Let’s meet at the Met for the end of our world to cry
For our grief is metastatic, our losses terminal
We’ll walk through rooms where pyramids and mummies lie
And keep our distance slightly personal
Visit Monet’s water lilies and van Gogh’s fields
Until we ourselves, lost within, are hidden stars
Exploring the great splendors that each painting yields
Layer upon layer in cosmic avatars
Wandering the echoed halls without a worry
Though the air is sedated, we try to find home
Among ivory statues, it’s not a hurry
For nostalgia, sweet nostalgia, a benign syndrome
gets us to stroll down Fifth Ave with thoughts of our youth
remembering the New York slice and old phone booths
2. Lorraine Currelley & Addison Bale
Remembering the New York slice and old phone booths
I think of happier times when love’s true sentiment governed our hearts
By certain pains we knew or even wanted-that slice with you and heartbreak later
Love’s secreted conversations hidden in old phone booths grew our frustration
Though proximity is what we wanted, perhaps more than love, wasn’t it?
Yes, proximity not love, still this absence has created a strange longing
Where lorn the constant touch we knew, I don’t feel lonely in the desert
Lonely sad cries do not eat at my breasts, only your joy’s memory
Always with me, and showing me repeatedly, how to be without you
Old booths and freedom’s time taught me I could
I recline into the wash of certain friendships, the bottles of red remedy
You now owning newly discovered strength and voice
The shifting dream you willow into me, the chill before my goosebumps
You’ll blow tender on me to cool my blood
3. Julie K + Pele Bapere
You’ll blow tender on me to cool my blood
Fever pitch sirens fade in surrender
Rendering my posture blissfully timid
Glimpses of deceit run laps on retinal playgrounds
How germane those once quaint customs now seem
Cave dwellings where visions could never glow
Unnerved, unarmed, unflinchingly I unravel
And the hands of all seasons spell your name
Setting down my mind with temperate musings
To soothe and settle homeless nerve endings
With a wistful lay, so low and beguiling
Once mangy and wild, I'm folded into WE
Shedding this longing scarce in conceit
What is time and love and what beast forms them
4. Matisse Mosher + Kate Seward
What is time and love and what beast forms them?
Are they existing concepts that beasts label and manipulate until they fight back?
And who are these beasts anyway, and why should we care?
Beasts become constructs that whisper “Even kindness has limits,”
but if we were to take that apart, like a Lego castle,
then the intention would open our eyes to a starving world of abundance.
Just think: things piling up like leaves, and still not enough.
Not enough, until a breathing spark decrees life.
And oh, what tremendous joy
will fill those that gave from their souls when their pockets were empty.
There was no other choice but to start walking south
to meet up with spirits, intertwined from past lives.
And then suddenly, they were there, even though I didn’t remember asking for them, saying
let’s meet on Canal to seance Pearl Paint.
5. Sir Egypt Allen + Jennifer Minotti
Let’s meet on Canal to seance Pearl Paint
to remember what New York used to be
when Opening Day marked the ceremonial beginning of Spring
and we'd take our kites to the skies, flying hopes high
and lazily brunch along Columbus Ave.
What long years these few weeks have been
unarmored stepping into the void
watching a sleeping world from my kitchen window
alone with relentless sirens, an inferno of coronavirus
consumes the world, threatening a violent color
tinged with dyeing substance
boarded up galleries coated in fresh graffiti spray paint
the side effects of inhaling, city-wide lungs obturated
all we have are fumes, I’m dying to faint.
6. Megha Sood + Estelle Mandaville
All we have are fumes, I’m dying to faint
The vapid air thick choked and clogged with grief
Suffocates me. It's been such a relief
My sullen memories have lost their scent
Their vividness gone, like pails of stale paint
My eyes are wide open with disbelief
My happiness is stolen by a thief
Can’t be lit by sun or a candlelight
And dark this evening grows the horizon
Filling us with crimson ting, blessing us
With some contentment in desolation
I rise with power of love stirring us
To continue in hope, to carry on
As the river’s still moving beside us.
