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Half Mast
“There’s a boat on the reef with a broken back,
and I can see it very well.”--Elton John
The streets are so empty,
it feels like we are living
in a science fiction movie.
The wind carries litter
throughout the concrete canyons.
Great, gas is finally
under two bucks a gallon,
and now
there is no place to go,
nowhere
in the entire world.
It’s like we are reliving
a Nazi horror story.
We stand by the thousands
next to mile-long,
freshly dug pits,
naked, with our eyes closed,
knowing that millions will die.
Our economy keeps tanking,
as bad as the Great Depression,
but at least in the 30’s
the only pandemic
was hunger and poverty.
Who will govern
after this ghostly corona
has fully blossomed,
when the chamber doors
are chained,
and the tall white columns
begin to gather ivy?
It is not logical
to be told
that the way to win this war
is to do nothing,
duck and cover,
scrub your hands
until your knuckles bleed.
In a few days,
or a month,
it’s projected that all our hospitals
will be overrun,
the mobile military medical tents
and converted empty buildings
will all overflow,
and the sick and dying
will lie first in the hallways,
and then in the streets;
plague rats on a gut wagon.
Everywhere,
the flags are flapping
at half mast,
and I can see them
very well.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poets Pub
13 comments:
Oh, you went really dark today Glenn... I think that somehow we will get over this.. though maybe Trump will cancel the presidential election.
Actually, there are already some countries in Europe who are being run in a dictatorship due to this.
The "barn" is in flames in this one. You went there. Thank you. This is reality and not all of us will see another one.
Dark and devastating Glenn. I believe we will come out on the other side of this, but the question is how many will survive?
There's frustration and near-futility in every aspect of this situation, and you express that well, Glenn.
You see the writing on the wall. My son works at a hospital and from what he has said, there is little to no ability to accommodate the expected patients from this. There is more he said that I won't share. I want him to quit now! On my drive today I saw so many groups of people walking and riding bikes together, as if the social isolation mandate by the governor yesterday was a joke. Humans are too stupid to minimize the devastation of the pandemic, and my son will be caught in the middle of it.
Good contrast about gas being cheap, but having nowhere to go.
Very dark indeed! We really are living in a Sy-fi movie... Tomorrow we will awake if we are lucky.
gas is finally
under two bucks a gallon,
and now
there is no place to go,
nowhere
in the entire world
All of the above, and I like how you transformed the Elton John quote, Glenn. The first stanza paints a chilling picture with which everyone is becoming familiar, if not physically we recognise it from the media. It does indeed feel like we are living in a science fiction movie.
Chilling...we can all see them very well (except our president it seems...)
Ouch. This is so brutally honest. Ouch.
I was thinking also of science fiction, as Twilight Zone", waiting for the episode to end.
Dark but poignant points ... some will survive but even the thriries are dying ... we can't relax the warnings!
"it feels like we are living
in a science fiction movie."
My feeling, exactly
Much❤love
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