This pair of poems – two faces of response to the pandemic we are living through – has just been published in Mensicus literary journal. https://www.meniscus.org.au/Vol8Iss1.pdf. Thanks to Jen Webb and Shane Strange.

Pandemic Moods

1.      Anxiety

clutches               like a virus

at surfaces         the warm vulnerability

of membranes                               it hangs

heavy in air

droplets of contagion     impossible

to see   chasing at shadows

              filling my time   frantic

with the wrong things

or maybe the wrong things         I can’t

tell         presentiments of doom

weigh on me                    a vice that grips

like a headache

something is proliferating          

a wild cacophony            pounding

at the fragile borders of this body

                             seeking its own path

trying to get in

2. Compassion     

is a tall tree

a searching filigree of roots              a steadiness that

reaches               risky      into changeable air         while

leaves   like open palms       signal

to a restless world

I see you

and it’s possible to

rest here            a short time

in the deep pulse            and dance of      shadow

grass     sweet    with summer rain

under the arch of my arms

this        flickering            cathedral of green