covid19 – TOpoet

Clean Enough

May 16, 2023 topoet1 Comment

Clean Enough

holding water

in hands

that have enough trouble

holding on

somedays

hands washed more & more

with the harsh soap of fear

what did I touch last

who did I touch last

who did they touch last

when did they

last wash their hands

can we make a quick stop

at the sanitizer station

you cannot hold

the water

with those hands

until they have been

approved

by the state

that holds us all hostage

to their needs

and our fears

of not being clean enough

to meet

the approval of cameras

cameras set up over every sink

every sanitizing stations

these hands

cannot hold enough sanitizer

to make the risk of touching

worth while

Perhaps you can tell this was written during the thick of the pandemic here in Toronto. Hand sanitizers stations had shown up in the subway, at the entrance to stores, bottles of it were on restaurant tables, in washrooms, people carried sanitizer in their cars, purses, knapsacks. Elbows touching took the place of handshakes. Hugging was forbidden. Everyone was a threat. ‘Don’t breathe in my direction.’

I didn’t resist the various restrictions on masking, social distancing. I didn’t my rights as an individual were being compromised by these in anyway. Sides were drawn though & you know, the truth is, I didn’t contract covid. I know many did, many died. I still mask when shopping, when travelling on transit & going to live theatre.

In this piece I push the paranoia a little further than it went, at least here in Canada. Cameras were not setup to make sure we were using those sanitizers, I don’t think anyone was arrested or even fined for being unmasked or for standing too close together. I know in other nations this was happening. There was lots of lots of griping, protests, but such is life. The government can’t make everyone happy.

The economy dipped, air quality improved, life went on, for the survivors. Interesting discoveries were made – remote working works well; investing in pharmaceutical companies is more secure than investing in gold. We may even be ready for the next deadly virus wave, & there will be one.

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Best Friends

February 7, 2023 topoetLeave a comment

Best Friends

text comes

I see the number

not a name

which means

it’s some guy I know

but who hasn’t been

in contact for nearly a year

I’m like that

I restrict the list of saved numbers

to those I hear from

or want to hear from

how are you

I don’t ask

who is this

I don’t really care

I’m mildly curious though

I enjoy the mystery

after few texts

I think I recognize him

by the use of language

he’s feeling melancholy

bored

with the lockdown

I say we all are

we’ll get through it eventually

he wants to visit me

I say we might meet

when social distancing is less critical

he agrees

but misses seeing me

I say

you’re sweet

he says

you’re my best friend

I don’t reply

there nothing left to say

to someone

who gets in touch

after a year of a pandemic

with their best friend

because they are bored

and me

that best friend

isn’t sure who they are

I still have a flip-phone. It has limited memory so I keep it as clear of extraneous stuff as possible. No backlog of photos, texts, or phone numbers – in particular number of people I haven’t heard from in over six months. I’m also unwilling to just give my cell # out – I’m not on call, as it were.

This is an actual experience – actually it has happened more than twice – each time with someone different. I have given the number to people in recovery & when they text me after a year & I reply ‘who is this’ they are dismayed I don’t remember them. Keep that in mind if you text someone after year.

If the guy in this case had said ‘Hi – it’s Clint’ (not the actual name) ‘how r u’ my reaction would have somewhat different. I’d know him several years by this point in time & this sort of long silence was typical. His cell # changed each time he contacted me so no wonder I didn’t recognize this one. Each time there would an elaborate story about his misadventures & apologies. I was not emotionally invested but he was sweet & fun in bed. I also liked his Nigerian accent.

I wrote this shortly after our text conversation & it went pretty much as recounted here. It was his ‘best friend’ confession that made this memorable. It came out of the blue. I had always been affectionate with him & sort of agreeable in what conversations we had. He was opinionated about immigration services etc. I had no experience & let him go on whether I agreed with his judgements of our culture.

