Dan Cuddy

Towson, Maryland USA

 

 

Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. He has had many poems published in small literary magazines over the years, most recently in The End of 83, Broadkill Review, Welter, Bhubaneswar Review, The Twisted Vine Literary Journal, the Pangolin Review.

His book Handprint on the Window was published in 2003. He is currently working on two books of poetry. 

Poem written March 30, 2020. 

 

 

The Plague

 

everywhere

paranoia

invisible grains of possible death

look at your fingers

you can't see the million teeth waiting

grinding in anticipation to chew your meat

and the mind---

if you've lived long

sung your own versions of I did it my way

and here comes the sun

and you remember Kennedy, Johnson, 911---

is marked by time

for death

 

the very breath you take may be putrid with virus

the young are ignorant

as ghosts fly out of nursing homes, hospitals

the back alleys with dumpsters

not emptied

of all the eons of human stupidity and malice

 

rational thought a bent coat hanger

you take off your shirt

stare at your naked chest

which is only a house for your heart

which is only a provider for your mind

which is only a vehicle for your soul

and the soul?

a virus in God's eternity?

 

your questions leap like a virus too

from surface to surface

how everything is changed !!!