Best Alarums Poems
How much lower could I go?
How much more could I take?
Hadn't I had my fill,
my share
more than my share?
And you held my head underneath
the water in the wooden trough
you, gestapo god
and by christ
you did not let me
come up for air.
You willed me to be a new thing
an aquatic creature
gilled and with a cold cold heart
through which beat the freon
that was the inguement of your
universe.
You left me for dead in the trough
this new terrible thing
neither human nor emboweled
with a soul of its own.
You didn't have the decency
to leave me in a goodly sized pool
in which I could stretch my fins '˜n
flippers and relax a moment
and glom sleek-bottomed
tadpoles metamorphosing
into another kind of life --
Amphibian....
We're just another
fire alarm for you, ain't we
tripping off warnings of the coming
apocalypse --
I hear many bells and alarums
all over the world --
you took my sight,
and my speech
but you left me hearing
goddamnit
and a watery
life in death
set to a soundtrack
filled with music that's
little better than buzz saw
noise
from a new
generation
I can understand
only too well -
The Damned.
Amphibians.
Now is the summer of our troppo paradise
Made sullen winter by this pretty virus;
And all the sun that shone upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with funeral wreaths;
Our bronzed arms hung up for effigies;
Our happy discourse changed to boring meetings,
Our merry dance to funeral march.
Soothing peace transforms to grim-visaged war;
And now, instead of gentle flirting in shady ways,
To please the souls of friendly watchers,
We mount barbed steeds, to the alarums of
Call to war, ‘gainst hidden foes.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this trumpet sounded time of pestilence,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To condemn these frightening days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And fan the evil dangers of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set Politicians and the Common man
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if Parliament be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should COVID-19 closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that 'C'
Of Nature’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
COVID-19 comes.
Tread not on me, brother!
To live is to expand.
Deterrence! Slay the Other!
Cold core countermand!
Boots a-click-clack, cobblestone.
Midnight raid and how!
Help the boy to hold his own!
Sacred, O my cow!
Written in the ancient s blood?
Time to cause a flood!
Rill and river, ricin, rud!
Break, fade, flash, firewood!
Bats before the bayonets?
Batons too can kill.
Settle in before she sets?
Providence, thy will.
Wild as any modern force?
Stranger than the sea?
Shift, O river, from thy course?
Not the likes of me!
Covert action! Civilize!
Cut them down to size!
Aim for whites of foemen eyes!
Dare to criticize?
Thunder, roll o'er city street!
Alarums to ring!
Riot team, best ye complete!
Jerk them on the string!
Silent aftermath, thy path.
Kingdom, how ye grew.
Pour out poison on the math!
Hope, need talking to...