Often his opinions had made things difficult for him in his ‘real’ life – I only saw him for an hour or so at most, every now & then. If I was in his company day after day it would have been different. So when he called me his ‘best friend’ I felt a little sorry for him – that his life was so empty of people that his mistook my affectionate tolerance for something it wasn’t. I also felt that ‘best friend’ was manipulative. It didn’t work & I ended things with ‘take care.’

Merry Covid Christmask

December 19, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

One of my Christmas guests has asked if all the other guests will remain masked while here, expect, of course to eat & even then, masks have go back on between bites; also, will they all do home Covid tests before arriving to make sure they aren’t ‘carriers’. Instead of candy-canes should I hand them masks & covid tests at the door & turn anyone away who isn’t negative?

Perhaps set one room aside for any eating & drinking & mask lifting – while in the other, everyone must remain masked & also avoid talking too much, laughing too much, & in general breathe as little as possible.

Should I assume that my guests have enough common sense to take their own practical measures for their personal safety & for the safety & protection of others. If my concerned guest is uncomfortable they can social distance themselves with my air purifier at their side. It is a bit noisy but such is life.

This is one the Covid symptoms that doesn’t make the list of Covid symptoms – gone are the easy days of having a few friends over for a seasonal celebration. There is now this list of protocols to deal with beside the list of snacks to have on hand. I now reach for a covid home text kit before I reach for the NeoCitron if I have the sniffles. Is that an allergy sneeze or the first sign of Covid?

All I want for Christmas is not to die in emerg.

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– sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

The Paranoid Blues

October 31, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

I’ve gotten my annual flu shot. I know I’m playing into the hands of the big pharma conspiracy to keep getting bigger – after all they made the myth of covid into hugely profitable reality. I’ll get the next covid booster too. I’ll also apply for the dental cost supplement – playing into the hands of the dental conspiracy that tells me good teeth are a good idea.

I wear a mask on TTC, when shopping, when going to the theatre because I’m one of those gutless guys unwilling to take a chance when no one else is taking a chance. I’m okay if that mask mandate comes back based on the figures I’ve seen.

What figures you ask? Well, to be honest I haven’t seen any – they are nearly impossible to find – at least for Toronto. The fact that some hospitals have seen an alarming increase in cases is enough for me. Gone are the days when got regular media reports on such matter – the info didn’t find the right advertisers. It wasn’t bringing in enough money except for big pharma & they are being quiet about their profits.

Even new variations are old news now. People seem to have become inured to threat, risk, precautions. ‘We’ll have a shot for that soon’ is the attitude, so meanwhile don’t get annoyed if I happen to cough in your direction’ My response, ‘don’t get annoyed if I don’t want to shake your hand or give even a little hug.’ I’ve got better things to do than take a home covid test just to be sure.

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Targeted

October 18, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

Targeted

most days

my compassion

is outflanked by

my gratitude

for not being the target

this time

I live in the world

where many are caught up

in target practice

it often seems the actual target

is irrelevant

as long as they have a target

something to direct

their control

their need to prove their superiority

so their fear of inadequacy

can be drowned out

by the noise of their gun fire

their shouting

about unrealistic native land claims

about gender definitions

loudly trumpeting scriptural

justifications

for their own fears

genocide seen as natural

ethnic cleansing

to maintain property rights

I’m grateful

not to be the target

this time

dodging bullets is tiring

when you don’t know

who is firing or why

Does this sound familiar: a politico not getting enough votes starts a movement to have bathroom users prove their biological gender in order to protect women & children, or, a corporate vip with no medical background insists that covid masking is a conspiracy & not medically effective & is hurting their bottomline. Then there’s – people are lazy because they won’t work for minimum wages.

The book ‘You Are Not the Target’ by Laura Archera Huxley from decades ago is partially based on taking things overly personally, that they sometimes come from issues in the other person’s life – you know the sort of thinking that you are being shouted at in deflected anger. I get that, but, that doesn’t deflect the loudness of the shouting or the weapon the shouter is waving at you.

