This gorgeous collection of printed matter and other miscellany is “merch” if offered for sale, “swag” if given away. But it is neither. I didn’t buy it, but I earned it. Valley literary lioness Nadine Lanier incentivized full participation in a challenge she called “Pandemic Poetry Prompts” by promising a bag o’ loot to the “winner,” i.e. the person (or, as it turned out due to the perseverance of our poetry colleague Suzy Jacobson Cherry, persons) who hacked their way through all twelve prompts.

One prompt was “start a prose poem with ‘The last time I saw __________,’ filling in the blank with a famous actor. Here’s what I did with that:

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The last time I saw Robert Duvall

The last time I saw Robert Duvall he was shape-shifting just like the John
Carpenter movie and he was Boo Radley then Tom Hagen he was THX-1138 and of course the Great Santini and the napalm sniffer but then he shuddered and fell into a
myriad of bit parts

****
Another prompt asked for a send-up of the song “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, using the pandemic as subject matter.
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safety first

latex and sani for doing our tasking,
mucus confinement with bandanna masking,
six feet or more so we do not infect
these are the steps we may take to protect.

empty arena and echoful stadium
radioactive as simon-pure radium
concerts and renaissance fairs we reject
these are the steps we will take to protect…

bright pink carnations alone in the garden
walk with our doggies and moods will unharden,
internet Porn (within reason) select
for a good time that will also protect…

when you’re sneezing
use a tissue
do not touch your
face
preserve your life liberty smilies that way
and then you’ll amaze
with grace

****
But the toughest challenge was the last one. Nadine asked us to write an Ode to the Coronavirus. And by Ode, she didn’t just mean any set of words in tribute to someone or something; she meant for use to use a Pindaresque Ode framework for the poem. And she suggested, among other things, to check out the Odes that John Keats wrote in the year before he died at 25.

THAT was a chore. That was a brain-buster. Iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme ababcdecde. Multiple stanzas. Compounding this is the grim fact that there is nothing romantic about COVID-19.

So I got to work, and it took hours for the first draft, and more time for tweaking. My finished product sounded preachy and too-much-information-y. But I did meet the challenge, and the poem does have its moments:
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Ode on a Capricious Turn

The oral airway launches with a sneeze
A seed of plague, and someone breathes it in,
In time it gets once-healthy lungs to wheeze
With killing fluid. Then the gasps begin,
And oxygen exchange becomes diminished.
The interstitial stiffness does the honors;
The muscles tire. Necrosis is the thief,
And absent intubation, someone’s finished.
These days have turned some Grinners into Goners,
And Joy has been transmogrified to Grief.

Unlike the flu, this thing has no vaccine.
It is, no joke, breathtakingly contagious.
It’s spread throughout the planet. It’s obscene
How groups STILL congregate. It is outrageous!
A family of nine ALL go to shop!
A church in deep denial STILL holds service!
The haircuts! Mani-Pedis! Kids in playgrounds!
The deaths will mount, and MAYBE then they’ll stop
Or will they still “No worries–I’M not nervous…”
And take their trade from cancelled flights to Greyhounds?

Some say “Game-changer,” but this is no game.
This is The Reaper. Serf to Antoinette
Will many fill sarcophagus’s frame
Who play the chancy Russianesque Roulette
And think their age group makes for them a shield
Or, fatalists, decide their number’s up
No matter what they do. They shrug. DON’T lave
That lathered Twenty Seconds. Thus they yield
In cowardice, with hemlock in a cup,
And TAKE SOME WITH THEM to a needless grave.

Each day that passes, and you’re symptomless,
Thank all the gods that be, and some that aren’t,
That you have easy breathing, the largesse
Bestowed by Whom declined to serve the warrant.
Please KEEP it that way, People, with your actions,
With prudent practices and social distance,
And be the after-deluge still-here crew
Enjoying your survivor’s satisfactions,
That gratifying Seek a Stolen Kiss dance,
That Earth Inherited. It’s up to YOU!

****
As mentioned, my friend Suzy also did the twelve-step obstacle course, and she did it admirably. Nadine promised us both some book-goodies; and we also read some of our poetry by invitation at a Zoom event conducted by Phoenix Poet Laureate Rosemarie Dombrowski. (Zoom is, forgive the phrase, really taking off as the means of choice for not-in-person get-togethers.)

Per Social Distancing protocol, then, a few days ago there was a knock on my door, and I waited ten seconds, then opened the door. There was not a soul in sight. I don’t even know if Nadine delivered the goods personally or had it done. (It would’ve been nice to see her smiling eyes above whatever mask she was wearing, but Better Safe Than Sorry!) And–LOOK at this stuff! Can’t wait to read The Martian, which I enjoyed immensely as the movie with Matt Damon, but have yet to enjoy as the original novel. And–anthology chapbooks galore, fizzing with local academia! And a beautiful wine-colored T-Shirt emblazoned with “Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing”!! Even a ROLL OF TOILET PAPER, which due to panic buying by “Covidiots,” is in frightfully short supply here in the Valley of the Sun! Bless her!

Nevertheless, the next time I get an invite from Nadine to rejoin her Tribe and jump through her prompt-hoops, I intend to say, with a straight face unless I am wearing a mask, “Nay, Nay, Nadine. Unless you want me to write a Persona Poem from the viewpoint of a horse. Then I shall cheerfully write ‘Neigh, Neigh,’ Nadine.”

Thank you, Friends, for reading my Bad Pun of the Day.

And, Nadine, thank you for helping me become a better poet!