Distancing

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Canadian poet, COVID-19, Elaine Stirling, Malayan fixed verse, pandemic, pantoum, social distancing

~~a pantoum~~

the winds of rage are pushing us apart
my friend, I cannot see your face
the mask that keeps our friendship safe
is shredding past repair, for now

my friend I cannot see your face
without recalling something gentler
is shredding past repair for now
the distancing, it makes us strangers

without recalling something gentler
navigation goes to pot, I lose true north
the distancing, it makes us strangers
you need space, I need a quiet spot

navigation goes to pot, I lose true north
when I allow your wrath to penetrate;
you need space, I need a quiet spot
these viral times demand a lot of us

when I allow your wrath to penetrate
the mask that keeps our friendship safe
becomes grotesque, distorting truth
the winds of rage are pushing us apart.

~~~

The pantoum is a Malayan verse form that is sometimes compared with French forms like the villanelle and rondeau. But it’s not about meter or rhyme; the pantoum repeats lines in a twisty way, described best, imo, by Joyce Carol Oates:

“…a poetic form marvellously suited for conveying extreme states of mind—mania, paranoia, delusion. Writing a pantoum is quite an experience….felt each time as if I were descending into madness, and holding on only by way of a rigorous discipline—in itself a bit mad.”

Wishing you health and sweet moments of calm…

© Elaine Stirling, 2020
Image: “Slave ship”, painting by J.M.W. Turner

I Cross the Street When I See You Coming

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Canadian poet, coronavirus, COVID-19, Elaine Stirling, French medieval fixed verse, social distancing, villanelle

~~a viral villanelle~~

I cross the street when I see you coming
because I care that much, I let the tears
fall freely in the bitter wind, so not to touch

my face and long for yours. What’s overcoming
us feels hobnailed, forged of amniotic fears.
I cross the street when I see you coming.

March is nearly over. We’ll be sunning
soon on balconies alone, while Easter nears.
Fall freely in the bitter wind, so not to touch

the viral jokes that, underground, are running
like dank sewer fires. This might last for years!
I cross the street when I see you coming.

Fact is, I might leave you first. Outrunning
negativity’s a marathon that sears, adheres.
Fall freely in the bitter wind, so not to touch

what aggravates. Just let it pass. Cunning
and sweet humour unseats cranky cavaliers.
I cross the street when I see you coming,
fall freely in the bitter wind, so not to touch.

Stay well, friends!

© Elaine Stirling, 2020
Image from Fox9, photographer unknown.

The Clowns Are Staying Home Today

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Canadian poet, coronavirus, COVID-19, Elaine Stirling, isolation, medieval Spanish fixed verse, quarantine, seasonal poetry, sestina

The clowns are staying home today. The crowds
have paid their chits, the popcorn gal has learned
her bit, to shake and salt, the tent pole’s
rigged, I’ve polished all my epaulets,
but something small and mean,
gargantuan, has taken down our show.

The beast, let’s call him Ovid, starts to show
his claws and sticky coronet in crowds
whose throats just itch a bit. It doesn’t mean
a thing, the bigwigs say. Have you not learned
that crying wolf is in your head? Let’s
all stay rational. Set up the poles,

we’ll make a go of it! The poles
of left and right who love to show
how much they know will never say, let’s
get along. Conflict brings the crowds.
It’s our best selling point! We’ve learned
to milk, to squeeze the teats of mean.

As a barker, though, I do not mean
to rattle this strange circus, bring the poles
down on our heads. I haven’t learned
yet—have you?—how to navigate a no-show
of a billion tents with rumbling crowds
who’ve nowhere left to go. Let’s

sit with this a while, please. She who lets
the river calmly pass respects the mean
whose curve now shapes the crowds.
Our global weight is snapping poles
in two, four, six, eight. A primal show
is playing to us all, the simple and the learned.

Oh, the things we will have learned
when Gargantua has shat his last! Let’s
not forget who rules the inner show:
the human spirit, heart, who mean—
and ultimately do—well. Set up the poles,
sweet clowns. We’re expecting great crowds!

Author’s Note: This is a sestina, a medieval Spanish poetic form that uses a spiraling repetition of six end words to bring the reader through a vortex, and hopefully a new state of mind by the end.

May we all rise above this soon, and thrive!

© Elaine Stirling, 2020
The image comes from a 2014 blog entitled “Porque ríes, payaso?” Why do you laugh, clown? I don’t know the artist or the blogger’s name.

Viral Ides

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Canadian poet, coronavirus, COVID-19, Elaine Stirling, Ides of March, seasonal poetry, sonnet

Ides, strange ides today, we crowd as one, bugged,
we march in step, in place, nowhere to go,
can’t cross the seas, a need to be unplugged
and yet to know, I fear the sneeze, the blow.
How many weeks, you say, before the weak
can self-identify? How far is wise,
for when I think of you and thoughts turn bleak,
have I not compromised my own demise?
Immunity’s a pitchy thing, a shade
that darts, a ninja one cannot deploy
mid-storm, and yet, might there not be some made
and ready balm inside me to enjoy?
May sweet simplicity befriend us through
these weeks we learn to be instead of do.

© Elaine Stirling, 2020

Sending wishes of good health to all!