This piece reflects my gratitude for being white cismale in a culture where running while black can lead to a police chase, where being a female entitles any male to express sexual interest, where – well, you get the picture. But I also know how I appear isn’t protection against a rage-a-holic running me down in their car along with anyone else on a sidewalk, or being shot in a mall as part of someone’s need for the highest body count, ever.

I’m not paranoid! I figure my fears are realistic – I still mask up if I’m going to in transit, if I’m spending time in a room with more than two other people, shopping, though a few times going into Tim’s I have forgotten to slip on my mask before going in. Is there a government, big business conspiracy to stop reporting the covid #s? I don’t know, nor do I really care. If I’m a target for covid I’d rather be harder to hit.

Symptomatic

September 6, 2022 topoet1 Comment

A friend offered me a ticket to see Elton John here in Toronto. I said no thanks. Not because I don’t like Elton (though his single with Britany Spears is a piece of crap) but I’m unwilling to spend that length of time with that many unmasked or masked people sweating, shouting, singing along. I know masks are ‘strongly recommended’ but no longer mandatory.

To too many ‘strongly recommended’ means ‘unnecessary.’ I have friends who contracted covid after taking their masks off to have a drink at a Lady Gaga concert. So I’m not taking chances. I wear one in transit, when I go into any store, answering the door for food delivery. Even under the sarcastic gaze of people in a coffee shop not wearing theirs.

Yes, I’m paranoid.

Three days after our recent Stratford day trip I did the home test kit to be extra sure. If I sneeze or cough I use that home test kit – everything is a symptom. Is that a mosquito bite or monkey pox? Am feverish or is it the 40 degree humidex that’s making me sweat at night. Don’t stand so close to me. Everything is a symptom. So far all my results have been negative but I’ll stick to caution. I’ve had all the boosters, so far & the monkey pox shot but they aren’t invisible shields of protection.

The test kits are sort of fun once one gets used to them. The directions are so small I needed a magnifying glass to figure them out when I first started. Now I feel like a miffed scientist (miffed as opposed to mad) when I self-administer the test & stir it up in the little plastic test tubes. Too bad they can’t be recycled somehow.

There is no comfort in the governmental assurances than things are under control, that in Ontario, the proportion of vaccinated means quarantining is no longer necessary. I suspect the economy is more important & now that our heath system is being privatized think of the profits for those ‘health’ providers. They seem to forget that the dead don’t pay taxes & once their insurance or estates have been sucked dry by private providers there is no one to sue for the balance.

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee & donuts

– sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Recap April 2022

May 1, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

The TOpoet.ca following blog grew with over 600 people get notification whenever I post a new blog! The WP map does show my hits have come from countries around the world. The USA tops the world list is interest but that Mauritius (Bonjour abonnés mauriciens) & Ghana are in the top 10 is a surprise. As you can see by the top 10 posts That’s Not Funny (https://topoet.ca/2022/04/26/thats-not-funny/) tops the list. F**k Cancer is a post from 10 years that made a trip to the top 10!

Picture Perfect: 114 sections, about 162,000 words posted so far with about 25,000 words left to be edited then posted. I also cut some 2000 words out this past week & figure there’ll be another 2000 to get chopped soon. So I could be done by the end of the summer.

Synchronicity often puts books together for me. Last month I finished Stephen Leacock’s London Travels eBook & next on that eBooks shelf was Sunlight & Shadow (1880) by John Bartholomew Gough (died 1886). He was a temperance orator! The book is his reflection on life in London as he brings his message & it is fascinating – & also a little sad as attitudes towards alcohol & poverty haven’t changed much since then. What is amazing is that his comments on being misrepresented by the press are still relevant, plus his ‘tips’ on speaking in public hold true for today as well.

