the hundred years war...

it's day 4 billion in quarantine...I exaggerate, but you all get it...yesterday Governor Cuomo extended our pause until May 15th...if you are from Long Island you should recognize this constant end-date revision...it is like driving home on the LIE...5pm...any Friday...in the summer..."Delays Exits 13-21"..."Delays Exits 22-35"..."Delays Exits 36-45"...I'm gonna shoot myself Exits 46-62...at least at the end of LIE torture you get some drinks at a bar and ocean breezes with breakfast...here you get homemade hand sanitizer and a mask that keeps popping off one ear as some stranger walks within that 6 feet in a empty-shelf supermarket...and for extra pleasure as we sit captive at home...we can watch those of dubious IQ protesting shoulder to shoulder in states far away...no masks...no gloves...demanding an end to this pause...some calling it a hoax...or worse...angrily doubting Fauci and the CDC...and any other scientific approach to stemming the spread...and as the Governor of Michigan sadly stated...spreading infection further with these protests...ensuring longer quarantines at home...we have now entered the real danger zone with dealing with this pandemic...we have food being dumped and lines of people waiting for food...we have small businesses being shut out of loans so desperately needed...and airlines who were given exorbitant bailouts signaling layoffs (United)...which begs...where the fuck is oversight...leadership...I keep looking for it when I look through my fingers covering my eyes when our President talks each evening...and then eviscerates those asking the tough questions...and then I have to turn it all off...and I'm dreaming of that beautiful, tremendous, terrific ocean at that end of a long road...sitting here foot on the brake...waiting to hit the gas...

"april is the cruelest month..."

Oh, T.S. Eliot, if only you knew...the trees are budding, and flowers gently awakening from a winter that wasn't...soon the grass will be lush and green...tulips opening to the sun...but we won't...we will briskly walk past them...if we can...peering above our homemade mask lines...plodding onward...afraid to really breathe deep...and we will be the lucky ones if we do...I have come to my own conclusion based on whatever brain cells I have left in this 59-year-old brain...a few weeks away from 60 and entering an age group of dubious risk...I conclude that no one knows what the hell they are talking about...as I mused about before we entered our initial lockdown, as it were, in my blog about life during war time, and the Talking Heads...and talking heads...we truly are at war...but without weapons...and with an invisible enemy...how quaint it was when our enemy was only terrorism...when our enemy were angry factions of starving nations who hated our excess...when life was stripping in airports...adjusting to code orange or red or whatever the fuck they called it that week...now we occasionally find solace in a governor who was hated weeks ago for a half-assed policy that left New York City streets brimming with crime...and now the streets are afloat with viral remnants...we look for hope in a little doctor's messages...he looks like that nice uncle that gave you a dollar at the seder...we crave hope...directions...levity...light...and then bury ourselves in distractions...hoarding...binging Netflix without chill...in need of that old school religion, we suffer without the benefit of dedicated clergy...they look at us with compassion through computer screens...our ears denied the solace of choir and community prayer...where does that leave us all as so many enter this holy week...I truly do not know...should we be anointing doorways with blood to protect us from plague?...and the irony...it's National Poetry Month...and with each new poem I read or write...I find myself returning to Eliot's "The Waste Land"...April is the cruelest month...

Love in the Time of Covid-19...

as we move in slow motion through a new normal...or abnormal...I am flooded with thoughts...things I want to write...poetry I'd like to create...but it is quickly consumed by the barrage of news seeping in at all times...life as we now know it has in a sense become a series of book titles...catch-22...the sound and the fury...brave new world...the plague...oh, no...sounds like a pitch for another lame network show...Seinfeld!...am I Jerry or George?...but the book titles...it was that moment last week as we descended into the rabbit hole that I thought of this book title...is covid our cholera?...and will my mind and these fingers ever reach the genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez?...I think not...after all, I did submit my latest poem to Rattle's weekly Poets Respond contest...and they didn't respond...so it's back to the keyboard...trying to give voice...and words...to all the feelings these harsh days..the fear...the anger...the love...and the hope struggling deep within...today is Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday...I'm looking at the tickets on my desk for the revival of "Company"...end of April...and the reality with each new statistic is that those tickets are toast...but I came across this Sondheim quote today..."art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos"...yes it is...as I keep writing in the time of covid-19...

Life during wartime...

there is nothing more obsolete than a post about the coronavirus...covid 19...what we know is ever-changing...what we are told by talking heads (all irony intended...pay attention to this title) sounds like a 4-year-old telling a joke...no beginning, no end...just a bloated middle and no punch line...today I looked at twitter to torture myself...to see what form of panic is trending...and idiocy...so today's term was boomer remover...yes, the latest generation...gen z...laughingly tweets that boomers have destroyed everything and covid 19 is karma...they are tweeting this on $1000 cell phones that mommy bought who may be a boomer herself...eyeroll please...hey, miss gen z...I too rallied at a generation before me...the silent generation and its patriarchy...I rolled my eyes...and when I felt no one valued me and my world was crumbling below my feet....I blasted the angst of Janis Ian...who was the Alanis Morissette before the Billie Eilish...originality is an overrated term...but I digress...generational finger pointing aside...this is what I do know...it is morally wrong to hide your head in the sand and be cavalier about this disease...it is pummeling Italy as I write...as it did in China...don't be misled and have some false sense of security because your youth lets you check a different age box on a doctor's form than me...or those one generation up...and in your fear don't deny anyone their need to pray to their god in this troubled time...or also not to pray...please admit that maybe it's more than time to revere brilliant scientific minds again...from all corners of the globe...and in all languages...because make no mistake...however we get to the other side of this...there will be another virus looming in the distance...how we decide to move forward globally on the other side of covid 19 will have enormous ramifications...for all generations...especially those yet to come...this ain't no party...this ain't no disco...this ain't no fooling around...

