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2020 0412 dondoff

I’ve been wearing a mask when I go out. It looks like this on me:

2020 0412 gbmask

Some people don’t wear masks going out, despite convincing evidence that they slow the spread of COVID-19. I was thinking about that when I conceived this acrostic. “Off/On” is as binary as “Doff/Don.”

It is a bit uncomfortable to wear, but Friends, I’d rather be uncomfortable than in the ultimate relaxation and comfort condition known as The Dirtnap.

Don & Doff

Danger! Cee*Oh*Vee*Eye*D
O how Bug does Dirty Deed; O
No wonder we’re put off
& can’t STAND a Scoffer’d SCOFF

2020 0412 triolets

Friends, National Poetry Writing Month is in full swing, no matter how many earthquakes or tsunamis or volcano eruptions or pandemics try to stop it. Here is a compilation of the three Facebook posts I made for today, Day 12, including prefatory and postpoem comments. They get increasingly political, you will see. My country, Number One in the WORLD for total COVID-19 cases, and total deaths, is being mismanaged horribly, and my poetry cannot but be affected. I am urging my fellow Citizens of the United States of America to Vote Blue this November, all ways that I feasibly can, and my poetry is at the service of this cause.

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National Poetry Writing Month 2020, Day Twelve. Challenge: Write a triolet.

Triolet: Iambic tetrameter, eight lines, abaaabab rhyme scheme, lines 1 and 2 are repeated (or nearly repeated) with lines 7 and 8, and line 1 is also repeated (or nearly repeated) with line 4.

In a perfect Verseworld I would now write a trio of triolets. Trouble is, it’s been a long day, I’m physically and mentally beat, and I only have juice for one, though I have the key words for all three. So I’ll do one, call it a night, and let my refreshed brain tackle the other two sometime before midnight.

The three words are FORMALDEHYDE, ACETYLENE, and INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. So here comes

formaldehyde

formaldehyde plays hide and seek
it poisons and yet it preserves
it makes those things in jars look bleak
formaldehyde plays hide and seek
it humbles, silences, makes meek
as doctor jekyll hydes and swerves
formaldehyde plays hyde and sikh
it poisons what it then preserves

And on that cheery note, Friends, good night and sweet dreams!
Here’s Number-Two-Of-Three of a trio of triolets for Day Twelve of National Poetry Writing Month.

acetylene unsettling

take oxy and acetylene
to spark and now you have a torch
to weld an empire’s mezzanine.
take oxygen and fettled green
and cee-oh-two and ways unclean
and now your scene may heat, may scorch…
that oxy and acetylene
sparks conflagration with its torch.
Here is my third and final triolet, completing my Triolet Trio for National Poetry Writing Month 2020, Day Twelve.

inn comm pre-hen sib ill: a tee

incomprehensibility
enables bafflement and crime
with podium non-jabber-free.
incomprehensibilty
is reprehensible as we
descend into a fear-fraught time.
incomprehensibility.
in free-fall it is hard to climb.

Yes, political. Vote Blue. Because we Libtards, we Card-Carrying Commie Socialist Globalist Illegals-Loving National Workers Party Ninnies have another mess to clean up, just like the one we inherited in 2009.

It is April Fool’s Day in the United States of America, but most of us are under voluntary house arrest due to COVID-19. The timing is terrible for playing practical jokes. But we can always use positive catharsis, so here is some whimsical silliness.

Stay safe, Friends!

20200401_152341

I post this image/poem despite huge worry about being misunderstood. It seems obvious to me that it is meant as anti-Trump political commentary, and meant to raise awareness of the criminally misleading messages Trump had for the citizens of the United States in the first crucial weeks of the US outbreak–but people are sick and dying EVERYWHERE, and this may seem insensitive. I regret that I find it necessary.

A friend my age has a nephew who informed him some days ago that the COVID-19 was referred to among millennials as “Boomer remover.” Since I was born in 1954, right in the thicket of Boomer births, that struck a nerve, then a chord, and this poem/image happened.

Heaven knows I wish this pandemic weren’t happening. Since it is, though, I’m determined to a) live through it, and b) not cause anyone to NOT live through it. Raising awareness via this card is a (howbeit remote) chance to help “flatten the curve.”

2020 0322 thin that herd

THIN That Herd

Typhus strep and tetanus all tend to dine & dash
Hepatitis C may choose to have much less panache
Influenza scleroderma–and a touch of choler
Nestles in our systems like an evil Michael Pollard

Last ironic note: The United States of America has been grappling with another issue of epidemic proportions: that of rampant obesity. A healthy and non-fatal way to “thin that herd” is with controlled, sensible weight loss. Tighten Your Belts,. Friends!!