Read ‘Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger’ by Brontez Purnell – this is hilarious & highly recommended. Unfiltered Sedaris-like essays on the vagaries & vulgarities of gay male life. I laughed out loud often. Be prepared for explicit sex & language.

Enjoying Servant of the People – the eerily prophetic Volodymyr Zelensky series. The writing is fearless in its political attack, the performances are spot on, though as it turns out Zelensky wasn’t acting, merely rehearsing for the role of a lifetime. Here in Canada Vision has been showing it with English subtitles which I presume aren’t censored or mistranslating what is being said.

I have been getting to one in-person recovery meeting a week. The return to meetings in Toronto has been slow even though the only requirement by meeting spaces is that we stayed masked. Like many I’m not comfortable with more than ten people in a large room, even when all are masked. A couple of the zoom meetings closed for their in person meeting but returned to zoom to run both. I think zoom recovery is here to stay.

Two visits to my dentist this month, so I’m not sure what my summer plans are after having that $$ turned into fillings. The other drain on my summer plans was a new TV, as the ‘old’ one was losing its plasma picture – it was like watching though a thin layer of smoke that was getting smokier by the week. We found it was impossible to find one without internet in its system 😦 Getting it set up was a maze of menus but once again we can enjoy full screen & amazing colour.

After the winter of our discontent, coming up in May, a day trip to Stratford to see Richard III. We will be driving regardless of this entreaty “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!”

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee & donuts

– sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

2021 Recap

January 6, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

Over the past year by TOpoet.ca following blog grew from 445 to 468! Doesn’t sound like much but I did a cull of followers who are no longer active on WordPress. The WordPress map show my hits have come from over 70 countries around the world. USA still tops the list but that China & Bangladesh are in the top 10 is a surprise. Nigeria in the top 20 – but behind Malawi! Kazakhstan! Still no hits from North Korea 😦 My Tumblr is at 346 followers. 229 Twitter followers.

My top ten posts of the year include 2 out of the archives! Born To Be Blown – from 2014 – https://topoet.ca/2014/01/24/born-to-be-blown/; & Sydney Academy 2 from 2019 https://topoet.ca/2019/08/12/sydney-academy-2/.

I made a few changes in my blogging routine to give me more time for actual writing 🙂 At the start of the pandemic blogging daily was an excellent way to get through the lockdown. Then it became work I had to keep up with & was no longer fun, so I cut way back.

In 2020 I did 322 posts; in 2021 I only 260 blog posts – of course having no live poetry readings or Stratford show to review reduced the quantity. Though on of the highlights of 21 was seeing Three Tall Women on stage in Stratford. Martha Henry’s tour de force final production.

Picture Perfect: Picture Perfect: 98 sections, about 142,000 words posted so far with approximately 45,000 to be edited then posted. I’ve been enjoying the slow process of edits & have made some major cuts in the final set of rough drafts. As usual my biggest issue is keeping names straight – what did I call that rcmp constable a hundred pages ago? I’m really enjoying creating the weekly graphic for each section. I do have an endless supply of frame & paintings that people have thrown out.

Like many people I’m weary of the pandemic, of people’s reactions, of the roller-coaster of restrictions, & now the paranoia. Is it allergies? A cold or covid? How ‘sick’ does one have to be to get tested? Who pays for it? By the time you get tested, have the results, early onset treatment is too late. How long before neo-citron markets a neo-covid hot lemon drink?

Highlights of the year: contributing a forward to Philip Cairns book Hollywood Poems; having some pieces of mine included in Pandemic Poetry. Extensive work on my garden. Deep house cleaning in a lock-down pandemic purge of the house top to bottom, in particular a basement full of stuff – some not touched since we moved into the house some 40 years ago.

I did get used to zoom recovery meetings & now seriously doubt if I’ll go back to face-to-face. I do meet up with fellow recoveries for face-to-face conversations & sharing. Going up to my room for a zoom is much easier than getting ready an hour or so in advance to get there with the hope the TTC hasn’t shut down.

