Covids-21 through 37, by Robert Gore
Covids-21 through 37
Defiance is poetry.
Covidly I gaze into your eyes.
Once again I fantasize.
Would you, love, remove your mask?
Alas, a question I cannot ask.
They know what we say, do, think, and write.
It doesn’t stop when we turn out the light.
Six feet between us, masks must remain on,
Which presents a problem: how will we spawn?
The moonlit gazebo where I proposed,
No more fond visits, the park is closed.
The quaint little shop that made your gown,
By mayor’s order, forever shut down.
These many years we’ve kept apart.
When does it end? How did it start?
The love we said would ever inspire us
Held hostage to a coronavirus.
In our house we’re inmates now.
The crossword puzzles we vow:
We’ll not employ a thesaurus.
Truth be told, crosswords bore us.
Yet every day it’s down and across,
Confession that we’re at a loss
To fill the endless time and tedium.
Everything’s an unhappy medium.
Endure perpetual house arrest.
All the best people will attest:
There’s happiness in shelter-in-place,
Discover joy in your tiny space.
It matters not you can’t pay the rent,
Fresh from the printer, scrip is sent.
Madly they print, madly they borrow.
Why worry about posterity’s sorrow?
You liked your job? You liked your work?
Don’t you know such sentiments irk
Our potentates and their retinue,
Those who talk but cannot do?
You want independence, to pay your own way?
What a radical, dangerous thing to say.
We’re all in this together, that is why,
Universal basic income is nigh.
Media rot fills heads, hour after hour.
Risk exclusion if you question power.
From Youtube, Facebook and Twitter banned,
Online exile, virtual no-man’s land.
There’s offline whispers of an Eden,
A distant land known as Sweden.
Who set their own course in 2020.
Censured then, now they know plenty.
Once I had fond hopes and dreams.
My head’s now filled with silent screams,
Imaginary plots I have hatched.
Armed men from the state dispatched
To punish any noncompliance,
To sunder any rebel alliance.
In padded rooms go the rebellious,
Nanny’s nurses gently compel us.
Use the toilet, wipe your ass,
Or we’ll revoke your TV pass.
Open wide, eat your gruel.
Sit up straight, please don’t drool.
Lo! I have raged against our fate,
House arrest til 2038.
Our rulers care about you and me,
But not enough to set us free.
Cures have been rumored for many a year,
All of which spark their deepest fear.
The cures are cheap, so they await a vaccine,
From Pharma partners, the profits obscene.
Sunlight and fresh air build immunity
But you can’t go outdoors with impunity.
Exercise, play with kids, or labor,
You might get snitched on by a neighbor.
For safety’s sake, what they have wrought,
Protects public health, so we are taught.
If this is it, this sterile hive,
I’d rather not remain alive.
Copyright, Robert Gore, 2020
Feel free to distribute far and wide
To all those pondering Coronacide.
But if you share my contribution,
Please include a link and attribution.
Defiance is poetry.
Covidly I gaze into your eyes.
Once again I fantasize.
Would you, love, remove your mask?
Alas, a question I cannot ask.
They know what we say, do, think, and write.
It doesn’t stop when we turn out the light.
Six feet between us, masks must remain on,
Which presents a problem: how will we spawn?
The moonlit gazebo where I proposed,
No more fond visits, the park is closed.
The quaint little shop that made your gown,
By mayor’s order, forever shut down.
These many years we’ve kept apart.
When does it end? How did it start?
The love we said would ever inspire us
Held hostage to a coronavirus.
In our house we’re inmates now.
The crossword puzzles we vow:
We’ll not employ a thesaurus.
Truth be told, crosswords bore us.
Yet every day it’s down and across,
Confession that we’re at a loss
To fill the endless time and tedium.
Everything’s an unhappy medium.
Endure perpetual house arrest.
All the best people will attest:
There’s happiness in shelter-in-place,
Discover joy in your tiny space.
It matters not you can’t pay the rent,
Fresh from the printer, scrip is sent.
Madly they print, madly they borrow.
Why worry about posterity’s sorrow?
You liked your job? You liked your work?
Don’t you know such sentiments irk
Our potentates and their retinue,
Those who talk but cannot do?
You want independence, to pay your own way?
What a radical, dangerous thing to say.
We’re all in this together, that is why,
Universal basic income is nigh.
Media rot fills heads, hour after hour.
Risk exclusion if you question power.
From Youtube, Facebook and Twitter banned,
Online exile, virtual no-man’s land.
There’s offline whispers of an Eden,
A distant land known as Sweden.
Who set their own course in 2020.
Censured then, now they know plenty.
Once I had fond hopes and dreams.
My head’s now filled with silent screams,
Imaginary plots I have hatched.
Armed men from the state dispatched
To punish any noncompliance,
To sunder any rebel alliance.
In padded rooms go the rebellious,
Nanny’s nurses gently compel us.
Use the toilet, wipe your ass,
Or we’ll revoke your TV pass.
Open wide, eat your gruel.
Sit up straight, please don’t drool.
Lo! I have raged against our fate,
House arrest til 2038.
Our rulers care about you and me,
But not enough to set us free.
Cures have been rumored for many a year,
All of which spark their deepest fear.
The cures are cheap, so they await a vaccine,
From Pharma partners, the profits obscene.
Sunlight and fresh air build immunity
But you can’t go outdoors with impunity.
Exercise, play with kids, or labor,
You might get snitched on by a neighbor.
For safety’s sake, what they have wrought,
Protects public health, so we are taught.
If this is it, this sterile hive,
I’d rather not remain alive.
Copyright, Robert Gore, 2020
Feel free to distribute far and wide
To all those pondering Coronacide.
But if you share my contribution,
Please include a link and attribution.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
We were playing vintage Lego: Rock Band the other night and "Ruby" came up. My teenage daughter began improvising lyrics and they've stuck with us here: "Due to COVID-19... tomorrow is cancelled..."