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Showing posts with label wait. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wait. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2020

OLD GUY AWAITS VACCINE

by Earl J. Wilcox


 "Time waits for no man,” watercolor by SuayaArt.


So far I have outlived whooping cough, measles, mumps, shingles,
strokes, dementia, the Apocalypse, the Rapture, three years eleven
months of the T***P madness, perhaps one Kardashian, zombie
uprisings, my dear mate of six decades, three siblings, one child, eviction,
twenty-four Marvel Universe movies, hundreds of episodes of Friends
and Big Bang Theory, dear Alex Trebek, bankruptcy, cancer, plus
millions of maladies and diseases about which I am totally ignorant.
If I live another few days or weeks, perhaps the vaccine will find me
and my generation still optimistic we can add Covid-19 to the lists
of days and hours of this world we miss.


Earl Wilcox in his late 80s awaits the vaccine in South Carolina.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

HARBINGER

by Joanne DeSimone Reynolds




We breathe to wake and,
Lying-in-wait, imagine... 
 
The ground
Buckling off the east coast of
 
The nation,
Enacting the rough ride we just faced, still
 
Face, out of the gate. Look
To January—cold, and colder still ahead here,
 
Yet offering a look
Forward—face it, like an ancient god
 
—The sudden down-home decency
Of purple-tipped crocuses, the wrinkled
 
Unfurling we long to call
Hope in the airborne scent of witch-hazel.
 
 
Joanne DeSimone Reynolds is the author of a chapbook, Comes A Blossom, published by Main Street Rag in 2014. Her latest work is a set of 14 poems exhibited as part of The Art Ramble 2020, an outdoor public art installation in Concord, Massachusetts, sponsored by The Umbrella Arts Center in collaboration with the Concord Natural Resources Division.

Wednesday, November 04, 2020

NOVEMBER 3RD

by Austin Davis




America is tired. 


We’re a colony of ants

who’ve stopped in a pothole


on this long road ahead

to eat the bread crumbs off our backs.


Tonight I hope for hope.


I don’t know what the next

morning will bring


but if we wake up to a sky full of clouds,


I hope we’ll still remember

that this sun of ours isn’t going anywhere


and neither are we. 



Austin Davis is a poet and student activist currently studying creative writing at ASU and leading a homeless outreach program in Phoenix. Austin is the author of The World Isn’t the Size of Our Neighborhood Anymore (Weasel Press, 2020) and Celestial Night Light (Ghost City Press, 2020).

Friday, October 23, 2020

TODAY

by Earl J. Wilcox




Today when I awoke it was very dark outside.
Today when I got up at 5:30 AM, it was cold.
Today I fumble putting in my hearing aids.
Today my glasses help little with macular degenration.
Today my bladder wants to empty before I arise.
Today I struggle to put on my pants, my shoes.
Today the cats wait patiently to be fed, petted.
Today I see dimly the coffee pot, the faucet.
Today I munch a protein bar, put on a mask.
Today I find my walking stick, unlock the door.
Today I stumble out the door, my knees resist walking.
Today it is still dark as I move toward the street light.
Today I shudder, cough and sneeze, wait for a ride.
Today I hear kids and cars and school buses pass by.
Today a friend stops for me. I hobble to his car.
Today I find his car is warm, his voice hopeful.
Today we ride to a community center across town.
Today I can barely hear or see the place we seek.
Today I wobble down the pavement, smile, anxious.
Today a friendly voice asks if I am “doin’ OK?”.
Today I walk inside a warm hall, hear low, calm chatter.
Today I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.
Today I wonder if the line will open a slot for me.
Today I arise, my cane is calmer than I am.
Today I hand my photo ID to someone at a table.
Today I am helped to a small machine I barely see.
Today a friendly voice asks if I can see the screen.
Today I barely read, barely hear, barely stand.
Today I feel a rush of joy and peace.
Today my friend puts a small sticker on my sweater.
Today and tomorrow the sticker says I VOTED.
 



This week at age 87 Earl Wilcox voted.

