Saturday, September 18, 2021

A Room of My Own: Snap Pandemic Election

Two Hundred and Sixty-Third Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

six feet apart
and their minds miles away 
from each other
five smiling party leaders
shout, get your shot

question after question
answered with talking points
my parrot babbles
in the unseasonal heat
we'reallthistogether 

thumbs up
from the photogenic PM
forward, for everyone --
a masked gig worker 
gives him the finger

nightly barks
penetrate the thin wall
of my room
build back better blasting
from my neighbor's tv

same old, same old?
I stare in the mirror
on election eve
wondering if I can flatten
the curve of my pot belly

campaign signs
along a winding stretch
of highway
on election night
I sink deep into the couch

FYI: Pandemic federal election campaign produces little enthusiasm for any party, The Canadian Press, September 18

A campaign that started with anger over Justin Trudeau's decision to call an election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is ending amid anger over conservative premiers' handling of the health crisis...

When Trudeau pulled the plug on his minority government on Aug. 15, he tried to frame the ballot question as: Who do you want to finish the fight against COVID-19 and lead the country into a robust, greener, more inclusive recovery?

"I think many of us misread what was an optimistic country in terms of where we're going, the vaccines and everything, and we just mistook what was a really grumpy, anxious, kind of tired electorate that had no real desire at all to have an election," says pollster David Coletto, chief executive at Abacus Data...


Added: Two Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Entry

wave upon wave
of new covid variants ...
my world shrinks
to the size of a friend's garage
doubling as my bedroom

1 comment:

  1. I just added one more election tanka to "conclude" the sequence, Snap Pandemic Election:

    campaign signs
    along a winding stretch
    of highway
    on election night
    I sink deep into the couch

    ReplyDelete