7. Jane LeCroy + Bernadette McComish
As the river’s still moving beside us
let it in our eyes, even as they’re closed
and when we blink let the water fall from
rocks, grass, dirt, debris, detritus, seeds, fluff
then pool at my feet, kneel and fill your mouth
still we river, same body never same
song, instead we listen for new streams
come into me, fill, be emptied, and flow
toward an open ocean wide and waiting
same salinity as blood and tears we
float, weightless on waves without wreckage
every piece we lose, we become new
And find pearls to wear for men and women
To touch the swells in our minds, how they last
8. Dewi Mugiarto + Kate S
To touch the swells in our minds, how they last
To hear the heartbeat, a soul dances
invisibly behind the high spring grass
the rain is pouring and wiping the dust
from faces flattened by grids and touch screens
a song full of prayers for the loved one
a wish building into hope for the lost
as we grow stronger than a solid stone
To touch the swells in our minds, the glass bursts
the rain halts, dry, but our tears don't come
Birds dance in time among yellow and green
as the sun shines, wrapping us with its warmth
Flowers descend like elite sky divers
As they peel the light from our eyes, an orange
9. Addison Witt + Patricia Coleman
As they peel the light from our eyes, an orange
Billow of smoke drifts between that hidden place.
And below the selves I'd built to stay
I saw our lives connected in a dream;
My kitchen's smells in the air rode homes above becoming
An aroma of wishes ignited by hopeful
Fantasies of taste.
My senses grew strong; and I watched you expand into
A fruit, a plum, a peach without a pit,
Something I would have to face
Or eat or be eaten or throw away.
Releasing all inhibitions, I embraced my plight
And found nothing, just the air
When I cannot bear to turn on the light.
10. Ellen Wong + Ashna Ali
When I cannot bear to turn on the light
I reach deep inside myself to find my own
and find in its place an ascending melody
that whispers through the hallow ether haunt
to foretell the break of easy endings.
But through the abyss, water wraps and glimmers,
reflects the oncoming dawn.
A kiss dissolving gravity from forms immaterial
takes me out. Just a second. Reprieve from remembering.
A spark of recognition of a past moment forgotten
of when you promised to return soon through the tide of sirens
to bring back with you the truth we have been seeking
and though I trust, I stand drained of blood and motionless
after you’ve left, the coffee still brewing
11. Liz Kingsley + Katherine Menjivar
after you've left, the coffee still brewing
your home sighs, less burdened, one less person
the shingles whine to the stoic rain
you aimlessly stroll in the drizzling mist
the saying goes ears tingle when you are in another's thoughts, even now you won't know
your kindness reverberates, heart takes it slow
miming the coffee' s drip, what was it that you chose, country roast, a blend
goes down so warm, comforts me to the end
of the night's cold shoulder I gave it all
with you, eerie silence, I am enthralled
by your persistence to bellow in me
I’m filled with the desire to be free
of the brewing, chock-full of night
I take showers in the dark with that night
12. Janeena Pinero + Janet Grillo
I take showers in the dark with that night
Numb with sleep, morning light, I look forward to your hello
as if you could return, could emerge from a shadow
admit one, wait on your turn to be forgotten
as if you could be forgotten. Light pours like water
in a cracked dome i finally can see a way out, pounding away at grout
eroding desire. Wasted pleasure swerving toward the drain
fertilizing roots tucked underneath the hardest surfaces, can you tell me what is pain?
As if you could remember. Is today the day you will remember
tomorrow couldn't come fast enough
tomorrow couldn't flow far enough
history seeps thru sweaty palms, chained into a cycle
of your fingers linking my skin, my lips, my thighs
replaying your hands, your hands undoing the distance required.
13. Saki Wang + Teresa Mettela
Replaying your hands, your hands undoing,
battling its own revision, changing it back,
unwinding and unfurling, stretched so taut
to pull the rein -- when's the last time we ran
like a horse? I taste freedom and it's so sweet.
Now stranded, still in defense of the aftermath.
Cloaked in fear, do I dare perjure myself?
I challenge the trapezist to dive deep sea,
let wuthering days send me far away.
Yet water leaks from my engine-heart,
two fingers push, up down up down up down.
A carmine dawn is cut open through your pincer-nail.
Whisper your words like honey. Thick and sweet,
the distance required to keep it secret.