What am I looking forward to in 2022? Good question. Travel out of the country is out of the question. Even for travel within Canada testing rules can change while I am landing so I might never get off the plane or end up living in a tent on the runway until I can get an appointment for the right test. But I am considering another week or so in Cape Breton if pandemic travel rules loosen up enough. Stratford has a tentative season with a couple of shows we’re interested in seeing but will it end up a repeat of last season’s open air productions?

Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to pay for travel covid tests – thanks? paypal.me/TOpoet

Here To Stay

December 23, 2021 topoetLeave a comment

Day-to-day life had developed a new routine as the severe lockdown measures loosened a little. You could meet with a friend, have coffee, walked unmasked while socially distanced & soon, it was felt, we’re even be able to go shopping without masks on. Many recovery meetings had returned to limited size, masked f2f meetings. Many were in the process of reopening then the latest variant wild fire sparked then took off.

Double masked recommended, additional booster shots with folks lined up for hours to get them (while being heckled by smug anti-vaxxers). Often it’s hard enough to order though a mask, through plastic cashier guards – double masked means everyone will either need an android to order ahead or carry note pad to write their order down. I’m sure rapid-tests will be next on the mandatory list to even go into Tims to order a cup of coffee.

People are weary of being vigilant for themselves & others. Being forced to discover new ways of social interaction is frustrating & at the same time a relief. Avoiding people becomes less personal when covid is the buffer. The hardest part is the roller-coaster of restrictions, hardest on small retail – making it possible to plan lest the next set of protocols cut your staff in half. Travel was never easy since the additional security measures after the Twin Towers – now you have to not only take your shoes off but prove you are covid negative going & coming back.

Once again we’re faced with a socially shut-down festive season. Even though I’m triple vaxxed, double masked I’m not taking any chances with parties, & will avoid public transit as much as possible. I’ve reduced our annual Xmas day gathering to five people (past years we’ve had up to 12). Gone are the day when two people could sit side by side in my little living room.

I’m pretty sure covid & its variants are here to stay mainly because of the economic disparity between countries that can afford protection & those that can’t afford even clean water.

Festive wishes in keeping with your belief (or lack of) system.

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee & donuts

– sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Danforth Potholes

October 17, 2021 topoetLeave a comment

In Toronto we’re at the edge of post-covid19 life as the retail world returns to life, within safety protocols, that is. Stores have signs that say maximum capacity 121, while others say no more than 4 at time. Some say ‘for rent’ not having survived the prolonged lockdown. I suspect some took the lockdown as a sign to close up a business that was merely breaking even.

Some that did close were fairly popular coffeeshops that subsisted on their takeout business anyway. Maybe the per sq. foot costs weren’t being covered by the sale of elevated cupcakes? Some places that survived have cut back their hours – no longer opening a 9 a.m. but at 11 a.m., or in some cases not until 2 p.m. Others are ‘by appointment only.’ I suppose the $ saved in operating costs helps their bottom lines.

Several have been replaced by similar business, chains like A&W or Burger King. The most invasive had been, what I call potholes. Marijuana dispensaries – that have taken over video, buy-your-gold, stores. Some have obvious names – High Time, Natural High, Neighbourhood Joint – others aim for a different ‘class’ – Canvas, Tokyo Rose (?). At least one has gone ‘native’ naming itself after one of the original land-owners. Cultural appropriation or perhaps the owners are natives? I don’t care to find out because even if they are, it is still a marketing ploy.

Last summer I did several photoblogs of ghosts – stores that had shut down due the pandemic – without cash flow they didn’t survive. I stopped taking those pictures as it become increasing depressing to see that covid19 wasn’t merely killing people but also opportunity. I’d say killing ‘the economy’ but lets face it big pharma is raking in the bucks.

As for the potholes that have shown up all over Toronto – I guess they are better than abandoned storefronts.