The Plague Diaries and the Annals of the New Utopia (IFT)

[merelynn]

For your plague/new utopia soundtrack:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxT_H9j-UV4

Cheers!

[Dunc]

Hi Brian

I can see both of your images, but that may be because you'd already tweaked them.

A great April to you!

Regards / Dunc

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

The Secret Language (向日葵) (from the Annals of the New Utopia)



Sunflowers that bloom
in Hokkaido
are called "himawari"
in Japanese.

The sunflower inside you
also has a name.
Have you gazed on that flower?
Have you learned

its secret language?

---

BrianIs AtYou

------------------------------------------------------
(Revised version)

Sunflowers bloom
in Hokkaido—
“himawari”
in Japanese.

The sunflower inside you
also has a name.
Have you gazed on that flower?
Have you learned

its secret language?

[shaula]

Wonderful start, Brian.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

I. Naïve



The Plague Days did not start
in the ordinary way.
There was no eclipse—no comet
reigning in the sky.
No one had read my palm,
or checked the bumps on my head,
as in the olden days—
we have brand new charlatans
in The Plague Days,
spreading brand new, modern lies—
you know the drill.

It was a Friday, a month or more ago,
when I first had intimations
that something was terribly wrong.
I was rushing up to Mom's,
and, in my haste, I forgot
my laptop, my iPhone charger,
and more—
you know the drill.
 
The Dow was tanking—not to mention
the S&P—so much so, in fact,
that it would soon become
Standard to be Poor,
except for Senators with inside information
on coronavirus.
You know the drill.

Amid the sober reports of sick and dead—
and how best to avoid either
with social distancing—
we saw folks, like disgraced televangelist
Jim Bakker, hawking colloidal silver,
and others posting nonsense
about radio waves, radar, and 5G,
putting people at risk
with dubious claims and misinformation.
You know the drill.

Others took a more direct approach—
an NBA player, Rudy Gobert, of the Utah Jazz,
touched every mic at a news conference
before testing positive. And then his whole team
was tested, and other teams.
The Utah Jazz, stuck in Oklahoma,
used up more than half the entire supply
of daily test kits in the state.
You know the drill.

In the side margin, years later,
when the New Utopia is in full bloom, I write,
“How naïve we were.
In the days to come, our daily dose of lies
and confusion doubled—then tripled—
and we kept asking—pleading—
for more reasons to ignore the evidence.
Now, the time before seems like another era,
and I try to remember if the films they had
were talkies—they couldn’t be, could they?—
the meme archives are all captioned—
even the ones with cats.”
You know the drill.

---

BrianIs AtYou

[prokopton]

Strong start Brian,
chronicling the demise of the Empire
in situ, no less!
Be Brave. Stay calm. Wait for the signs.


G.

[5th column]

Y’know, I was kinda meh, at the beginning but by the end (other than I think this will only serve to cement disparity between wealthy and not so), you were hitting the nails on the head with force. The repetition is like the sound of the proverbial drill. Which brings to mind the phrase “Is it safe?”

[Jee Leong]

The refrain is a very effective tragic chorus.

[lauriene]

It's a very inspiring time in history for poets. I really enjoyed this engaging piece.

(still can't believe that people's surivival skills told them to hoard toilet paper!)

Great first!

[Barbara Jean]

Love the ref to the charlatans of the past.

[Scrow]

Hi,

The Secret Language - beautiful, hopeful - one to stick on the wall and send to people who are feeling lost. I also like the picture

Naive - vast, great, spoken word protest - and the ending, looking at our current productions with an archeological eye - clever without being clever-clever - it works for me that you charted the narrative in an immediate way rather than starting with the archeological things as a premise. I'd love to hear it read out loud.

Onwards!

Sarah

[Barbara Jean]

Bright, sunny first Napo poem. My fav. Flower.

[drumpf]

The Secret Language scares me. I'm not going to read it again. My sunflower is probably filled with cab gas and dog barks. Good start.