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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 39

Two big numbers are in the news lately: we are hitting about 1.5 million vaccinations per day, and we passed 500K deaths early this past week. Poet Mark Fishbein honors both in this, our 39th poem.

Shot In The Arm

In the antiuniverse 
Help is on the way: immunoglobulin.   
Today they have injected some into my arm.
Now microscopically, and unknown to me,
An army of antibodies sharpen their teeth,
Angry barracudas hungry for a COVID snack
Y shaped savages in the electron microscope.

I feel that I have been marooned for a year;
A year lost when you are “elderly” is a year lost.
At last a rescue ship is seen, but with torn sails.

The daily numbers flow like a lottery, 
The graphs of the dying and the infected,
Corpses filling ice trucks in the parking lots,
The photographs of the family members 
Warning the world the COVID is real,
Eyes of the nurses, tears on their masks,
Names posted on the hospital walls   
Of loved ones who died alone. 

After a war, the wounded return home
And stay up nights to remember some carnage.
But we are still at war, despite I have a cure:
The state of alert and death surrounds us all.

Yet let us sanctify with silence.
My 98 year old mother among a half million gone. 
So many unwelcome deaths. Let us remember them,  
Not by hopes, not by prayers, but with a silence      
That the heart wears like a coat of wordless lament. 

Let us have a requiem in silence
For the dead and the dead to come.

©Mark Fishbein – 2021

*****

Mark Fishbein has been writing poetry for over 50 years, and he is also a classical and brazil style guitarist. He hosts two weekly Zoom writers workshops, POTF (Poets on the Fringe) and DC Poetry Workshops, which publish anthologies and give readings. He also hosts poetry readings on Eventbrite, the next being Feb 28, which include 20 poets using the share file on Zoom to display their poems while reading them, a unique way to engage in virtual poetry events. He has five books available on Amazon. For info- www.poetwithguitar.com (workshops or events) or email  mark@poetwithguitar.com.

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 38

Another erasure poem.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 37

Rafal  Borynski, the author of today’s poem, is a teacher, artist, and metaphor developer based in Queens, New York. He introduces his work for us today.

Haikus are traditionally meant to be self-standing pieces of poetry that express a single thought, not parts within a larger poem, as is the case here. However, this pandemic has significantly blurred the notion of breaks between phases. Everyday, news stories go something along the lines of “We were in Phase 3, but we’re moving back to Phase 2B, except for this and this, which we’re expediting to Phase 4(assuming this and this continue to be this). In other news, this other state is already in Phase 5, but Phase 5 is different for them.” Just as the phases to curtail this pandemic have leaked into one another, so do the haikus about the vaccine(s) to curtail this pandemic. 

Haikus Between Vaccines

in Staten Island
the only appointment was
ferries in cold, nope!

the ferry was cold
the uber back, expensive
“it’s worth it,” I hoped

“left shoulder hurts” was
my one short-term side effect.
long-term, who does know?

that was the first dose
my second is coming up
“it’s worth it,” I hope

“the government lies”
they say, “how can you trust it”
I can’t dispute this

It misleads often,
yet is truthful other times
hope it is on this

“Have you had Covid”
the nurse giving the first asked
“it’s fine if you have”

I looked back at him
and gave an honest answer
“not that I know of “

“a large elephant,
sitting on your chest for days”
survivors have said

some hesitation
fades as I think of such pain
waiting for Dose 2

©Rafal Borynski – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 36

It is with great sadness that Waxy & Poetic has learned of the death of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He once said, “The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.” Most days #100Days100Poems calls out more overtly, but today, in honor of him, the call is more intimate.

Thank you, Mr. Ferlinghetti, for your influence and inspiration.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 35

We have surpassed a milestone that is unfathomable.

By The Number

By the time you read this
the shimmer and shake of ancient light
from the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy
will have shimmied its ways across 
almost 500,000 light years,
a squiggle unseen that echoed the first doodle
a bored Homo Erectus (name and occupation unknown)
etched on a shell 
at around the same time
500,000 years ago.
That would place archaic him -- or archaic her, 
the doodling habits of Homo Erectus 
far beyond the knowledge of this poet--
squarely in the Pleistocene Epoch
of the Quaternary Period
of the Cenozoic Era,
       only slightly predating our current
Holocene Epoch,
       where we have seen
the invention of the wheel
and fire and saddles and stirrups
and aeroplanes and electric cars
and the departure and arrival of lunar modules
and the one-way journeys of 
       Cassini and Voyagers the First and Second
and Juno and New Horizons seeking same
but this digression has zigged too far.

