Corona Virus Poems

One Wish

If the Genie says

'you are not allowed to wish it away

that wish I cannot grant'

then I would say

'Then, this is my wish:

Let it pound us

and mash us

and butter us

into a slower

more meaningful

and more contemplative

way of life.

Let its

harmfulness

make us

less harmful to our world

Let it

Rehumanize us."

This Time

We need to do

THIS TIME

what we should have done

LAST TIME

and the time before that

and the time before that

and the time before that

and the time before that

and the time

and the time

and the time

and the time

and the time

before that

when we first noticed

what needed to be done

There were fewer of us then

and we could have simply said

'King, why do you hoard?

why do you paint your palace gold

instead of sharing?

Don't you know that people

YOUR people

need what you hoard

and would love and honor and respect you

and follow you to the gates of Hell

if you would but share it?

Don't you know that this very day

in YOUR kingdom

a father sold his eldest daughter to the slave traders

in order to feed his younglings?

Is the gold you slap on your columns

more important than that?

What kind of king are you,

who is less in spirit than the common beggar

who shares some of his scraps with a cat?'

We knew then

that the thing to do

was to send the king off

and all who stood by him

with five days' rations

and said

'Let's be done with kings, now and forever.

Without them, we have more than enough

and can look after each other

and see that none of us go without.

Surely, our children, and our descendants

a thousand years hence

will be grateful for what we have done today.'

Though the task has become greater and more complicated

by orders of magnitude

it is still the same task

and it still needs to be done

THIS TIME


Cleanse Thoroughly

It's not enough to wash our hands
we need to wash our minds as well
mine has a virus of jealousy
What's yours?

We need to wash our ears
I was deaf to another's pain
pain that I caused
time to clean
and hear better next time

We need to wash this world
we have dirtied it
smudged it with coarseness
cruelty and conceit
painted it brown with
uncaringness

Wash this world
wash this world
The virus
is in our way of life
which we have twisted into
a way of death
and through that corridor
it sauntered in