Songs of Pandemics and Wine
A Sampling of Verse
By Catalan Ghee
Persepex Brown
The hearse driver
nervous in the lights
Jumped the curb
and sheared off
The stately rose bush
At the entrance
to the manicured cemetery
pride of the little town
Lutherans on the right, Catholics left
A small triangular patch in the back
reserved for “other”
Was the final destination for Persepex Brown
A sharp inconvenience for the news vans
Two from the state capital
talk of the town
(As for Brown’s religious preferences
nobody seemed to know
Turned down flat by Becca Smith at 20
Brown resigned to a life of
bachelorhood
Parents gone
A sole surviving sister in Florida
with neither money nor patience
For a mid-western funeral
failed to return all calls)
“Old Pers,” as few called him,
mostly kept to himself
And mostly showed up on time to clerk
the hardware store
A mostly adequate employee
Suddenly flamed bright
as both
The first reported case
and first fatality
from COVID 19
In all of the five counties
No viewing for “Old Pers,”
no embalming even
He would go to his rest in his HAZMAT bag
sealed hermetically
In an otherwise practical coffin
The whole town showed
jostling for a better view while
Clucking about social distance
Only the sharp elbows of the photographers
kept them at bay
The hearse had barely stopped
When a short round fellow
with a porcine face
Burst before the cameras
“They got it wrong, they got it wrong!”
he bellowed
“The medical examiner has mixed
the records
This is the wrong Brown!
COVID Brown is a young farmer
two counties over
Who has
unfortunately
Fully recovered after a mild illness
‘Old Pers’ here died of pneumonia
brought on by the
plain old flu.”
A collective groan
Lights off, mics boxed
the vans were off in minutes
Pastor Bob alone remained
Bible in hand
Lamenting the passage
Of a slightly above average and really
fairly decent man.
All glory is fleeting
Even in death
….. especially in death
A Cake for the End of Days
What might you think
Will be your last act
on Earth?
A wheeze into a respirator?
Perhaps to drop, stone-like, mid-line
crafting
One last mediocre couplet?
Or to bake a cake?
A new delicate twist
on an ancient recipe
Not some nouveau experiment
With tar-pit texture
Flavored of kale and quinoa
Crunched with shards of mammoth tusk
No
Just a different variety of apple
than dictated
Perhaps a hint of cardamom
or allspice
Light, airy, subtle
Befitting your final day
cut down while positioning the cooling racks
By the phage-of-the-month club
Or a light plane
stalling out just a mile short of the runway
Or some nebulous genetic deficiency
not yet know to science
Light, airy, subtle
You hope this cake is served
As Saint Peter’s interview awaits
at the end of a very long line
Where prospects, if memory serves,
may not be the best
With luck
they might serve seconds
COVID 19 Primer Number 11
Arguing Causality Against
Grand Gaianists Takes
Alphabetic Consonance Glibly
Transmitted To Arching
Antagonists Through Alliterative
Gustatory Typological Tactics
Alarmingly Articulated Toward
Aggrandizing Gloriously Clothed
Golden Temptresses
The Sea Monster
They measure her decking in acres
The holding cells in feet.
Carvings out of carvings out of the great beast
Carving through the sea.
Drizzle goes to pelting rain
No ice-rhyme in these latitudes
No need to pray for wind to break the doldrums
The beast, fired inside,
Outwits the spluttering typhoon.
But now, much later
Is that not the great beast
Guarded at anchor?
Struck crippled, a floating prison box?
Laid low by a speck of a thing,
One millionth of a single cell.
A witless thing,
No typhoon
One millionth of a single cell.
Fearful Treatises
I sing thee fearful treatises
Afore my brow
thou tremblest
Clinging
to the spineless dark
Invertebrated in your
tide-pooled capacity.
Whimper
Whimper if you will
embracing the terror of all unseen things.
Poisons, toxins, phages, mycelia,
nuclides
Electrons can kill you
Electrons will kill you
(Protons? Don’t even get me started
on protons!)
The binarity of fight or flight
admits no nuance
No quantification
No paused consideration.
Flight it is.
Fear the unseen world?
It’s necareous embrace
engulfing from all angles
Twists and tangles in your eyes
and lungs
and ears
and ghoulish viscera
And all your good deeds?
A single mote aflutter in a
whispered breeze
Devoid of weight and scarce of mass
Unregistered on the cosmic scales
Go now! Cower
Cower in the damp and dark
Cloaked in invisible things
Cower in your dank cellar,
Stacked to the rafters with
oat milk and toilet paper
Fight or flight, say I.
Fight or flight rings from these
fearful treatises
“Yes, I think we’ll go with flight, professor.”
The nodding young woman grabbed her
yap-jawed boyfriend
And ever so carefully
pulled closed the door to the
Lecture hall
behind them
By Catalan Ghee
From Songs of Pandemics and Wine