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Half Mast~ By Jean Varda

4/22/2020

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My friend thinks we should lower the flag to half mast
as the death toll rises and the country shuts down in preparation
for the pandemic. Fear and anxiety are ramped up social distance has isolated us in our homes
the air is not safe to breathe
everyone is losing their jobs and those that aren’t are faced
with the massive burden of picking up the slack.
Almost all in my family have either lost their jobs or had the
hours cut back, we are entering a recession.
Wall Street is shaking in its boots, the President is shitting
his pants, there aren’t enough ventilators to stock the
hospitals and in Italy they are holding funeral masses for the dead.
China is arresting people for wearing masks and locking them
in their homes for going out, why are our flags not at half-mast?
Homeless people have never had it so good with new shelters
going up more bathrooms and gallons of hand sanitizer.
All the schools have closed and children are lining up for free
lunches outside to maintain social distance, these are dark times
dystopian apocalyptic times, times we were warned about.



Author Bio:
Jean Varda gave her first poetry reading at Stone Soup Gallery in Boston, Mass. where a few New York beat poets were showing up. This was followed by performances on street corners and prisons with her mentor, Story teller Brother Blue. Then she joined Cloud House in San Francisco and poet Kush, who is known to have the largest collection of San Francisco beat poets on film. She has self published six chap books of her poetry, establishing Sacred Feather Press. She started four open mikes, taught poetry writing workshops, has been published in numerous small press journals and was nominated for a pushcart prize.
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