#covid-19 Poetry

[rainbowpopeworld]

[wastedwinter]

Nick Laird, from “Up Late”   (Granta Issue 154)

[bulllinachinashop]

Why do the years 2020 and 2019 seem so long ago? Whenever someone mentions “yeah 2019 I did-“ oh you mean during the depression? the invisible plague that wreaked havoc across the globe? do you still feel 17? 12? 18? 26? Your older know, not just physically, mentally you’ve aged fifty years. 2019 wasn��t five years ago, it was a lifetime ago, it was another world ago, another you. I mourn each time you mention it.

[forthegothicheroine]

Passed Over

It didn't happen like this, that's what I always say.  When people say, these are the scientific reasons for the frogs, the blood, the hail-  Enough belief to be debunked while still clinging to the story.  No. The water did not turn to blood, for reasons of science or faith A story may have happened But not like this

Nevertheless

Death sweeps through the night Claiming the oldest first The first born, old enough to guide their children But not against this.

Some live. They've heard this before. Pestilence, that's a plague they know. But not like this.

Some live, and they are given reprieve Three days off of work, no more These workers are essential And in three days they must return

Pharaoh sees the streets are empty On the fourth day The lazy workers have fled for safer ground Or hide inside houses marked with blood Hoping these things will spare us From the tenth plague

Hoping on this night, unlike all other nights It will not be like this

On Archive of Our Own

[starcrossedandstupid]

Rough night. Feels like Covid again, but a little different. So different, exactly the same. I’m not sure if I’ll add more to it, but it felt ready enough to post.

[ammusingblog]

Covid was just a shitty attempt at population control.

[disasterhimbo]

there's laundry to do and a genocide to stop

By Vinay Krishnan

there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop. I have to eat better and also avoid a plague. my rent went up $150. I’ll need to pick up more shifts. Twenty people died in Rafah this morning and every major news outlet is stretching the limits of passive voice to suggest whole families may have leaped up through the air at missiles that otherwise had the right of way. I just got a notification that my student loan payments are starting up again and my phone isn’t charged. My cousin got COVID for a fourth time and can no longer work or walk or even feed himself. The person across from me on the L train seems to fashion themself a punk rock revolutionary, but they’re not wearing a face mask, and that’s the kind of cognitive dissonance that makes me want to steal batteries. Fascists keep winning primaries for both parties, and I think I gained a few pounds. The CDC just announced there are no more speed limits on highways, and I think this Ativan is finally hitting. The NYPD farmer’s market only sells bad apples, have you heard that one? Listen it’s warm today, too warm for March. But I don’t have time to think through the implications because there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop.

Source: https://x.com/vinayrkrishnan/status/1765428498573771235

[wiserebeltiger]

The tea pot clatters, seems on high

It hardly hurts my ears. I sigh.

[queeraroace]

covid will be the lead paint of our generation

I sit in the library

watching every unmasked kid

and every unmasked parent

breathe in unclean air

I know the statistics

I know the death rate

I know about the consequences of long covid,

and brain fog,

and this vascular illness

I assume they don't

Because if they do

it makes things

so

so

much worse

When these kids grow up,

twice as likely to get diabetes,

more likely to get sick more often,

with heart problems,

with gastrointestinal complications,

if they grow up at all,

will they look at their parents and say:

"Why didn't you protect me?"

And I have to guess they will say they didn't know

I don't know if we will have the records of every time they scrolled past an article informing them of the risks

whether it was because their own symptoms made it hard to concentrate on a block of text that long

to decipher abstract numbers and convert them to people they know

people they love

people they've already lost

Maybe the article was never written - because five years into a pandemic

statistics aren't as attention grabbing as they used to be

Maybe it never made it to that parent's feed

Because all their friends were busy posting pictures of concerts

eating out at restaurants

and getting things "back to normal"

Maybe, even if that parent saw that headline and understood it,

they didn't want to feel bad about themselves

They think "I am a good person,

so I can't be doing something wrong.

I wouldn't hurt my kids.

I wouldn't purposefully endanger my kid.

So,

this must be fine."

And I'm no better

Every Thursday, I meet the same group of teenagers

for a library program

And I don't tell them why I think it should be mask mandatory

I don't tell them the reason why all our employees are sick all the time

And in return,

they don't ask why I'm the last one masking

I stay quiet about the plague

because talking about such things is

"too political"

and could cost me my job

In ten years

twenty years

if I see those kids again

and the adult versions of them ask me

"Why didn't you do anything?"

Maybe I will have talked myself into an answer

that parents are convincing themselves of now.