Thursday, August 27, 2020

THE LONG PAUSE

by Mickey J. Corrigan


Illustration: Craig Stephens, The South China Morning Post, August 16, 2020


The night descended
an oiled slickness
thick black sludge
and it stayed on
not draining itself
into the blue day

we didn't know why
we had to wait
wait, fight, wait
we were all boxed up
and boxed in
alone
together
piled up in stacks

and in the silence
that lasted for years
we all had to shut
ourselves down
breathe through holes
sometimes killing
choking someone
for their air
for their silence
the cruel darkness
like a hard migraine
full of daggering jolts
of lost sunshine
so much existential pain
we stuck to shadows
'til all light was gone
and nothing
beautiful
left
to see

for ourselves
the energy it took
to shepherd ourselves
and everyone else
to come close
to conspire
to fling ourselves
out of the dark nest
the safety boxes
we had been placed in
like blind chicks
we didn't know why
we knew
we had to decamp
breaths held
the countdown:

November 1
November 2
November 3…

and we decanted
a vast gushing
pushing us all out
every single one of us
free flowing
from a fogged dream
of lonely sleepwalkers
unable to see the depth
skating on the surface
like insects, pond skippers
but now we dove deep
into our inventory of loss
the trappings of despotism
saying no, no
no more

and we were cresting
in violent surges
flooding our grief
hammered out
the cheap walls
the stockade of lies
the prison of secrets
the years of self-harm
bursting seams
breaking up
shattering, scattering
into the brightness
the blue sky world
we had always known
as American
life.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self.

Saturday, June 06, 2020

THE DOOR

by Katherine West




"But it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station—including the majority of men and women in law enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way, every day—to work together to create a ‘new normal’ in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts.”  —Barack Obama, May 29, 2020


There is a door—
someone has left it open
just a little bit
so a band of light
runs along the floor
to where we stand in the dark
touches the feet
of the first in line

I can tell this makes them happy
even though their backs are to me
something about the relaxed
line of their shoulders
the ease of the way they turn their heads
this way
then that
confident
it won't be long now

The band of light
doesn't touch my feet—
I'm about halfway down the line
even if I stood on tiptoe
or craned my neck to one side
I couldn't get a good view
through the door

So I look at the line—
it starts out white with reflected light
then gets darker and darker
the further away it reaches
down the dim hall where we wait—
the first in line are clear cut
their collars
their buttons
outlined in light
but the ones behind me blur
into a single
black
unmoving
cloud

I wait for someone to step out of this cloud
to show me details
beautiful details
of finger and face
soft lips
the curve of forehead
I wait for the music
of speech
laughter
for an empty space
inside me
to fill

Then I feel it
a weight
in the space that is not empty
a weight that shifts
like a child
impatient to be born—
then it kicks
something bursts
and I see
hundreds of eyes meeting mine—
candles, stars, constellations...
we all move at the same time and the line
is broken


Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness, performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov, and teaches seasonal poetry workshops that revolve around "wilderness writing."  She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and TheNewVerse.News  which recently nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize.

Wednesday, June 03, 2020

THRENODY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley


Detail of the Cover of I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi.


In America now
We can watch real murders
On TV
Then wait for officials to decide
Whether officers
Were justified
In killing the black man
As he lay handcuffed and helpless
Face down on the pavement.
In America now
We can listen to news reports
About whether there might be evidence
That the unarmed black jogger
Behaved in a way
That was threatening in some fashion
To the heavily armed
Father and son
Who jumped out of their pickup truck
And gunned him down.

In America now
We can watch videos
In which white people call the cops
On black children mowing lawns
In the wrong neighborhoods,
On black professionals
Who “seem suspicious”
Entering the lobbies
Of the condominiums where they live,
On black walkers who remind them
To leash their dogs.

In COVID America now
Black people are dying of the virus
At three times the rate
Of whites,
Black people are incarcerated
At six times the rate of whites
Black people are unemployed
At twice the rate of whites.

