PREAMBLE TO DEATH

by Monica Korde

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, ARE DYING.

Here with only hours to spare, air 

leaving the lungs, families rush 

from hospital to hospital 

begging for a breath, for a bed 

while opulent hotel rooms 

offer a hundred covid beds 

for members of justice.

Here votes matter, deaths don’t. 

Politicians ride chariots, strut 

through reckless rallies and 

use words liberally:

“Nothing to panic. It’s all imaginary.”

“No need for masks, why worry?”

“After all, everyone has to die eventually”.

Here the gravedigger works 24-hour shifts, 

his gloves left behind to 

avoid the spade from slipping. 

It is Ramzan but he must have water before 

he goes on- turning the earth, getting the body

removing it from the makeshift ambulance 

burying it faster than he can count. 

The priest works equally—

he prays for a hundred pyres, stokes the fires, and 

this pandemic pandit of sorts walks round-the-clock 

through this burning mess

roll calling names as the flames get warm enough. 

Here the departed lie outside 

community-built crematoriums. 

No marigold, no silk, no sandalwood 

to adorn the tired bodies. 

Carefully wrapped in outrage, in anguish

they find kinship and unity

these souls on stand-by

waiting for an undignified exit. 

 

ENDLESSLY EMERGING IN BODY BAGS ON GURNEYS—ONE, TWO, THREE DEATHS PER MINUTE, OVER FOUR THOUSAND IN 24 HOURS—ON THIS DAY OF MAY 2021, WE MOURN IN THE MAKING OF THIS REPUBLIC AND QUESTION HEREBY HOW TO ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION. 

Monica Korde, is a poet from India, currently living in Belmont, California. Along with writing poems, she reads at several virtual poetry readings hosted in the Bay area and regularly co-hosts an online poetry open mic. Her poetry has appeared online on the website of San Francisco Public Library, on YouTube published by local poetry open mics, and in anthologies. 

 

MY NAME IS AMERICA AND I'M GOING TO GET YOU VACCINATED

by Diane Elayne Dees

She said it without irony, then asked 
for my name and date of birth. 
She then directed me to the room
where I would wait for my turn 
to get the long-awaited needle stick
in my arm. As I sat, visions 

of pleasant young hospital staff 

members throughout the country
floated through my troubled mind:

My name is America,
and I’m going to get you infected with Covid.
My name is America,
and I’m going to turn my eyes 
when business owners 
and government leaders 
ignore rules that could save your life.
My name is America,
and I’m sick to death of quarantine.
My name is America,
and I can’t even get you a Covid test.
My name is America, 
and I’m looking out for illness
in the stock market.
My name is America,
and I’m going to wear my mask 

under my nose.

It took only a breath of a moment,
the life-saving prick of the needle;
I didn’t feel anything at all. 
In three weeks, I’ll return and do it again.
Maybe America will guide me
through the final stage of protection.
Maybe America will remember me, 
my face half-covered by a mask, 
but my eyes filled with grief and fear.

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbook, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women's professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

PRIORITIES OF A TYRANT WANNABE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

unfinished notes from the Philippines 

by Leo Cosmiano Baltar

wordplay (or what to name incompetence)

a. lockdown

b. community quarantine 

c. enhanced community quarantine 

d. modified enhanced community quarantine 

e. general community quarantine 

f. modified general community quarantine

travel ban (except China) 

 ̶f̶a̶c̶e̶ masking his political intentions 

police and military over medical frontliners

Bayanihan to Heal as One Act 

(or more special powers that will be abused) 

mass t̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ arresting 

COVID-19 public address past 1 am 

(or late night tantrums on televisions 

with unlimited cursing) 

social [class] distancing 

money money money 

(or public funds that did not materialize 

& other trillions of debt)

mañanita fiasco: a party gathering 

involving a police chief and his 

cops even when it is not allowed 

but they will not be arrested 

according to the president

jeepney phase out under the 

guise of modernization

[not] listening to doctors & experts

taxing online sellers

more cops to shoot the virus

 ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ tracing the communists 

(or red-tagging advocates & activists) 

media  c r a  c k d o  w n 

exhibit a: ABS-CBN network 

exhibit b: Rappler 

exhibit c: alternative media

anti-terror law (or daily martial law) 

House Bill 4953, declaring the balangay 

as the national boat of the Philippines

̶f̶l̶a̶t̶t̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶v̶e̶  & other delusions

changing an airport's name 

bullying effective local leaders

quarantining basic civil and human rights 

& other fascist dreams

Leo Cosmiano Baltar is a Filipino writer, a poet, and an activist. He is currently taking his bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of the Philippines Diliman. When he is not writing, he is thinking of what to write next.