Category Archives: #covid-19

Pining for a pandemic…

June 5, 2021 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

I’m a horrible human being.

I’ve been close to tears for the last several hours with no idea why.

I ran through all the usual suspects;
Did I eat?
Did I sleep?
Did I miss a medication?
Did I take too much medication?

I did all the fixes I could. The feeling remained. A vague sadness like a recent breakup or a friend moving away soon. Something ending.

Holy shit.

The pandemic.

I’m sad that the pandemic is ending.

I know. I deserve that.

I am not sorry that we are winning against a disease that killed hundreds of thousands of humans, shut down the world economy, and sent the world as we know it spiraling into a dark hole.

But I am sad that it’s ending.

You see, I have a secret.

The shutdown made many things easier for me.

I didn’t have social pressure to push beyond my energy level or risk losing friendships.

I didn’t have guilt that I couldn’t make social commitments.

No one had social expectations of me.

I was free of the social demands healthy people unknowingly impose on disabled people.

Even better, you were all living my life. My quiet, shut inside, have to figure out how to communicate with the outside world without actually going into it life. You were finally feeling what I felt. The isolation, the loneliness, the sense of being apart from everyone else.

Now you get to go back to normal… and I don’t.

I went into a grocery store today and most people weren’t masked, they were walking close together, fearless of getting close, en masse shopping for food. The parking lot was jammed with cars, the traffic there and home was jammed with cars. People were on the street, in the bars we drove by, gathering in large numbers again.

While I was returning home, still in my mask, to the room I spend most of my time in, once again doing the isolated thing without the mental company of the rest of world, once again the outlier.

The Pandemic is nearing its end but my disease is not. You will go back to a busy social life with gatherings and work and achievements and I will not.

For a brief period of time the pandemic gave me back a sense of belonging to the outer world, it let me feel just like everyone else.

Now that feeling is gone and I’m left feeling sad.

#covid-19, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #writer, anger, COVID-19, Haiku, Observations, pandemic, poem, Poetry, Poetry, Political

We need some empathy…

March 23, 2021 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

Another week, another white man kills a random group of people.

My father in law is known for saying “it’s not the bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about, it’s the one marked “To who it may concern.”

We are losing our people to white terrorists.

Join me in a winding podcast filled with poems and thoughts about privilege, being an ally, and empathy.

#covid-19, #dancing, #nightclub, #poem, #poet, #poetry, Just me, Just me, Poetry, Un-Haiku-th

Stirred Crazy…

February 20, 2021 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

dreaming of drinking
in noisy locations
with people surrounding me
a thousand new faces a day
strangers grounding me
bodies covered in sweat
as we move to a beat
being pounded out
at volumes our
voices can’t compete with
a favorite past-time of mine
this tribal activity
this dancing.

seeing but not seeing
faces uncertain in
shifting shadows
and strobe flashes
only one thing dominating
the act of mating movement to music
rhythm to writhing
soul to sweat
i can’t forget it yet
the yearning
for the feel of muscles burning
from hours of endless
frenzied whirling.

with the breath
of a crowd
bringing death
to the dance
is there even
the slightest chance
we will ever again see
the sticky drink covered
dance floors
and the cover-charged
roped off doors
of my youth open to
the sweat covered lovers of
of hip hop and house?

will our children know the
dubious thrill of raising the roof
with their hands on their drinks
at all times and their ID’s
in their bras because they
still don’t make club
clothes for women
with pockets?
Or will the idea of sweating
so close to so many strangers
always feel like too much danger
and sharing that much air
alway carry the risk
of too much death
from the chance
of sharing too much breath
with too many people
you just don’t know?

which way will it go?

the club life
had pitfalls of
roofies and date rapes
unwanted gropings
along with DUI’s and
those sad over-dosings.
It wasn’t a scene
for those without armor
or someone to teach them
to watch out for charmers
or to stomp someone’s arches
“by accident” if needed.
it wasn’t a place for a lamb.
but it taught you to lose inhibition
to let go of the need for perfection
to give in to the feel of the music
and just be part of something wild and primal
and yes, at times, explicit.