can u hear me hear u
have u heard of mindfulness meditation? it’s a new religion
for the body/sensory dead 21st century humans learning to:
see smell taste touch +hear with alacrity
with slow ness
with numinosity
with a pinprick of passion
these folks are the living dead not exactly zombies (they were once alive)
no these drones are dead to frissonosity made dead by: tech meets fame
meets social media (+now distancing)
so how will anyone know they’re alive post-covid? when taste+smell loss are
not signals of an impending mortuary visit let’s face it if u have to suck on
a fig for 10 minutes to know the ambrosial u might as well start digging your
own grave
all work+no play make the modern human a dullwitted void this has never
been my issue quite the opposite poets see purple in fig-ecstacy smell
earth at 30 below now masked even the smile is an autopilot reminder of
the deadness in alive
post-covid survivors will return to smiling vacantly at every tom dick +hairy
while millions of dead will have sewn-on smiles like the ones on some people’s
masks +we will remember the days when we woke up screaming
__
How the noises stopped. And so did the terror. It was ended. But the
memory doesn’t end. It stays, hovering on the edge of consciousness
where the beasts with onion heads may still be waiting. (Al Purdy 1993)
Winter 2021
songanddancegirl 