We continue towards the horizon today on the journey through BE.aGaIN, and travel back in time to 2020 and the height of the global pandemic.This poem originally appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly (link in photo) in issue 30 and again in the 2021 Yearbook-a superb publication produced by Bryan R. Monte.
The poem starts with fear as a commodity and an urge not to let it “devalue” ourselves-We are not “contacts “on a graph or a statistic for the nightly news.Worse was to come with the unequal divide of vaccines between rich and poor countries.
“Huddled behind closed doors” is how the world was then (and unfortunately still is for some in China) and it was very easy to become “unhinged”.Humans are social animals that do not like authoritarian cages.
There was plenty of “hand wringing” at the time too (and not just with sanitiser) when even a trip to the supermarket warranted “alcohol as part of the ceremony” at any entrance to where other humans were briefly gathered.
The poem wrote itself ,in truth, with one idea following each previous line.This is best exemplified with “Heading down at unknown track”(which provided the title late in the game), following from the very human “uncoupled”.
It strikes me now, more than two years later, how language influences language where “contactless” ,”essential” and all forms of government and finance speak entered the lexicon during a great period of human tragedy.
Join me tomorrow as we move onto the 20th of the 50 poems from BE.aGaIN which is available now for the cheapest amount it can be sold for HERE! in your favourite format.
Art should be art that raises consciousness and that is the sole or soul agenda here,
Stay well,
Algo.
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 