covid dreams

my struggle with these virus 
days   seems almost easy
the spectral possibilities  
rumble through my nights

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images heavy-footed with  
the unknown   challenge 
authority of sleep    I wander 
the other side    eager to

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weave words into images
images into stories   stories
into lessons   lessons into 
comfort   but I cannot cast on

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even one stich   words stand 
alone   shoulders hunched    
dare me to make poetry from a
world-wide pastiche of horror

​

I dream
my sister   sits regal in a mansion
fireplace blazing   her ventilator
wheezes in time with a string
band   she is too ill to dance

 

the boy of her 16th summer
now a magician   can perform no
trick to save her   he giggles
I SEE YOU   as he evaporates  

 

I dream 
my second mother   steps fully
clothed into the tub   she drivels
the book of Job as she disrobes
cascades of sawdust wash over her

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images evaporate in a smoky
dawn   that I cannot wake to    
stumble through haze for hours
plod the hours until I return 

​

to the story board of our lives   
when I do   they have blended 
into a river of souls   its current
rushes to a new world order  

 

should I continue the struggle   
or accept that I witness final days     
earth’s last shudder   as it   rids 
itself of a fatal pestilence   

​

is reborn

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©hdpoet – ‘20