THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

by Harold Oberman

“Radical Approaches to Social Distancing” by Carolita Johnson, The New Yorker, March 22, 2020

X.  April 10, 2020 16,690

Ars Poetica

I feel guilty for writing something beautiful.
I try to tone it down,
Replace the lilt with hard t’s,
Crash consonants like cars,
Try to remember what landscape is, or was
In this still life.
There are few active verbs
On this couch.  No
Sensible line breaks as I go insane
In isolation.
Hiss.
I swear if I ever get to a bar again
I won’t have a pen and I’m going
To touch my face, shake your hand
And share a shot.
Is there deep meaning in that?
Death to metaphors.
“Live your life as if you’re already dead”
Said Charles Wright, quoting Che Guevara
Or a Japanese coin.
As I was, I wish I could.

Harold Oberman is a poet and lawyer writing in Charleston, S.C.  The above is excerpted from a longer work which may, or may not, ever see the light of day.  He has appeared in TheNewVerse.News and The Free State Review.

SHELTERING

by Brooke Herter James

“Parakeet” by Kees van Dongen,ca. 1910, oil on canvas, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Still life  day 28
here in Vermont
a solitary junco
half black
half white
sitting on the branch
half white
half black
against a backdrop of pond
black—rimmed with white—
thank goodness for
the small red barn
in the lower right corner
of the scene

I imagine painting
over this canvas
apple blossoms
puffy clouds   a woman
in the foreground
faded yellow robe
leaning out her second
story window
to hang blue towels
and flowered sheets
on one end of a
never-vanishing cord
that travels from this hillside
to Milan   then Barcelona
Wuhan   Jerusalem   Sydney
Seattle  New Orleans  New York

An endless clothesline
adorned  with the fabric
of the world billowing
outwards   music spilling
from all those unshuttered
windows   wafts of coffee
baked bread   squeals of children
running down hallways
pinging marbles on bare floors
dogs barking
I imagine painting
parakeets in wooden cages
singing while we wait


Brooke Herter James is a poet and children’s book author living in Vermont.

AUSSIE SLANG ISO POEM

by Ryan Stone

Australians are inventing a slew of slang terms relating to the coronavirus pandemic, with hand sanitiser set to become known as sanny, self-isolation as iso, supermarket hoarders as magpies or seagulls, coronavirus as Rona.

Stuck in iso, ducking for cover
from this case of Rona doing
the rounds. Worse than the time
in ’89 when Mad Dog Murphy
won the footy grand final
and half the cheer squad came
down with the clap. Stewing
over dwindling bog roll supplies,
pondering what business a bat
had in a fish market from the start.

I wanna knock back a cold one, but beer
sold out one day before crap paper. So
I chucked a sickie, coz I was feeling
rooted, and sick of going apeshit
when me bludger mates ducked out for smoko,
only to find that the doc enforces
a deuce as soon as you cough.
At least I’m one of the lucky lads—
me missus is bonza,
and keeps the ankle-biters
in line. I’m sure this will pass,
as all things pass. Before long
she’ll be apples, mate.


Ryan Stone is an Aussie who has been practicing social distancing for decades.