During the COVID-19 Pandemic–more than ever before, poetry became Patrick’s refuge (refugio in Portuguese), his safe place, consoler and forever muse. The works presented herein were composed during this era.

Awakening


Ultimately

 

All is light

All is grace

All is an opportunity

 

Receive

Abide

Imbibe

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

Post-Apogee Survey
(aka: An Ode to Space Tourism)


Should one apologize

After reaching

Apogee?

 

Whilst starved migrants

Drown and sink into the blue

Abyss.

 

( Encircle Answer: Y / N )

 

Should one apologize

After reaching

Apogee?

 

Whilst our bravest

Burn-Alive saving the green

Arboretum.

 

( Encircle Answer: Y / N )

 

Should one apologize

After reaching

Apogee?

 

Whilst the brightest of us

Burn-Out battling collective

Afflictions.

 

( Encircle Answer: Y / N )

 

Should one apologize

After reaching

Apogee?

 

Whilst democracy decays

And freedom hurdles into

Autocracy.

 

( Encircle Answer: Y / N )

 

INQUIRIES

 

The United States of Cicada


The Irony—

Simply put
Should not escape us

Time elapsed
And elapsed
And elapsed

As was nature’s wont

That—

Dreamy cicadas decamped
17-years’ subsistence
For light of day

We—

Weary humans departed
17-months’ seclusion
For life of day

Emerged—

From the depths
From the chill
From the lull

Together—

Looking to the heavens
Looking to each other

We sang
And sang
And sang

As was nature’s wont

 

INQUIRIES

 

Crèche 2020


This Christmas—He waits quietly in a drawer

No lit candles

Or joyous hymns

No visiting Magi

With their sibylline gifts

No pictures or videos

No venerations either

This Christmas—He weeps quietly in a drawer

*          *          *

May we in each our own way

This Christmas—with lonesome and weary hearts

All draw near

 

INQUIRIES

 

Reprieve


Shorter almost-autumn days

Are a welcomed reprieve

From white-hot reality

 

In these nearly-hopeless times

I embrace the darkness

Hoping cool-light awaits me

 

INQUIRIES

 

Landslide


Because—

Nothing should’ve been built on it in the first place—

 

Take slavery.

 

Take racism.

 

Take misogyny.

 

Take homophobia.

 

Take transphobia.

 

Take all that shit—

And let them dissolve into history.

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

It’s 2020, Charlie Brown!


The Twin Towers never fell on those kids

(or their parents).

Masks were only for Halloween.

And don’t even bring-up Zoom.

 

Autumn of 2020 has indeed arrived

(God help us).

What next?

Will the Great Pumpkin finally arise from that patch?

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

Had I only known.


On vacation last summer—

It could be two years

Before I would smell your sweet hydrangea again,

I would have breathed-in more deeply.

 

Had I known

 

At Christmastime—

It could be a year or more

Until we would hug again,

I would have squeezed harder.

 

Had I known

 

During the last mid-winter Gospel Brunch—

I could never—ever

Hear your ascending voice again,

I would have cheered with all my being.

 

Had I only known.

 

INQUIRIES

Voleo


I wish one day to be reclaimed

by the heavens.

I wish to be pierced through the breast

by a merciful pelican.

I wish my heart to be clenched tightly

by the smooth grips of her extended beak.

I wish that all goodness, love, and joy flood every chamber

by the moment she snips it from my body.

I wish us flown swiftly to the interior edge of the tropopause

by a desperate ascent against gravity and mortality.

I wish for angelic resuscitation there at journey’s almost-end

by a gracious Virtue.

I wish momentous expulsion at last from her billed pouch

by a rogue and robust palpitation.

I wish to be; finally flung free of earth’s surly bonds into the cosmos

by the unfettered positive potential of outward bound inertia.

 

 

Becalmed


Becalmed

In a sea of shape-shifting contagion

 

Like sitting ducks

in the eye of a viral storm

 

Windless and disoriented

languishing in the swell of pause

 

Pendulous sails wait pensively

for inoculating gusts of vaccine

 

To whisk all weary souls aboard

onto glorious vitality

 

Far-far away from the blurry procession

of quotidian virtuality

 

Into the swift refreshing current

of togetherness

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

This cannot be all for naught.


SO—

There must be a reason

An end game

A trajectory

OR—

A collective moment of pause

A hard reset of humanity

A new flight path charted

Into the jet stream of goodness

Love

Gratitude

Respect

Selflessness

AND—

Equality

BUT—

We must emerge scathed

We must arise broken

We must fly up with mended wings

FOR—

Without scars

Without ingrained memories of pain

NOR—

Is there learning

Is there growing

Is there evolving

YET—

Emerge

Arise

Fly up

We will.

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

STOA


Sometimes

we

need

to

stare

death

in

the

face

and

smile

back.

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

 

 

ENCORE


We are but mere shadows—

Phantom specters in training,

(By our own doing)

Dancing on the wall of time.

 

The sun rises, peaks and founders—

Casting our tickling impressions,

(In any number of ways)

Onto every surface that will suffer them.

 

They patiently indulge our fancies—

Letting us clumsily lead with each new measure,

(Giggling all the while)

Fully knowing the final movement approaches.

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

 

SPRING COMES FOR US ALL


Neither wind, nor hail

Nor pandemic

Can stop her privilege.

And

Amen to that.

 

INQUIRIES

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Resolutions


This year, I will watch the hyacinth spring forth and the wild beach roses bloom.

This  year, I will have dinner with my spouse every single night.

This year, I will bid adieu to curbside check-ins and bell-hops.

This year, I will spend Friday and Saturday Nights with my dogs.

This year, I will make peace with mortality and morbidity.

This year, I will mourn each and every one of them.

This year, I will—what God wills.

 

INQUIRIES