500,000 hours is about 57 years
& 500,000 seconds is about 139 hours
& 500,000 is the TV screen snow plastered graphic
across the front page of the New York Times
& 500K air miles is enough to brag about rewards
       in your wallet
& $500,000 is a terrible NBA salary 
but suits the MLB, minimally
and 500,000 is half a million
and Half a Million is a song by The Shins
and of that half a million things you’re supposed to be
       dead is not one of them.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 34

Today’s installment is another found poem. This time it’s a social media post from Boston College Historian Heather Cox Richardson. If you’re not reading her “Letters From An American,” you really should.

Time Gives & Time Takes & America Keeps Spinning

“It was just a week ago
that the Senate acquitted
the former president of incitement
of insurrection.

Since then,
the Republican Party
has continued to split
apart,
Texas has frozen
and its people are suffering,
Rush Limbaugh has died,
coronavirus vaccinations have ramped up,
and the Biden administration
has told the world
that America is back.

Calling an early night.
Will be back tomorrow.”*

*The original post from Prof. Richardson appeared on February 20, 2021.

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 33

Today’s poem is presented without commentary.

The Cacophony Subsides

While the Capitol Rotunda echoes
the new beeps of metal detectors
& the gavel cracks of failure to convict
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

while pundits screech their latest fabricated insinuations
& newsreaders shout their weightiest insinuated fabrications,
his pen opens all volunteers to volunteer to serve openly
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

Returning to accords & allies & agendas,
reprising briefings & readouts & pressers,
he has traded chaos & commotion & clamor
  in order to quietly go about the work of governing;

Consulting in private with parents in need,
away from the cameras and spotlight,
away from the hubbub and townhall activity,
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

And over the cancerous rants of alt-right radio
no more silent with one less cad about
over the durm and strang of hypocritical opposition 
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

And when the Lone Star State,
frozen in its unregulated splendor,
makes its call for socialistic savior,
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

And when the windbags wag the dog,
scandalizing about the presidential nature of domesticated canines,
rescued or not, 
and stay mum about purebred snowflakes, abandoned in heatless
& waterless abodes, while owners seek warmer, southern climes,
  he quietly goes about the work of governing;

And when the windmills wind still
and when the pipelines pipe nothing
and the water that trickles can’t be boiled
  he quietly goes about the work of governing

And amidst national theme songs
and anthemic chants,
behind the announcements for departure
and the ouches announcing vaccine jabs,
without the headlines trumpeting his name
and the groans and moans and signs
 of exasperation and fatigue and
 bewildered wonder

   he quietly goes about the work of governing.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 32

It’s nice to have someone in a position of leadership who is taking the climate crisis seriously.

Fearing The Day This Will Be Ubiquitous

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 31

It’s nice to see the current administration taking the COVID-19 crisis seriously. Imagine where we would be if it had happened sooner. In the meantime, in anticipation of what will surely be a new normal…

Unlearning the Lessons We’ve Learned

When the masks come off, stretch your lips up and out
remember that the seats on the R and the F are not sofa-soft and not for spreading or lounging

at your first happy hour, lock eyes at the clink of glasses, hoist your arm high
    your HUZZAH! must be higher
hugs, handshakes should be firm and warm
    allow them to linger as long as needed

buy a normal amount of toilet paper

take a slice to go
    take two, take a whole pie

browse for books--the TBR most certainly needs reinforcements after such an   assault
buy tickets to the show your friend adored, see the midnight screening of the  premier
    long delayed

race the Grand Staircase, pant and wheeze as if you’re as out of shape as the peasants in
    the pastoral you passed, as you linger to catch your breath before the first canvas that
    caught your eye, speaking to you in an ancient tongue

and, if, hope beyond hope, you have match-made, or swiped correctly,
    when your hands meet halfway across the table, avoiding wine glasses & tapas plates,
    relish the first fingertip-to-fingertip freeze
    in your new moment

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 30

Do you find your Twitter experience changed since Jan 20, 2021?

When the President’s Twitter is More
Robin’s Song and Less
Screech Owl or Mockingbird

Once,
there were battalions of superlatives 
& platoons of exclamation points,
lined up in their wars with words
on reality,
the Attack of the Alternative Facts
the Battle of the Bulging Lie
but these days
the animosity and hypocrisy
have melted away
like Witch’s Words
to the poetry of 
I see enormous pain
in this country.
A lot of folks are out of work.
A lot of folks are going hungry
staring at the ceiling at night,
wondering

No child should grow up in poverty

The risk isn’t that we do too much --
it’s that we don’t do enough.

We have to go big
for your family
for your neighbors
for your country.
Wear a mask.
No, really,
Mask up, America.

And yes, with the tasks ahead
My whole soul is in 
the work ahead of us.
If we do it together 
as one nation
we will not fail*.

*In the spirit of a cento, all italics in this poem are lines lifted from the official POTUS Twitter account.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !