Good Friday 2020

April

gray morning

snow flurry vortex.

Among

waving branches

single bird chirps.

Showering

getting dressed

weekly grocery run.

Sunshine

noon approaches

we still need coats.

And

of course

we don our masks. - Jeff Barnes

Shape haiku

Vogon Love Poem (with apologies to the late, great Douglas Adams and to anyone else who happens to read this)

The vapour drifts over the swamp's stillness.
I savor its overwhelming foetor.
Sing to me, love, for I adore your shrillness
and your lovely face, so much like an anteater.
Our love will germinate forevermore
like a fungal colony in a petri dish.
Kiss me, my love, then smack me once more
in the face with that putrid dead fish.
Come closer, my dear, and let me gaze
into your seductive, muculent eyes.
Oh, how you set my passion ablaze
with the taste of your lips, so like cow pies!
My glands are sweating and my heart's athrob!
Let us merge into an amorphous blob! – Jeff Barnes

Easter in a Pandemic

Don't take it personally, kids

when you don't get an Easter basket.

Please don't let it shock you too much

if you spot a rabbit-sized casket.

Don't expect a chocolate bunny,

Easter eggs, or jelly beans.

Your old friend the Easter Bunny

has succumbed to COVID-19.

Don't expect any Cadbury Eggs

nor any marshmallow chicks.

The Easter Bunny won't be here.

He has crossed the river Styx.  - Jeff Barnes

In Bosch's Hell

This netherworldly cacophony 

is an onslaught upon my ears.

I look around and cannot believe

these foul creatures are my peers.

Almost all of us are naked

and tormented in a different fashion.

There's nothing here but suffering and sadism.

There is no kindness or compassion.

I wish this were a nightmare

and I could wake screaming in my bed.

I'm being eaten by a hellish creature

wearing a cauldron on his head.

On my journey down his gullet

I can smell his putrid guts

and scream in ineffable agony

as crowing birds fly out my butt. - Jeff Barnes

The Speech

Today's poem requires a bit of explanation. This is the prompt I was following:

Begin the poem with a metaphor.

Say something specific but utterly preposterous.

Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.

Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).

Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.

Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.

Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.

Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.

Use an example of false cause-effect logic.

Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).

Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”

Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.

Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”

Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.

Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.

Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.

Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.

Use a phrase from a language other than English.

Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).

Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

I felt overwhelmed by this and told my wife that whatever I could come up with would make no sense and be absolutely nuts. She said, "Oh, like a Trump speech!"

Eureka! That was it! So here it is:

The Speech

Life these days

is like being a cat

at the window

yelling, "get off my lawn!"

at the birds outside.

You can see them but

but it will be a long, long time

before you can go out

or hear their twittering.

Can't feel the wind

can't smell the flowers

or feel the ground under

your paws.

You can't get out

and smell the sunlight.

Abraham Lincoln once said

that America would never be

destroyed from the outside

and that's why we've got

to do the job ourselves.

We've got to fight

this thing from

the halls of Montezuma

to the shores of Gettysburg

where Lincoln gave his address.

He could do that

because they didn't have junk mail

in those days,

but pretty soon

you'll be able to go out

to Gettysburg or wherever

because this thing is almost over.

We've got it beat, believe me,

but you have to stay inside

you can't go out and spread it.

We're beating this thing

it'll soon be over,

so if someone says different

you have to clap back!

You have to clap back!

Budge up, people,

budge up!

You can't let them say

that this COVID-19 will

become COVID-20 or

whatever number

because they'll keep adding numbers,

they want to get this thing

at the highest number possible

that I can tell you!

They are shady salesmen

peddling panic.

Only I can fan the flames

to cool things down

and restore common sense!

I alone!

I know we all have to

work together, but only

I can restore sanity!

This genius will do it

and all will be well!

It's going to be

a blue Sunday in hell

and the flames will die down

they will be gone,

everything will be cool,

do you understand me?

The French have a saying,

"Merci beaucoup."

I think that means

mercy buckets

and there will be

plenty of mercy

buckets will dump

gallons of mercy on

us and it will be okay!

Calmness and okayness!

Calmess and okayness! - Jeff Barnes

The Afterlife Cafe

I remember

that the tabletops

were always white

as were the rounded

coffee mugs

and the sun

always shone brightly

through the window

that looked out onto

the street.

Each night

before I surrendered

myself to sleep

I looked forward

to meeting you there

again

until the time

amid a vista

of swirling galaxies

and white noise

I heard you whisper

a final goodbye

and I woke up

and stared

out the window

for the rest

of the moonless night. - Jeff Barnes