Love In The Time Of Immunization
December 30, 2020
Today is my wedding anniversary. While I usually don't like to provide explanations for my random poetry (since you don't have to be at this site if you don't want to), I feel the need to point out that the quoted lines in the italicized sections are from the James' songs "English Beefcake" and "Extraordinary Times." Otherwise, this is the mess it is.
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The snow makes the roads mush
As I watch you drive off for an errand
Probably unnecessary on this the first day
Of a thirty-first year and the second-
-to-last day off a tortuous year.
Everything seems all wrapped up
In the thick liquid of a serum,
The drops of the dram,
That fortify us, delude us,
About the years ahead of us.
It's not that the thirtieth year
Didn't end in extraordinary ways,
The reminders of what the inspired
Are able to produce in their times
Of concern and creative constraints.
None of that seems to awaken me
As two weeks of mediocrity
Stay unposted and unseen
With this god-awful computer screen
Mocking me endlessly.
It's always what I can't write
That gets stuck between draft
And craft and public view.
How do I get to the head
Of the line for a booster?
Meanwhile in my head all I can hear,
"There's nothing to say, I get in the way."
Pounds away over and over.
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My goal, before you return with eggs and juice,
Is to complete this inoculation
That somehow can fuse an anniversary
With a year like this
And the challenges aging brings.
How have I done?
Are my words a desired balm
Or the failure of the cure
I always believe can come
From convoluted words?
The temperature rises, melting
More of the snow and ice,
A sound and safe return secured,
In some ways putting even more
Pressure on these forced words.
Thirty-one years might as well be ten,
Or one, when the unspoken courses
Through our veins, leaving gaps
That can be misunderstood even
As they are poorly filled in.
Time is catching up with me,
The store is not that far away,
And still I sit here unsatisfied
And unsure if I should even post
Unfinished and unpolished lines.
Because in my head, all I can hear is,
"It's true I've been noticing it's love makes us blind."
Pounding away at my inadequacies.
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