Wendy Grossman
Covid-19 Exquisite Facebook Collage Poems
3/16/20
sorry extroverts!
chuck d. might not
have known what
this world is
coming to but I do
I hope you’re prepared
there is a
crucial point missing
I’m trying to
understand how
800 people died
in italy yesterday
this “19” is
killing people even
if they are
not infected
there is so much
income being lost
right now by
so many people
we take
everything for granted
we were asked
to stay home and
we didn’t
soon, we will be
under 24 hour curfew
next comes martial law
so I gotta stay inside
once this
is over…
hopefully we’ll
remember our
spiritual equality, because
infections and
death numbers don’t
give a damn about
our economic status,
nationality or race
this corona virus will definitely kill racism
A cut-and-paste collage poem made up of excerpts from my friends’ status updates on Facebook. The contributors are Terri McKenzie, Ron Petty, Jr., Steph Sanchez, Linda Wood Gillis, Rodney Mason, Kelly Quinn, and Hakim Mutlaq.
3/22/20
hello God? are you there? it’s me, Jen
dear diary,
day 9 of pandemic
weepy today
feeling sad for
the world
my anxiety is
through the roof
this is not normal
every single
human being you
pass by
today is
fighting to find
peace and to
push back fear
to get through their
daily tasks
without breaking down
in the produce section or
in the carpool line or
at the
post office
we don’t know
what the
future holds
how are you
holding up
A cut-and-paste collage poem made up of excerpts from my friends’ status updates on Facebook. The contributors are Jennifer DeSisto, Beth Stanton Silva, Heather Parsons, Dale Edwyna Smith, Karen Oldham Kidd, Meg Sullivan.
3/25/20
social isolation from
still life
the death of convenience
access, ease
and freedom and
proximity as
we know it
question:
are we
still pre-apocalypse or
full blown apocalypse
america isn’t
set up to
let any
of us breathe
we can’t return to
normal
because the
normal that we had
was precisely
the problem
but I’m sure there
are so many more
factors its almost
impossible to
foresee them all
at least I get to
hear my daughter’s beautiful
singing voice
I have been preparing
my whole life for
a time such as this
A cut-and-paste collage poem made up of excerpts from my friends’ status updates on Facebook. The contributors are Joan Merwyn, Adrienne A. Wallace, Vatic Kuumba, Karen Oldham-Kidd, ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, Jennifer Elizabeth Iwasyk, Deb K. Mason
—Submitted on
Wendy Grossman‘s poems appear in Missing Providence: A Frequency Anthology (Frequency Writers, 2015), edited by Bed Williams. She is the author of the blog on race, Wendy Jane’s Soul Shake.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.