H5N1


Take me out
Take me now
I'm walking home with both hands full
A canopy of pregnant clouds sprawled out above me
Lit seemingly from within
Night came too soon tonight
I think it's too light
For magic to happen
But the air seems right
And I march on to my apartment singing under my breath
A tune that withers in the still air
No paths to lead me where I'm going
Just the yellow look of death
In car windows reflecting the sky
The stuffed gutters,
Heat bubbling up from worlds beneath the city
And the few who do tumble around these streets laughing
Who'll sleep restfully in their beds
Won't ever awake to see this sight
That I alone take in.

I live on the fringes
Funny but I may be the first to wish to go,
And the last to catch the pandemic they predict
To hit the cities like an atomic bomb
And kill millions who serve each day in some impactful way
By taking your movie tickets, or salting slugs
Or trying to determine if you're the people we hate
At the airport terminals
And I, terminally minded, will be confined
To a place far out of the way, locked in my room
Never eating anything or drinking
But purified water, scared to die unknown
Feuding with a wife and a daughter
And an absent father
I should be "case 0" with all its stigma in tow
But I know,
I will be among the last to go
And I will see people fall before me
Good people, who never asked the Poet's question
And those I never knew, but would have liked
Who had an escape from each situation
Trapped mentally or physically they found a way
To slip their knots and swim away
They will liquefy inside
And collapse in the madness
And be dragged away

There were pasts we could sprawl on a queen bed
Engrossed in a novel
Dream about a future land
Human colonies of survival, but unplanned
This pandemic struck before the governments of the
Sane nations of the world could understand
Because no one plans anything
They just react to what is bad

Pandemic
I want to feel pain
Be deprived of food and water
All bodily needs, feel the lightening of spirit
That perversely accompanies disaster
I want to lose my brain, and let
The questions melt to rainwater forever after
I have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion
But I have never touched or photographed them
I have lived under a sky which growls and then purrs
But never held it in my arms
I have conjured the worst of my enemies
Archdevils, spirits of restless men, animated death
I have written of my travels from dawn to dusk,
Evil to good, green life to death
But I have never been granted that last breath
Accuse me of cowardice
There is no shame, I stand accused
I cling to life with genetic resolve, a pity
Solving absolutely nothing but to search for one
Who could spread my genes
By spreading her jeans
Give birth to another "first one"
I think the Anasazi were correct:
We were here first, but "we" were not who we are today
Their root-headed gods still circle my sky
And inhabit my veins
With the vision leaving my eyes
And I have always been the worst one

H5N1
At last, perhaps, you are the one
My princess charming, my salvation and my tragic ending
Wrapped into one
The only person I would have renewed myself for spurned me
And never earned me
I just hope that she stays free from the scrum
Escapes to the beautiful Banff rivers
Paws her way like the survivor she is
Up into safe self-sufficient towns
Rides out the tragedy, like an asteroid from space
Takes her place among the new generation
With her mind so relevant, her body so young
I've stopped coming up with reasons for renewal
Or plans for simple survival
They don't work anyway and I just want to see the sun again
Rise over the majestic hills off Sonoma Highway
The most beautiful place in the whole world
Maybe Noah's building his boat again
And my kind are about to be packed off and sent to hell
Pandemics serve to strip the populace
Of weaklings like me with all their eggs in one basket
Benefits the world by killing human beings who think too much
Reduces the burden on the planet ecologically
And snuffs out fantasy where it has started to green.