“I can’t breathe!” cried Eric Garner
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cried George Floyd
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black children
From broken and polluted neighborhoods,
From decaying and crumbling schools.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black parents
From hospital emergency rooms
Holding sons and daughters
In their laps
Who are dangerously ill
Because mom and dad could not afford
Early and dequate health care.
“I can’t breathe!” cry young black couples
Unable to rent or buy homes
And begin family life
In neighborhoods
Where the unspoken understanding
Is “whites only.”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe . . .”


Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

Thursday, May 21, 2020

UNMASKING PROCEDURES

by Randy Brown

with language borrowed and adapted from the U.S. Army “Soldier’s Manual of Common Tasks” (Skill Level 2)


In this DOD photo from 2012, “Bushmaster” soldiers receive refresher training on the proper wear of the field protective mask and the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology protective garment, and gain confidence in their equipment by unmasking in a gas chamber at Fort Stewart, GA. Photo by Sgt. Mary Katzenberger


“Some reopening states are already claiming victory over the coronavirus. 
But the real consequences won’t be clear for weeks.” 
The Atlantic, May 15, 2020


Note: Before conducting unmasking procedures,
make every effort to otherwise confirm
the absence of contamination.

Note: The senior person present selects one or two
soldiers to unmask.

Note: It is best to disarm the people selected
prior to ordering them to unmask.

1.
Conduct unmasking procedures in the shade.

2.
Direct selected individuals to each take a deep breath,
to break the seals of their masks (keeping their eyes open)
for 15 seconds, and to then again seal and clear their masks.

3.
Observe for 10 minutes.

4.
If no symptoms appear, direct the individuals
to unmask for 5 minutes
and to then again don, seal, and clear their masks.

5.
Observe for 10 minutes.

6.
If no symptoms appear, direct everyone to unmask.

7.
“All-clear.” Go back to work. “Re-open the economy.”
Shake hands. Get a haircut. Kiss.

8.
Observe for delayed symptoms.

Note: You might have to wait a couple of weeks
just to be sure.


Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with one overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the 2015 poetry collection Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire. He also co-edited the 2019 anthology Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about war poetrycivil-military discourse, and military-themed writing.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

TASHONNA

by Nadia Farjami




black. healthcare. matters.

she died from
their silence, from

sealed lips and silicone gloves that
pushed

her aside—her
pulse would have kept pushing,

but they put her
on pause.


Nadia Farjami is a poet from California. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, Cathexis Northwest Press, High Shelf Press, The Esthetic Apostle,  Prometheus Dreaming, Polyphony LIT, Youth Poet Laureate, Body Without Organs Literary Journal, Marmalade Magazine, Cagibi Literary Journal, The Athena Review, & more.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

ON RED

by David Chorlton



Relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq have claimed a partial victory after Sir John Chilcot announced he would finally set a timetable for his report on the six-year inquiry into the war. The retired civil servant’s announcement came just days before the expiry of a deadline set by grieving families of some of the 179 British soldiers killed in action, after which they had threatened to take legal action if he refused to set a release date. It is more than a month after Chilcot finally confirmed the end of a lengthy right-of-reply process for those criticised in the report, known as Maxwellisation, which had been seen as the final obstacle to its publication. —The Guardian, October 15, 2015



A misty arc of rainlight spans the sky
between the darkest
and the brighter clouds
whose shifting moods drift over
a city whose lost dogs run
in circles and whose doves flock back
together when a shower ends.
There’s a man by every traffic light

with a sign that says he’s had bad luck, please help,
and a world of music
inside every car that stops beside him
to drown the misery out
interrupted by a bulletin
of news announcing a delay
in peace negotiations, suspended
talks on reducing pollution,
and the latest postponement

of the report’s release
that tells who lied about invading
Iraq, while there isn’t enough
patience to go around, not even
here, where a pedestrian pushes a button
four times to ask to cross the road

and the mechanical voice repeats
wait, wait, wait, wait . . .
so he pushes again
wait, wait . . .


David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book, A Field Guide to Fire, is his contribution to the 2015 Fires of Change exhibition shown in Flagstaff and Tucson in Arizona.