Perfume in a Pandemic

Perfume in a Pandemic
is pointless.

I watch, listen to your 
simulacrums, your untouchable
screen ghosts. 

I yearn
For smell and taste.. 

Perfume in a pandemic
is comforting, I shake
the tiny bottle, my finger as stopper.
I stroke my pulse points,
bathe in, breath in, grasp
the memory:
the clutching joy of 
your embracing warmth
as we hugged.

Perfume in a pandemic is essential.

Sea Change

“Sea change or sea-change is an English idiomatic expression which denotes a substantial change in perspective, especially one which affects a group or society at large, on a particular issue.” Wikipedia

Social Distancing

My heart stumbles
as our world’s clutch
misses,
and the gears judder
and jerk
stripped of their connections.

We don’t know
when or what
it foretells. 

How do I decide 
how to live
in this strange wilderness?

Childhood

I lived in libraries and classrooms,
More solitary among the living,
More alive in pages turning,
Building my armour and bridges.

The silence at home covered
Flattened noise; obscured dreams and 
muffled resentments, darkened mirrors 
Seeking to display projected images.

COVID-19 – Ten Lines

O, Boccaccio,
Where are you now?
I need you to take me away from
graphs and maps and the tv’s heavy breathing.

I flee the city but yearn for
its pleasures:
smiles, touches, and fearless
encounters.

I need absorbing stories
and happy endings.

An Ode to the Authors I Appreciate

I see the world
through a scrim of 
books.

I ride on words woven together,
carrying more freight than
just solitary singles, side by side.

Sentences and paragraphs,
pages and chapters.
books – tap feelings and understandings,
echoing the fingers that tapped letters, words, pages – 
and built, shaped my mind.

You, with warp and weft of words, created
this floating, flowing, close-woven
jewelled net-lace I ride on and pull 
through the ring of my mind,
accepting joyfully your gifts.

Homes Are Ceremonial

Homes are ceremonial,
ripe with obscure patterns
absentmindedly repeated.

The Dining Room
where eating 
is an uncomfortably full altar;

The Living Room
where family mementos and the tv
sacrifice lives;

Even the Kitchen,
recipeless and hurried,
has ghosts,

although its necessary
Partner, (for defecating and self-presentation),
tries to be polite.

So the young
flee and refuse the rituals
that triggered their fears,

So the older
submit to the comfort
of their ceremonies.