Plague Poems – The Two-Hundred-and-Second Week

Everyone keeps saying
we are in a different place
yes, now we are in a different place
that thanks to vaccines
and boosters and some immunity
we are in a different place
yes, now we are in a different place
and yet
we are still in the pandemic.

*

I know
yes, I understand,
that you’re talking about
something else
when you talk about it
as harm reduction
but it is difficult
to listen to you opine
on harm reduction
when you can’t be bothered
to wear a mask.

*

Last week
was the third in a row
in which the plague
claimed more than 2,000 lives
and it was the nineteenth in a row
in which the plague
claimed more than 1,000 lives.
But who’s counting?
No, in all seriousness,
at this point who’s still counting?
And why isn’t it all of us?

*

When those
who have become desensitized
to mass death and
to mass suffering
respond to your fury and
respond to your sorrow
by accusing you, my friend,
of being too sensitive
you should take their accusation
and wear it with pride.

*

Editorial Note: This is a collection of Plague Poems written between January 20, 2024 and January 26, 2024.

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.

*

By now
you must have heard:
the emergency
has been over for months,
so it is nothing more
than a strange coincidence
that a hospital in Massachusetts
is describing its status as
a “capacity disaster”
an “unprecedented crisis,”
because the emergency is over
it’s over, it’s over.

*

Many things
differentiate a wave
in the pandemic’s fifth year
from a the waves of its first year
for now there are vaccines
and boosters and some immunity
but the biggest difference
is that in the first year
we could still believe
there would not be new waves
five years later.

*

According to a paper
recently published in Zoonoses
our cats and dogs
may be more susceptible
to human illnesses
than was previously thought
so if you can’t be bothered
to take precautions
in order to protect yourself
or other humans
please
at least do it for your pets.

*

They say not to worry
after all, most people
most people are fine
and in this we take comfort
for we always believe
that we are one
of the most people
until in horror we realize
that we are not.

*

Between covid
and RSV and influenza
and measles and
who knows what else
it seems clear
that pestilence rides
on more than one horse.

*

According to my brother-in-law
this virus
was cooked up in a lab
and nefariously released
upon the unsuspecting public
as part of a conspiracy
to depopulate the planet
but when i ask him
if he is doing anything
to protect himself from
this virus
he tells me it’s just the flu.

*

According to the CDC
only 21.5 percent of adults
have bothered getting
the updated vaccine
which just goes to show
that if you keep telling people
the pandemic is over
many of them will listen.

*

I do not expect it
to win an Academy Award
but by far
the best performance
of the last year
was the one put on
by all of the people
acting like the pandemic is over.

*

Flummoxed
the headline asked
“Why are so many Americans
still dying of COVID?”
and though this is certainly
a complicated question
it would seem
that the main answer is:
because the pandemic
has not ended.

*

In what is being hailed
as evidence
of “the resilience
of the postpandemic recovery”
the news reports
that during the fourth quarter
the US economy grew
at a 3.3. percent annual rate
which just goes to show
that abandoning you
to the virus
has been good for the economy.

*

Of late
when I hear people say
that the wheels are coming off
I can never quite tell
if they’re alluding
to some new problem
plaguing the airlines
or if they’re alluding
to everything.

*

I have seen an interview
in which a billionaire opines
on how, by century’s end,
their initiative aims
to cure all disease
which is exactly the sort
of ambitious thinking we need
to distract us
from the fact that we
are in the fifth year of a pandemic.

*

I keep seeing clips
of cheering crowds chanting
“four more years”
and as I look at the crowd
of cheering maskless faces
I can’t help but think
that this pandemic
is going to last for more years.

*

My coworker
insists that she is fine
yes, she’s sick
but not with the virus
she tells me she knows this
she tells me she’s certain
because she took a test
and this time
the extra line that appeared
was kind of faint.

*

When I am asked
(and I am often asked)
why I’m wearing a mask
I always want to respond
with something persuasive
and yet cleverly barbed
but most of the time
when I am asked
(and I am often asked)
I don’t reply with anything
because I’m tired
just so very tired
of being asked.

*

When my time runs out
I imagine I’ll regret
the hours I wasted
scrolling aimlessly online,
the days I frittered away
on meaningless tasks,
and all the moments lost
to my own indecision,
but the time I devoted
to trying to keep others safe
I shall always regard
as time well spent.

*

*

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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