14. Monica Teresa Ortiz + Leslie Seldin
the distance required to keep it secret
is the same as the height to remain still
like branches of trees stretched to their limit
the marigolds I planted for my love
in the air breathing I do what I can
avoiding the viral load puncturing
so many ways to let someone in
a life no longer useful disposed of
in this imperfect world where blossoms burst
we idly watch resources deplete
and snap a wishbone evenly in two
To eat dust that works hard to be a ghost
to get closer to nothing that is also something
the right set of problematic patterns
15. Anna Winham + J Placide
the right set of problematic patterns
puckered the suckers on Primrose's pants.
If she dared peeled them off
she knew not what lay beneath
Her scissors were made of thorns & thyme and she knew her blood was milk as she cut
while the seamstress's cat peered on, closed windows
while she peeled off the first sucker, open doors
milk-smeared skin formed a ring-road of
roses around the seamstress lying on the floor
of her kitchen, three kittens littered beside her, the cat trapped
with the knowledge that both she and the seamstress have a 50/50 chance
of the ritual writing the songs of origin
to make this work of saving lives
to make this work when counting debt and yet
16. Anne Smith + Stan Cohen
To make this work when counting debt, but yet
Ensure that all necessities are met
Certainty is well beyond our next bet,
For all we thought we knew has been upset.
The sun will shine upon tomorrow's day.
When Virus chaos is all swept away,
And we're no longer foul infection's prey,
Skies will be blue, clouds white, not grey.
Man cannot undo nature's laws or rules,
And those who think he can are simply fools.
'New Normal' is the phrase to use as tools,
As memory of lockdown slowly cools.
Golden glow comes as the corona burns;
copper coins melt down like saturn returns.
17. Loisa Fenichell + Frances Brien
Copper coins melt down like Saturn returns
I pocket these coins, these small messages from God.
The Sun and the Moon are dancing in Town.
Tonight, it is no more than the dancing that awaits me like a fragrance.
i shall cloth myself in red flannel and jasmine.
& so begins the singing of the blues!
There is no mending a patched up broken heart
But I can go on driving, dancing the waltz, singing folk songs
wiggling my hips with a smile on my lips and a world at my ........fingertips!
World shifts & moves about, over & over again, like an oyster, but still I am here, occupying this space .
For Love held me in his steadfast arms!
& in steadfast arms I myself learn to love again, like the recently birthed calf
The Sun and the Moon are Dancing!
I'm not ready to give up; this feels right to dream again
18. Matthew Martin + Tess Patalano
I’m not ready to give up; this feels right to dream again.
A greenscape reflects a doorway to another greenscape
A place where it is safe to dream in absence, air between palm fronds.
I have pressed myself in this moment, there will be others
Opportunities to imprint myself permanently into the air, to carry on as an invisibility.
To replace my heart with a crystal ball, to feel less lonely in disaster
As every disaster needs a companion.
I'm not ready to make a promise here
because dreams are not places of promise, they are receptacles for all that might have been.
The truth is dangling at the back of a mother's throat
The truth is stubborn and won't accept the infinity of a mother's throat, not during a dream.
I can see a tree four different ways and not care about the difference.
I can replay the morning the sun finally sets into me
Walking westbound, I hold my head steady
19. Trad Sevin + Tanny Jiraprapasuke
Walking westbound I hold my head steady.
Above a wrangling mess at my feet
My arms dangle, too heavy to swing.
Walking eastbound I greet a rising light,
Inhaling the air of tomorrow
and expelling the weight of today.
Walking southbound I am gripped by the past
and the seeds of "normalcy"
But no, my feet must move one in front of the other.
Walking northbound, I decide that my only direction is
to accept my heartache and receive this moment
in full flood.
Walking inbound I reach to the candor of pain
with a slight tremble touching thoughts to pen
20. Annie Robertson + Marietta Brill
With a slight tremble touching thoughts to pen
I worry if it's the sickness or how a body imitates the season, buds on branches,
waving like wands in a sky fevered and dazzling
like police lights are dazzling, like sirens are new growth
asking, aren’t we ready to be less alone?
We used to breathe in the same room, what a marriage
of evidence and deception, bees circling closed blossoms
and calling it on the century.
Show me how to live keenly
as an insect with one good sting before croaking
as in the millisecond before touching
when what hurts could stay inside
but spills into my burning palms
like catching water before it's blessed.