Plague Poems – The Hundred-and-Ninety-Fifth Week

A mantra
for the beginning
of yet another
year of the pandemic:

I have already
survived
several years
of the pandemic
so surely I can survive
at least one more.

(And if you make it through
this pandemic year
you can repeat this
at the beginning
of the pandemic’s next year).

*

What sets the start
of the pandemic’s
fifth year
apart from the beginning
of the pandemic’s
second, third, and fourth years
is that at this point
none of us really believe
that this year
will be the pandemic’s last.

*

I know that they say
the public health emergency
is now over
but on the news I heard them say
“We now have evidence
that COVID
decreases our immune response,
making us susceptible to infections”
which certainly makes it seem
like our emergency
is only just beginning.

*

When they ask you
(and they will ask you)
what it is that you accomplished
in the course of this year
keep in mind that you
survived the fourth year
of the pandemic
and that
is accomplishment enough.

*

Editorial Note: This is a collection of Plague Poems written between December 2, 2023 and December 8, 2023.

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

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.

*

How inappropriate it feels
to talk about having survived
four years of plague
while bearing witness
to all the lives destroyed
in two months of catastrophe.

*

When I ask the professor
how the last week
of her semester is going
she responds
that she can’t get a word in
and when I say
that must mean the discussions
are very lively, she explains
what she means is
that she can’t get a word in
because her students
can’t stop coughing.

*

I have heard it said
that all along
the experts always predicted
that eventually
COVID would be just another
of our annual winter diseases,
yes, just an annual winter disease
which everyone you know
manages to catch
in the spring, summer, and fall.

*

The apocalypse
is too simplistic
the plague
the catastrophe
the crisis
none of these will be
the end of humanity
though I fear
that they are showing
we have already lost
our humanity.

*

Here at the start
of the pandemic’s fifth year
I am too disillusioned
to be able to hope
that this year
will be the pandemic’s last
so instead I tell myself
perhaps the sixth year
will be the last
and I fear a year from now
I’ll say perhaps the seventh year
will be its last.

*

It used to be
that at department meetings
I wasn’t the only person
wearing a mask
I had a colleague
who wore one as well
we’d nod at each other
from across the room
an acknowledgment
that at least we two
were in it together
but now her mask is gone
and she looks right past me.

*

Dear stranger
thank you for your feedback
but please understand
I am fully aware
that many of these poems
are frankly not very good
however my goal is not
to craft impeccable verse
but to document the plague
I know, yes I know,
the poems are bad
but the plague is much worse.

*

I asked my friend
the professor for her opinion
regarding the harms caused
to students
by laptops in the classroom
and she replied
that she is more worried
about the harms caused
to students
by being repeatedly infected
with the virus.

*

When they tell you
(and they will tell you)
that this plague
is just a cold
what it is that they
are really telling you
is that it’s a cold heart
that beats in their chest.

*

At the meeting
my supervisor announced
that due to construction
the fire alarms
are not operational
“pay attention” he says
“if there’s an emergency
you won’t be alerted”
and though he was talking
about the building
he could just as easily
have been describing our era.

*

My aunt, the doctor,
told me a new joke:

How can you tell
that it’s getting
really bad out there?

I said I did not know,
so she answered:

Because now even
the director of the CDC
is recommending masks.

And neither of us laughed.

*

It is said
that when the books
on this era are written
that history
will not be kind to us
but no matter how damning
history’s judgement will be
it will be as nothing compared
to the actual unkindness
of this wretched era.

*

I read a headline
in the newspaper of record
which declared
“Two N95 Companies
Shut Down,
as an Era Ends”
but I fear that the era
which has concluded
is not the plague era
but simply the era
in which that old canard
“avoid it like the plague”
still meant something.

*

I asked my friend
the professor
if she was planning anything
for the last day of the semester
and she replied
that she was planning
on not catching the virus.

*

There are no words
none that are sufficient
we draw on terms like
calamity or tragedy
catastrophe or collapse
none are sufficient
all the words fail us
but this only happens
after we have failed each other.

*

The difference between
year one of the pandemic
and year five of the pandemic
is that at the start of year one
if the CDC posted a map
showing that cases
were “growing” or “likely growing”
(wherever there was enough data)
most would not have claimed
that the pandemic was over.

*

I will admit
it was a long time ago
quite a long time ago
that I lost my faith
in humanity
but my friend
I have not lost my faith
in you.

*

*

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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