the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe...

well, I've watched the 3 millionth Democratic debate...and I'll break it down for you...in one corner there are three grumpy old men fighting about pinochle...then there's their retired school teacher mediating...in another is the 8th grade debate team champion getting his ear pulled by the wannabe cool mom...oh, and in between is another billionaire asking everyone to sing kumbaya...of course, if red is your color...you get "caronavirus" "covfefe" and Pence...I keep picturing a Covid 19 breakthrough...the female scientist rushes into Pence's office...he can't be alone with her...omg...we are so fucked...there's no more eloquent way to describe it...we are polarized...plagued...and still in shitty movie season...serenity now!...there was a false report a few days ago...it said that 38% of Americans would not drink a Corona anymore...out of fear they would contract the virus...the saddest thing was it sounded plausible...we do not read anymore...we do not value great minds...or the beauty in intelligent debate...we do not value those who teach our children...we live by our phones...we worship at the fountain of celebrity...readily forgive the indiscretions of celebrities over our family and friends...faith is a charlatan shilling on Sunday morning television not the priest looking at empty pews...and it leaves me looking at the stars...wondering about parallel universes and about signs of intelligent life in the deep velvet night sky...praying for deep pause in fractured times...

heart smart

there are three days of the year when one should avoid restaurants at all cost...New Year's Eve...overbooked...that table next to you over inebriated...food...overcooked...Mother's Day...have you been to a diner on that Sunday morning?...there are probably more vasectomies scheduled that following week in May than the whole year...and yep...Valentine's Day...but there we were last night..with our 8:30 reservation at a local restaurant we hadn't been to in many years...as you New Yorkers know...it has not been much of a winter yet...(kind of dreading March thinking it will be a shit show)...but just in time for that day of hearts...well, the temperature matched the calendar...so we opened the door to the restaurant quickly to get out of the cold...and my heart dropped...so many people jammed around the teeny bar...we checked in and the hostess said..."it would be a little while"...I looked around and thought I would be collecting Social Security before our table would be ready...but it was 8:30 on Valentine's...so this was it...even with all that body heat...every time the front door opened for more people to jam into this place we were hit with that arctic blast..."would you like to check your coats?"...hell no!...the restaurant hired a singer/keyboard player for the evening...she wasn't bad...taking requests for couples' wedding songs as I played the game "don't get hit in the head with the drink tray"...after a few songs I began to realize what this felt like...it was "The Fabulous Baker Boys"...now, if this singer was Jeff Bridges circa 1988, I would have been a happy camper...or if she were Michelle Pfeiffer circa any year...ditto for Mike...by some miracle the hostess called our name only a few minutes past 8:30...we were unceremoniously seated at our table as the hostess turned her back to us and disappeared in the crowd...I ordered a drink...the staff was working so hard...the waiter was pleasant...and dinner not bad...the pinot softened hearing "Lady in Red"...again...dessert was sublime...and then it was late and time to bundle and head home...another Valentine's dinner done...I sighed...wonder what they'll have on the menu Mother's Day?

the parable of parallel parking

last week while leaving my Tuesday writers group, I joked with a friend about parallel parking...on Long Island we can joke about it...there aren't that many occasions out here, in strip mall heaven, to break out that oft dreaded driving test skill...or lack thereof...not like the years I lived in Queens...when you could spend the better part of your existence trying to fit a relatively normal sized car into a space suited for a Barbie jeep...all the while being honked and nearly side-swiped...and many people don't see it as a challenge...and just aggressively "love tap" the crap out of the cars bookending that sacred space...the rest of us...well, we keep circling...and circling...praying for that space...you know the one...it's really two and you pull right in... and you're done...and when I thought about it...parallel parking is kind of like life...those who take the challenges life can throw at us...and face them head on...and those that avoid them...pausing...thinking...maybe over thinking...those that need to "circle" and muster the skill and confidence...and then face the music...i keep thinking about most of us...we're just packing the roads...driving on fumes...passing those hard spaces...never hitting curbs...never failing...maybe never really living...now, I know you're probably talking back to this blog...yes, new car technology really can do almost everything for us...even park that damned car...and new advances in all other technology can practically take care of the rest...if you want to live life in grey...but maybe it's time to face that teeny space...hit the crap out of the curb till you get it right...take the spot not taken...you never know where it could lead you...