Paper (an acrostic poem)

Image: acslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/iStock-933389988-1.jpg

Pushing a pile of it across her desk back in 2019

All she wanted was to bury her head and ignore the rest of it

Perhaps somehow find a wormhole in reality and fall in

Emerging in her house, free from any of those damn dead trees

Reality hit her during the pandemic.  Electrons were even worse than …

Social (an acrostic poem)

So many people together in close proximity

Ordinarily that could be a fun time for the crowd

Covid changed that dynamic greatly

It forced us to find other ways to be close while being farther apart

And while it wasn’t perfect, it was sometimes enough

Letting us dip our toes into the sea of being…

Travel (an acrostic poem)

Image: pointofview.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Jail-Cell-Bars.jpg

The ability to go where you want when you want was so curtailed

Reduced to going to and fro between rooms in your own place

And that was a dream luxury if you lived a studio apartment

Viewing those same four walls every day, day in, day out, hour after hour

Eventually even the strongest of will would start to feel incarcerated

Leaving one to make marks on the wall to mark doing your COVID time

Hug (an acrostic poem)

Image: static.wikia.nocookie.net/carebears/images/c/c7/Love-a-Lot_Bear_is_afraid.jpg

He felt his heart and arms ache with longing

Understanding the need for social distancing, but….

Going cold turkey for so long hurt his extroverted soul even more

Cold (an acrostic poem)

Image: coffeyscorner.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Empty-Kleenex-Box-1.jpg

Can’t stop my nose from running a marathon

Only my eyes are also in the competition

Leaving me drinking like a sailor to keep from dehydrating

Don’t worry.  I’m sure it’s not COVID and just a…

Dizzy (an acrostic poem)

Image: s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/6103372158/original/CKduo7iF7Vli47Wvk7wxB2ZcIcAAMp1UEQ.png

Dazed and confused

I sit here in front of my screen

Zoom to teach my classes

Zoom to meet with colleagues

Yet at times it seems pretty slow

The Digital Downfall (a 200 word story)

Image: securesense.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/virus-image.jpg

We didn’t even know we were being conquered. 

How about that for humanity’s divine right?

First shoe to drop was when Amazon just went dark.  Like not even a 404-error dark.  A spinning wheel of painful waiting torture was the only eulogy for what was king the day before. 

Facebook and Twitter were soon only posting stories about end of the world scenarios.  Left wing, right wing, any crackpot scenario of the end of the world was jamming everyone’s feeds.  Reddit was the same, no matter the voting of the members.  Hell, 4chan was even doing it.  Like what the hell, 4chan?

The aliens took over so smoothly that by the time we realized what was happening the only thing we could do was to surrender.  Any attempt at pulling the plug and they would go all Terminator on us.  We expected the AIs we would be fighting would be the ones we created, but we were naive.  The alien AIs controlled every digital system on the planet.  The best part was we were all home waiting for COVID-19 to be cured, but the virus that killed off the autonomy of the human race was digital.  No mask for that.

Tap (an acrostic poem)

 

The beer flowed freely from the keg

And that would be awesome if his friends were here

Perhaps after COVID goes away…

 

Image: images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71g%2BtP4w1YL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

Together (an acrostic poem)

 

There is so much you can’t do by yourself

Others are needed to make it happen

Getting your tribe on board might not be easy

Everyone might have different opinions or a different way to do it

That’s when you need to realize we are all in this

Here is where we need to work extra hard listening and not attacking

Enabling the collective to try and fail as we look towards success

Realizing this is why in these tough times we need to stick…

 

Image: thepattersonfoundation.org/media/zoo/images/picture_6f1b9a6c301f7e0576ed24912863f74d.jpg

Chalk (an acrostic poem)

 

Calcium carbonate dyed bright colors

Has been applied to sidewalks and parking lots

A message of thankfulness and hope

Left for those on the front lines of this epidemic

Keeping a smile on their masked faces

 

Image: i.cbc.ca/1.5513712.1585419662!/cumulusImage/httpImage/support-for-health-care-workers-is-written-in-chalk-in-the-east-end-of-toronto.jpg