up' 

Yes 
   but then right in the middle of it 
                                            comes the smiling 

mortician 

https://youtu.be/l11MUjuK43M

Mourning # 5

Mourning # 5

 

I’ve heard of lots of homeless people in the USA

but none with the virus, you'd think candidates, in fact 

I read that out of 7,000 something infected persons

only three got the crud outdoors, so you’re good to go

if you stay indoors alone all year or two

or stay outdoors all the time …

those cardboard tents get cold though

no, it’s the human contact that gets you

not between stock brokers and them all

the only thing that makes life bearable

is what could take your life in a few days

from that first cough and fever to

no funeral no memorial no church

no wake no dinner party no friends

no relatives no kids if not housemates

no parents – the new strain favors

the young – and no sympathy from

anyone in government – I DON’T CARE,

DO U? is all you have left.

when your homeless bones leave your soul --

 

---- Kathi Shepherd and her daughter

did not attend the family Christmas party

because of the pandemic.

Father, ex-husband, twin sister, older sister

brother-in-law all positive within days

no family discount here, you all pay.

Father, Cecil, on oxygen and gasping

please come hold my hand

I cannot do that, Dad

things were getting better, a vaccine

things are so much worse. Why, oh,

why, do we have to live this way

or maybe today, die this way?

 

 

Mourning # 4

Mourning # 4

 

In virus time

I get up tired and bored in the morning

I don’t enjoy my cereal

check social media, get dressed, off to work

produce, consume, destroy the planet

I think I have opinions and feelings

do I truly mean anything I do

as I drive the streets do I notice

the bags of trash left out by the sidewalk

to be taken away and recycled

I don’t notice them anymore, there are

too many, I have my sports to keep up on

and dinner to plan, I saw a photo

of a mountain, a mountain range, a continental drift

then a kitten head poking from a toilet paper roll

that made me laugh, it looked so odd.

 

---- John Prine, I loved John Prine, his songs

were simple and sardonic, he made his first

record in 1971, he wrote with a friend every

Tuesday morning, then they had some meatloaf

at a diner next door, then they recorded the song

in the afternoon, about 52 a year, while not

touring. John Prine had cancer in his throat and

tilted his head, he had to learn to sing again

that took years, then he got lung cancer, more

operations and therapy, back to singing, he had

to take his songs to the people. John Prine wrote

a song that I heard on a friend’s LP in 1977 and

I still remember a line about the bottle drinking

the life out of the alcoholic, I still remember that

today, John Prine’s songs will still mean a lot

to a lot of people, he got COVID in March and

died in April at age 73, just 7 years older than

me.

 

 

 

 

Mourning # 3

Mourning # 3

 

Uncle Joe will be leading

us in prayer

for the last year no one

has been there.

Now we so need to cry

for all who have died

because even in the land of hate

we care.

 

---- Li Wenliang, on December 30, 2019

told his friends by chat that seven patients

in his hospital had a SARS-like disease

all came from a local seafood market

within hours his text message had

been disseminated and he realized

he would probably be penalized

for giving the warning in Wuhan

the authorities were outraged

Li was questioned, he was forced

to confess, he was already coughing

he had a fever, he checked into a motel

to protect his family, he had to return

to work but was soon hospitalized

by mid-January there were hundreds

the rumormonger, Doctor Li Wenliang,

aged 33, died on February 7, 2020

of the novel coronavirus known as

COVID-19. He leaves a wife, Fu Xuejie

and 2 small sons, one of whom was

born to his widow in June 2020.

 

 

 

Mourning # 2

Mourning # 2

 

2020 was the year of death

the Grinning Reaper gorging on souls

not everything or everyone died, of course

but the demons circled all around 

like stone-throwers taking us down

I did not die in 2020, for example

some people I know did and many

famous people I liked

and ideals and illusions and self-esteem

the art of touching another

with your hands last practiced

in February 2020, the year in between.

Time out. Have we been in punishment,

in solitary confinement, on death row,

are we now released? No.

not until we resolve our grief

not until we explore our grief

eat grief for snacks with our TV

(dancing with the stars)

we will never be COVID-free.

 

---- Kim Hussli, ne Kim Derleth, 78, former teacher, died of the novel 

coronavirus on August 29, 2020. Days after her funeral her daughters

Heidi (also a teacher) and Heather got the bug along with Heidi’s 

hubby. Heidi had trouble breathing, two weeks after her mother’s

death, "We knew we shouldn’t hug at the funeral," she said, but ...

Heidi (47) died too. Heather said goodbye on her tablet. 

The feed went dark. “In 19 days half my family …”  she said.

In Green Bay they hide cause of death, but Heidi and Kim became

known and were mourned by students and friends, not by internet

trolls who say that COVID does not exist. “The evil comments broke

my heart.” she said. “Why her and not me?” she said.

 

 

 

 

First Mourning

 

With this poem I begin to post a series of mourning poems and obituaries related to the coronavirus. It is unusual to post poems online because if they have appeared on the net they are considered published and will not be published again by most journals. These, however, are a set (30) and probably would not be right for most journals anyway. So I give them directly to you.

I believe in looking feelings in the eye not running away or pretending. If you're happy and you know it ... yes, but if you've just witnessed 2 million deaths, you must be sad, cry and mourn to stay human. You must or you'll never be well. This is not over and even when it is, it will not be over. 

First Mourning

 

I have deplored our focus on futilities

long and loud, pandemically

we need mourning, grief, sadness, thrashing

not getting lost in clouds

of false hope, sports and dope

and so I resolve –

if nobody will mourn the dead

I will

I will cry

I do

have to

will it take all year

the rest of my life

and all those that follow

are we still honoring the victims

of the black plague of 1346-1353?

all 1 or 2 hundred million 

that docked in the port of Messina 

and … pandemonium!

a thousand souls a day

then as now

I will lament

have to

here goes:

 

---- Wayne Oney loved animals

proud father grandfather

husband, dad

loved the beach, talked with everyone

as he was dying face down his daughter

nurse Lindsey Fairchild took pictures from

behind the glass since she wasn’t allowed

in the ICU (I see you!), taking a picture

sending it out to relatives

checking the monitors, is he?

that’s a real person, a good decent person, she thought

in there, this is real people, life or death here, people

then they turned off the machines.

Oney, 69, in good health

had a coughing fit

and never recovered.