[heiserosandhesapollo]

"Untitled (11-6-23)" (2023)

transcription in alt text

[skinnerhousebooks]

2020 was a year unlike any other. A year of masks and marches. A tale of two pandemics, COVID-19 and the deep-rooted pandemic of white supremacy and structural racism. Shelter in This Place, the 2021 volume of the inSpirit Series, is an anthology of poems, prayers, and reflections from Unitarian Universalists about their experiences of 2020—offered as a testament to our collective grit and grief, rage and resistance, love and loneliness. With readings that come from a variety of perspectives, identities, and geographies, Shelter in This Place captures the complex reality of 2020. And yet despite the grief and loss collected in these pages, the writers describe resilience and joy too. As we come to another anniversary of March 2020, may this book contain words that heal, comfort, and inspire you in the days ahead.

Shelter in This Place is available to order at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop at shopinspirit.org.

[loresanhedonia]

Rampant 16 candles in isolation, 

Fire fades onto the empty space. 

I watch my father as he scraps for change,

My mother cries in rage. 

We want out, we want freedom 

We’re prisoners of our own space, 

Unwillingly caged. 

The urge to run, away from your gun

I’d get out of this city

If the microbes weren’t to harm. 

My youth is to fade, 

My body to wrinkle. 

I pray for your demise,

Ending your expansion. 

[irisbleufic]

I’d be in the hospital right now if not got being fully vaxxed and on Paxlovid, I’m pretty sure. There’s a poem in The Sting of It called “DNR” where I juxtaposed the fucking terrifying experience of having H1N1 (swine flu) in London in early 2011 with reading a letter one of my great-grandmothers wrote home from the hospital where she was treated for (and died from) tuberculosis. Signing my mom’s DNR order is mixed up in there, too; eerie now that she’s finally gone. All I can think of his how it felt to have H1N1 for 6 fucking weeks without benefit of a vaccine or any medication more useful than Lemsip, wondering how much worse than that my current situation would be without treatment. My fever was so high for a week of it that I was delirious; I remember repeating “I think I’m dying” pretty often during that week. Aside from the colon cancer wringer of 2.5-3 years ago, swine flu was the sickest I’d ever been. The sheer awareness that my current COVID situation could be so much worse is just…I don’t know, bad flashbacks. They’re keeping me awake to the point I didn’t sleep till 4am last night. I’m afraid to fall asleep. I keep thinking about that poem, how the ghosts I captured in it haunt me even after the attempted exorcism of writing.

(The closer I’ve gotten to death in my four decades of life, the more I fight to live. 2012-me is floored by how much more was to come, how much more fight I have left.)

[waiting-on-mars]

there's laundry to do and a genocide to stop.

by Vinay Krishnan

(Alt text available)

[scardecourcier]

#CovidPoetry

One fucking trip to the emergency vet Was avoiding going outside but I'd do it for my pet One December outing turned a whole life around You'll be fine, just a virus, just rest up and you'll be sound.

"You look so well though" but I can't climb stairs Been in pain my whole life but this tips past what I can bear Male doctors give me sideeye like I'm tryna misbehave Body flaring in reactions, can't eat anything I crave.

I think I had a brain once, can't remember where I put it Had confidence before but these experiences have shook it I'm not sure if I can meet you, not sure how long I can stay Dunno what energy I'll bring until it all gets snatched away

But we're four years beyond it, so it's over now, right? Tubes are rammed, buses jampacked, bars are full up every night Yes I'd love to come and see you, love to party, now you ask, But I still can't go outside cuz you won't WEAR A FUCKING MASK.

[poetryandfootnotes]

Covid in Australia 2020

The virus has spread,

It has invaded our shores.

‘Girt by sea’

Doesn’t protect us anymore.

Before it was a distant problem,

Wuhan stats on a page.

Something to interrupt our travel plans,

Noise on the world stage.

We held our breath that it would spare us,

but it is no longer a stranger.

It is spreading through our nation,

Our elderly most in danger.

We are learning to socially distance,

We are trying to stay at home.

Washing our hands diligently,

Keeping connected on the phone.

We are receiving mixed messages,

Schools are open - but please don’t go!

The pandemic becomes secondary to economics,

Countries scared their money won’t grow.

They attempt to balance the fear and the panic,

But they all fall into the same trap.

We are too slow to make changes,

sadly there will be no going back.

There will be countless lives lost,

There will be behavioural change,

Peoples mental health with suffer,

All on the world stage

The virus doesn’t discriminate

Everybody is in danger

Religion, race or gender

Is irrelevant to this new stranger.