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.
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