pandemic

Creation Story

Let there be lines, he said.  Let there be vectors, plots and graphs.  He skipped pebbles over the pool of his mind as he devised a plan made up completely of endings.

Let there be angles troubled by twists and turns.  Let forward and backward be arbitrary, just a dubious arrangement of flotsam and blitz.  Let there be clues and traces, but no solution.

Let shapes enter forms that echo shadows cast by ladders to nowhere.  Let uncertaintly be vexed by avoidance and puzzled by what arrives after.  Let eons come before next.

Let all the signs hint at comprehension while remaining unspelled.  Not either/or but henceforth.  And inasmuch as.

clueless
this world
without a prayer

Brendan at earthweal has asked us to describe the unsayable nature of the pandemic we are still fighting our way through.

410,336

piles of names,
ghosts–absent empty
erased gone

erased, gone–
we can’t remember
comprehend

comprehend
them—we are finite
thinkers, minds

thinkers, minds
too crammed with daily
survival

survival–
and yet why is it
no one asks

no one asks
us to stop listen
a moment

a moment–
so many voices
now silent

now silent—
is it too much of
a burden

a burden
to carry them here
alongside

alongside
the living—hold them,
take them in

take them in–
mourn–no longer just
piles of names

For Frank Tassone’s haikai challenge #174 justice.

Art from my Metropolis post last May amidst the height of the NYC pandemic, when much of the rest of the country thought it was our fault, and would stay here. It was a relief to see our President ask us to remember all of those who have been lost–not just in NYC, but from every corner of the United States and also the world.

Headline Haiku: Metropolis

metropolis s

Inspired by Phil Gomm’s “Metropolis” prompt, I’ve revived Headline Haiku for a New York pandemic collage.  I originally did a series of these current event newspaper artworks on methodtwomadness, the blog I do with Nina (who is on an extended break), but I haven’t done one in a long time.

shutdown s

It also fits my current supply situation–most everything I own is in storage, and I do not have many collage materials in my temporary apartment.  But I do get the NY Times delivered, and I cut them up for what I’m working on as needed.

stopped s

I took two of the obituary pages from last Sunday’s paper and collaged it with images and headline haiku collected from the last month’s papers.

body bags s(read the story accompanying this headline here)

My city is hurting.  It’s uncertain when anything will return and what form it will take.

essential s

But the lifeblood of the city is its people, and something will always grow and thrive among them.

remixed s

I spent my childhood in Ohio and Maryland but I never put roots down in either place.  NYC is my hometown.  And aside from one apartment, I’ve always lived and worked either on, or within walking distance, of Broadway.

For the last 10 years, I’ve been able to walk to Yankee Stadium from my residences…and many’s the time I’ve started home to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra after a game.

New York has been a city of immigrants for its entire existence.  And it will continue to draw strength from its diversity as it comes back to life.

New York, New York…a metropolis in which to imagine a new world.