The Maskerade Blues

Today’s landscape of worry bothers me
in a world where slow is still hurry.
What used to be go girl go — now is —
where’s my mask, gloves, phone, keys, don’t ask.

If I meet anyone outside, I take a good look
at the face but nothing’s there, only hair, brows,
eyes that size me up as I do likewise.
Do I know the person behind the KN95?

On the street if I see someone walking
toward me, I assess not mood, nor clothes,
but security of their mask. Is it loose
at the cheeks? Do I see a nose?

For those who are maskless, no excuse
can relax my vigil, so I move on, quickstep,
as if I was avoiding secondhand smoke
or, more accurately, Covid quicksand.

There’s an upside. Today I saw someone I thought
I knew, whom I didn’t want to talk to.
They didn’t recognize me. What a relief!
Covid offers anonymity.

But I’ve still got the Maskerade Blues,
so I’ll stay inside, dream of days I can leave
the house, breathe deeply in and out,
undaunted by random aerosols flying about.

Radio broadcast on NPR-WYNC, New York, NY, April 27, 2021, and on the Ozcat Artbeat Poetry Hour, Vallejo, California, January 27, 2022. Published in Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream May 2021 (41:11), 11-12

Do You Have a Greek Foot?

Splayed legs with visible toes
in the Waterways photograph*
make me check — do I see
a Greek, Egyptian,
or square foot?

The great toe is as long as 
the second.  Seems square.
A Greek foot sports a longer
second toe, the Egyptian foot
a more prominent great toe.

Because ancient Egyptian feet 
were sculpted mostly in profile, 
the big toe looms longest.  
Even so, many Egyptian statues 
possess Greek feet. 

I recall the Boxer at Rest,
the 3rd century BC Hellenistic bronze 
of a boxer after a brutal fight.
Found in 1885, the pugilist’s right foot
reveals his second toe to be
a tad longer than the first.

The Romans — never to be outdone
by slaves, or artistic models —
carved mostly all their statues 
with Greek feet.  

Have you looked at your toes yet?

Published in Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream
January 2022, 42:7, p. 8

No More Will be Baked Here

(Villa San Marco, Bay of Naples, 79 CE)

"...from Mount Vesuvius widespread fames and fires rising high blazed
forth in several places, their gleaming brightness accentuated by the darkness

of the night."

— PLINY THE YOUNGER, Complete Letters,
Book VI, Letter #16 (Oxford, 2006, 144-5)

Where sun ripens grapes to pearly purple,
white foam flirts with an aqua bay lined
by luxurious villas. Slaves serve wealthy
landowners with labor to provide
pears, lemons, vegetables, baked goods.

Above all stands a tall volcano, motionless.
One day it awakens. Heated smoke drawn
from the upwelling shrivels fruit, as
tremors agitate waves, aqueducts exude sulfur.
Sun eclipsed, wind still, air fraught.

A man, woman, two children, hurry in fright,
after star-pointed pebbles crush their roof, smother
courtyard millstones. No more will be baked here.
Uncounted hours of toil, backaches from harvests,
hopes of freedom from slavery -

THE THIEF OF POMPEII

(Via del Abbondanza, 79 CE)

Ajax slithered through the crowds,
snake in a labyrinth, head down, naked
beneath a toga borrowed without asking
from his master Lucius Gaius Caesar.

Couldn't control his habit of taking things,
hurried to the men's baths, relishing a chance
to rifle through clothes left behind by bathers.

A bag of gold coins! Thank you, Fortuna!
No time to count. He left, treasure under toga.

Outside, black clouds raced over Pompeii's villas, shops, aqueducts, bars, brothels.

Tremors made Ajax lose balance. A chariot
shot into air, toppled. Merchant carts halted.

Fearful eyes bulged, horses reared, drivers
jettisoned. Buildings shook. People streamed

from houses, shops — piercing shrieks, wailing,
as a sticky substance fell like misty rain.

Ajax glanced up at Mount Vesuvius.
Twisted tufts of flames raged silently

near gnarled gray vapors.
Like ghosts dancing on graves.

A rapidly moving dark mass filled the sky, killed the sun.
Roiling seas lapped at beaches; Leviathan’s mouth

gathered stray boats, chewed them into pieces.
Steaming lava approached quickly —

its boiling-hot fumes convinced Ajax all this chaos
was his punishment for stealing. On his knees:

Jupiter, let me live to return the gold!

IS AN MRI A POEM?

If corporations are people, is an MRI a poem?

Does it have words?
No.

Does it have a title?
Yes – Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Does it have stanzas?
Yes – unexpected pauses between hammering.
Some stanzas have many beats that suddenly stop.

Does it have an oral form that you can listen to?
Yes – requires earplugs so ears won’t pop. Headphones, too.
You must lie still and supine on a table to listen.

Does it have rhythm?
Yes – immense amounts of irregular, erratic banging,
depending on time it takes for magnetized cells to reset.
There might be 15 beats to a measure followed by a long rest.

Does it have images?
Yes – a striped line down the center of a tube,
longer but not wider than a very tall human being —
if you open your eyes.

Does it move from a concrete particular to an abstract universal?
Yes – from “trapped on a table” to
“how the hell can I get out of this coffin?”

Does it convey an overall feeling?
Yes – claustrophobia.

Does it give you something more than you had before the MRI?
Yes, definitely – Agita!

So, do you think an MRI is a poem?
Can’t tell you — I’m still shaking.