poem Archives - Pandemic Magazine

Breathe Out

Pandemic — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:19:20 +0000

Written by Margaret Price

Holding power is
Just like holding breath:
Too long and we all die.

Margaret Price is a mother, lawyer, and occasional scribbler.

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Coronavirus by 2022

Pandemic — Tue, 17 May 2022 15:04:50 +0000

Written By Lauri Cherian

990,000 deaths
In the USA
They all mattered
Someone’s best friend, lover, parent, sibling, child
Lost to this world
Passed to another
A goodbye whispered through radio waves
Traveling at the speed of light
Electromagnetic waves from a painful distance
To a heart that is breaking
Wanting to say so much
When it comes down to so little
“I love you…”

Lauri Cherian has been an educator of English as a Second Language for 25 years. She enjoys acting in community theater and writing short stories and poetry. Her poem, Courage (2021), dedicated to health care workers during the pandemic, won honorable mention at the Texas Mental Health Creative Arts Contest.

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With the Band

Pandemic — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 18:53:06 +0000

Written by Margaret Price

One bar, or two, or maybe even three.
You sit and beat on barstools keeping time
To jazz or blues or even bad Bad Company
Drink beer and smile to say: “I’m here. I’m fine.”

“My boyfriend’s there. The drummer with the band.”
That charm you use to keep lost souls at bay.
Most times it works, but still will they demand
Concession that the world still spins their way?

Unwelcome? Yes! And almost never meant.
Be gracious, girl, it’s just a compliment.

Margaret Price is a mother, lawyer, and occasional scribbler.

The post With the Band appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.

Heat, transferring

Pandemic — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:01:56 +0000

Written by Tamiko Dooley

She peeks in the window.

He’s busy; surrounded by colourful bricks.
Inside it’s warm, and the fire keeps out the
Cold January frost.

He spots her and beams –
And rushes to the pane.
He knows by now he can’t dash to the door.

Two hands meet on the glass –
Hers: shrivelled, wrinkly and well-worn
The hand that fed, clothed and bathed me;
His: chubby and pen-stained, still
Alternately clinging to my legs and pounding the floor in frustration.

For a moment the world stops,
And these two souls, two sides of me
Collide. Gently.
She tells him silently
How much she misses him,
And he does the same.

The icy glass begins to warm under their palms
Until it’s time for her to leave,
To stay safe,

To stay apart.

Long after she’s gone,
The handprint remains there,
As warm and comforting as the promise of Spring
And brighter times to come.

Tamiko is a half-Japanese mother of two, born and brought up in England. She speaks several languages. When there’s no pandemic, she’s hired as a wedding pianist from time to time.

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What Would A Technecracy Look Like?

Pandemic — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 15:44:28 +0000

Written by Sybrand Veeger and Jonas Guigonnat

Sybrand:

There is something romantic about an etymological voyage,
Something utopically revealing –
The feeling is akin to tracing back your genealogical roots:
Familiarizing yourself with familiarity,
Fathoming alternative familiarities:
Unearthing roots
To imagine trees.

Let me share a genealogical log with you:

This time Heidegger was my guide,
That German Virgil of meaning –
We sailed down into the etymological piths of technology,
That timeliest of concepts.

Currently, he said while descending,
Techno means something radically different from its Greek root:
Techne signifies something other than
Instrumental manipulation,
The obsession with means,
The encasing and concealment of nature.

Techne, rather, is not opposed to nature –
The craftsman, artisan, manufacturer,
Akin to the poet and the painter,
Brings forth a creation,
And, like nature’s disclosure of light,
The technecrat reveals,
un-conceals.

From this root, I imagine a tree,
I utopize:
What would a technecracy look like?

Jonas:

What would it be?
A possibility
A rhetoric answer to the didactic –
What would hell look like?
A travel through the world of words,
Might not be worth the bet:

Forgotten corners
Of human abysses.

It is now my turn to share something with you:

This time is not different than any other,
Chaos shall be our only friend –
Time and words are no sea to be sailed on,
For near those places there are no grounds to be found.

Mistakingly, heading toward nowhere,
Techno means the same as any other word:
Techne suggests the dream of
Human’s manipulation,
The creation of means,
The enchaining and impairment of nature.

Techne, then, becoming an arm of nature –
The charlatan, conman, mindreader,
Attached to the same fear that drives the righteous one,
Brings forth an illusion,
And, similar to nature’s inexistent logic,
The technecrat steals,
Mis-reveals

From this abyss, I shall see no tree,
I temporize:
What could a technocracy look like?

Sybrand:

Surely, from the hellish wells of history,
From the depths of human chaos,
At least one meaningful bucket can be drawn,
To pour upon ourselves,
To awaken us from present drowsiness?
To quench our thirst for hope?

Techne – that hellenic understanding of technology,
Reinvigorates our relationship with Gaia:

Re-embedded in the natural,
Technological production
Mutates into technelogical creation:

Re-embedded in the natural,
Productivity re-evolves into an essential craftsmanship,

Re-embedded in the natural,
Power as coercion becomes
Power as potential:
Common statecraft replaces
Distant democratic delegation,

Desperately in need of reinterpretation,
Let’s unearth the roots of our technological foundation,
To give birth to an earthlier sense of future procreation.

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