Plague Poems – The Hundred-and-Fifty-Seventh Week

My apologies
I am not trying to be pedantic
but it is dangerous
to confuse
having survived
three years of
the pandemic
with having survived
the pandemic.

In case you have forgotten
let this event
be another reminder to you
that if you really want
your government to help you
in a time of crisis
all you need to do
is be a bank.

My boss
keeps insisting
that the pandemic
has ended
so there must be
some other reason
that explains why
the boss
keeps canceling
his concert dates.

I have not yet forgotten
where I was
when they officially declared it
to be a pandemic
but that was long ago
much has changed since then,
now I sit in a different chair
in a different apartment,
doing a different job,
everything is different,
but it’s still the same pandemic.

Editorial Note: This is a collection of Plague Poems written between March 11, 2023 and March 17, 2023.

They were initially posted online on Twitter at @plaguepoems, on Mastodon at @plaguepoems@mastodon.social, and on Instagram at @plague_poems

As of March 16, 2023 the Plague Poems have been written for three years–this week marks the beginning of the fourth year of Plague Poems. I hope with all of my being that I will not be writing an updated version of the previous sentence a year from now.

Throughout the duration of this crisis new poems will be posted regularly at the above mentioned accounts, they will then be collected and reposted here as weekly compendiums.

My friend, who teaches math
told me a joke
in honor of March 14th
she asked:

“What do the pandemic
and pi
have in common?”

and when I told her
that I did not know, she said

“Both of them go on forever.”

and we both agreed
that her joke
was not particularly funny.

I saw a headline
which confidently declared
“Normal people
Say ‘No Másk’”
which is another reminder
that in this society
to care about others
is to be deemed
abnormal.

Considering that
our current strategy
is essentially one of
“if you don’t test
you don’t have any cases
if we stop testing right now
we’d have very few cases if any”
it seems that the problem
was not that idea itself
but that a politician
was once foolish enough to say it.

It is not
that too many are living
like it is still March 2020
(back when we thought
that if we worked together
we could defeat the virus)
but that too many are living
like it is still March 2019
(back when we thought
no virus could ever defeat us).

For years I’ve played games
in which my characters
encounter adversity and horror
but emerge
more powerful, carrying treasure,
and clad in wondrous equipment,
alas the adversity and horror
of the pandemic has left me
exhausted, financially strained,
and with only a mask for armor.

In this maskless era
the well-known phrase
“an infectious smile”
has taken on
a disturbingly literal quality.

Wherever I go
and whatever I watch
I cannot escape from
the advertisements
for online casinos
and sports betting
it is almost as if
the constant invitation
to gamble away my money
is meant to distract me
from knowing
that every time I enter a store
I am gambling with my health.

Though I miss much
from how my life was
before the pandemic
what I miss every day
what I miss in every moment
what I miss more than anything
is the person
who I used to be
before the pandemic.

On March 16, 2020
they told us
we had 15 days
15 days to slow the spread
and so they asked
that if we were sick
or if we had been exposed
that we not go to work
that we stay home
to help slow the spread
but that was long ago
that was before we gave up
that was so very long ago.

The question is not
if someday the history
of this plague will be written
for of that there is little doubt
no, the question is
after the history
of this plague is written
will anyone bother to read it.

In their haste
to convince themselves
that the pandemic
is no longer happening
many have convinced themselves
that the pandemic
never happened at all.

They say that a pandemic
is a marathon
and not a sprint
but I can no longer run
or jog for that matter
even speed-walking exhausts me
the best I can muster
is to put one foot
in front of the other
I know it’s a marathon
but at this rate
I fear I’ll never see the finish line.

During the pandemic
I know that you
have lost time
and have lost health
have lost family members
and have lost friends
have lost opportunities
and have lost hope
but surely you realize
that the greatest tragedy
is that the economy
lost so much productivity.

For a price
you can purchase many programs
that will allow you to edit
the unwanted details out
of your photographs,
but it is far easier
to edit the presence
of the mask wearing strangers
out of your pictures
than it is to remove
the memory of the pandemic
from your bones.

Though the sight
of a masked face
is not nearly as rare
as a four leaf clover
at this point it feels
like good luck
to see someone else
who hasn’t given up.

Once, while sifting through
old documents
about some past calamity
I came across a letter
in which a man urged his friends
not to give up
a letter he signed
“yours in defiance of defeatism”
and so here I still stand
beside you in this pandemic
yours in defiance of defeatism.

Plague Poems…the following week

Plague Poems…the first week

Plague Poems…the full list

About Z.M.L

“I do not believe that things will turn out well, but the idea that they might is of decisive importance.” – Max Horkheimer librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com @libshipwreck

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