A Room of My Own: Unmasked Hellos and Laughter Tanka

Three Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Entry,  Coronavirus Poetry Diary

written for Peter York who claims, "One should never learn from one's mistakes. Making the same mistakes, over and over again, is a source of unremitting pleasure. "

unmasked hellos

and laughter at the mall  ...

I click off the news

and doomsurf

with my drunken shadow

FYI: The Tyee, March 18: It’s Not Over. Experts Warn of New COVID Wave: A variant and fading vaccine protection could bring a rise in cases in April. And Mint, March 22: Stealth Omicron BA.2 spreading fast globally.

Added: Three Hundred and Twenty-Sixth Entry

sticker shock

at the grocery store

deafness

like stealth omicron passing

among unmasked politicians

Added: This Brave New World, XXXXI

Caribbean tour ...

a boy lacing his fingers

through the holes

in the chain-link fence

between pickets and royals

FYI: Time, March 24: Prince William and Kate's Tour Was Meant to Secure the Monarchy in the Caribbean. Instead, It's Raising New Questions About Its Future.

The news arrived at a difficult moment for the royals. The day before the couple’s arrival in the country, one hundred Jamaican academics, politicians, and cultural figures signed an open letter calling for the royal family and British government to apologize and pay reparations for subjecting the island to colonial rule and slavery.

The letter’s consignatories describe Prince William and Kate as “direct beneficiaries of the wealth accumulated by the royal family…from the trafficking and enslavement of Africans”. In reference to the Queen’s Jubilee, the letter reads: “We see no reason to celebrate 70 years of the ascension of your grandmother to the British throne because her leadership, and that of her predecessors, has perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind.”

“Slavery was abhorrent and it never should have happened,” he said. “I strongly agree with my father, the Prince of Wales [Great Talker and Little Doer], who said in Barbados last year that the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history.”