Different Slants

by Robert M Katzman © April 1, 2020 (rewritten 2/27/23)

(Dedicated to a truly good and noble person, Bill Skeens, who inspired this poem)

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Desolation and Isolation

Staring through a window

From a quiet dim kitchen

Stocked with food against the abyss

I see the shining steel fan spinning

I see the cedar swing moving

In the cold spring wind

I see the red brick fireplace 

Black with charred dead embers

Surrounded by logs and branches

But empty of the warmth of fire

I do so miss the people

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Monday through Friday

At 8:15 am and 3:15 pm

In my little Wisconsin town

The quiet street in front of my home

Across from a buzzing middle-school

The road would be awash with 

Impatient parents and joyous children

Freed from educational jail

Free to play with their friends

No one saw the

Invisible Poison Army

Rolling in over the Horizon

A Deadly Virus on the March

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Demetrious walking his dog

Stopping to talk with me

As I tended to my memorial garden

To my evaporated wife Joy

I wonder if she sits on the porch chair

Watching me

Remembering her

Are we invisible to each other?

Like all the children and their parents 

Are invisible to me now?

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Sometimes I walk around nearby blocks

Picking up fallen branches from the street

Maybe Ill make another fire

Someday

There is no one to wave to

No cars drive by

The cool wind whistling in my ears

Is the only sound I have with me

No one saw the

Invisible Poison Army

Rolling in over the Horizon

A Deadly Virus on the March

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I read my old books

Watch my old movies

Listen to old music

Surrounded by a museum

Of happier faces in happier times

I think about my faraway children

Frightened about when & how long?

 Until they can work again

Think of my faraway grandchildren

Making their besieged parents crazy

I call my friends

Friends call me

We cannot hold each other

We cannot comfort each other

This time

Touch

Is the essential

Missing Medicine

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Too late for me to be a soldier

Defending against the unseeable

Arthritis reminding me 

Too late to be a soldier

To forget fantasies of glory

Of saving my poor country

Three hundred million

Guns in America

All the chambers empty

Of a Silver Bullet of a cure

What can we possibly use

As ammunition?

*************************

The radio goes on and on

Reporters reporting

Sheltered in their homes

Pretending they’re safe

Refrigerated trucks in New York City

Dead bodies piling up like cold logs

The old people dying

The doctors dying

The famous dying

The homeless dying

Tens of thousands of people dying

All across the globe

Numbers too numbing to comprehend

No one saw the

Invisible Poison Army

Rolling in over the Horizon

A Deadly Virus on the March

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An old fairy tale in a Bible

Told a story of an oppressed People

Desperate to be free of a tyrant

Defenseless against his armies

Praying to their God to save them

Praying to an invisible force

A concept only they believed in

To save them from an earthly one

Who would be the stronger?

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The story goes a Messenger Angel 

Appeared to and told their leader

To tell the captive People

To kill a lamb and spread its

 Blood across their doorposts

So the next night

When the fiery and unmerciless

Angel of Death came

Searing across the black skies

He would see the lambs’ blood 

On each home’s doorposts

And pass over those homes

But kill the firstborn 

In all others’ homes 

Rich or poor

Strong or weak

And this horrifying act

Freed those captive People

Thousands of years ago

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I am a descendent of those People

Fairy tale or not

We have spread all across the Earth

Some in every country

We remain few in number 

But we endure through Time

And each Spring we celebrate 

This Ancient Biblical story

Jews call it Passover

Rich in complicated customs 

Meant to educate the children

About who they are

And where they came from

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I don’t need this to be true

I can believe in my God

Without deadly fairy tales

Of red lamb’s blood

Dripping on wooden doorposts

Of an angry Angel

Slaughtering children

But a mortal writer can pray

A mortal writer

 Perhaps with soulful hands 

Can write prayers

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So this I beseech Thee:

Creator of the Universe

Symbol of all that is good

And fair and beautiful

Even though now 

Everyone knows

No one saw the

Invisible Poison Army

Rolling in over the Horizon

A Deadly Virus on the March

Can You make it Passover

One more time?

But this time, God

Save everyone?

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