QUARANTINE POEMS
Paul Klemperer (c) 2020
He watched the insects in their short-lived dance
Their measured allotment of energy
Which gave them just enough time
To eat, to mate, to situate,
Then die.
How absurd, he mused,
Stretching with the equanimity of age.
Then he looked up at the stars
The Big Dipper, that Drinking Gourd
Not eternal, but more eternal perhaps
Than all of humankind’s allotment of energy and time.
Another day done, he went inside, looked in the mirror,
And wept.
Lead us, they cried.
I will be your voice, he intoned.
Confidently he took their words
And made them his own.
He took his turn at the wheel of government and
While his fortunes accrued,
The ball eventually dropped.
You betrayed us, they cried.
Mistakes were made, his lawyer replied.
Flurries of motion, passage of time and
Another leader faded from sight.
In a string of strange days
I run through the maze
Forward, forward through the haze
That seems to be the plan
Yet I hear voices across the span
Am I mouse or am I man?
This is an experiment, I reassure myself,
I trust.
There are scientists in charge, I think
At some level.
We are moving forward, together
Quantifying the cumulative effects of
Our collective socially directed action.
Something good will come from this,
I trust.
Blocks of valuable data will be crunched
From the endless repetitive days and lonely nights
All the individual sacrifices will feed into
A collective benefit,
I trust.
I run the maze, and meet the distant gaze
Of others
Do I see a question or an answer in their eyes?
I want to stop, to get close, to ask:
Is there cheese?
Roses are red, violets are blue
I’m going crazy, how about you?
Roses are red, dandelions yellow
I used to be quite a positive fellow.
The beautiful rose can hurt to the touch
If nothing else I have learned that much
Roses will fade and plans that are made
May wither and die on the vine
Some fruit will rot, that’s just our lot
While others mature into wine.
I used to laugh when some friend or other
Mistook a story for a memory.
That funny dream you had,
The antics of that crazy friend,
Some anecdote of wild youth,
Or brilliant late-night notion,
Seemed too familiar and
Was just a movie, a TV show,
Filtered through the chatter of
Your subconscious.
I used to laugh
But now these misrememberings
Are the high point of my day.
On the telephone, as I relate my progress
Am I sharing precious moments
Or just highlights from last night’s shows?
And does it really matter, real or fantasy
As long as it may have happened in the world
To someone?