Mutuals

Forgive me, for I must admit my lack:

I do not have the patience. Not for this.

I'd love if you would only cut me slack

And cover what impatience makes me miss.

Oh, do not blame the phone! It did not force

My fingers to caress it, or my eyes

To dance over its surface. Yes, of course,

I was distracted, but the fault here lies

With me, not my distraction. I cannot

As I should, let my mind be settled here

But must explore my every waking thought

Online. And so I beg of you my dear

Forgive my fault, and try, love, to recall

You do the same too often after all.

John Leslie Breck (Exhibition at Figge)

There are some themes I can identify:

The grainstacks of Giverny, first of all,

Set in the open, backed by bluish sky;

The seasons, though not ever fully fall;

The open river, lined by leaning trees

That yearn to touch the water, but cannot,

Their limbs untouched by even mild breeze,

Their trunks too stable to imagine rot;

Beck in himself, a not-too-humble scene;

A dozen or so snowfalls, white with grey;

Most everything in blues and deeper green

Touched by the tendrils of the dawning day;

Most livelily, another painter's daughters

And drops of sunlight on the endless waters.

#January6thCommitteeHearing

It was a motherfucking coup

I really don't know what to say

If it seemed otherwise to you

Except that you are not okay.

We cannot let this bullshit pass

And still be a democracy;

The GOP showed its whole ass

Again on national TV.

That who was rioting, you know--

The right wing is their party base,

Their primaries this year will show

This stain is there--they can't erase

That they tried hard to break our state

A Grand Old Party, full of hate.

Actual Quarantine

Honestly the strangest part of all

Is how the quarantine feels like the past;

Like March two years ago, when what were small

Case rates seemed large, and we had not amassed

A range of options other than to sit

At home and hope the plague would pass us by.

Now we have more to do to ward off it

But once it hits, there's nothing left to try

Except the same old staying home. And now

We wait. There's nothing but the waiting.

And if there's something else, I don't know how

To find it. I just hate anticipating

The test that tells my future. So I wait

And as I wait, I feel my back teeth grate.