Kyrie eleison

Yes, this poem is political commentary but it is also more. It is a tryptic of emotion: a movement of the feelings I am going through during this trialing time which I discussed in my previous post “The way we were.” It is an exploration of how to move beyond anger and the dialectic between hope and despair towards a search for release.

NB Kyrie eleison translates as ‘Lord have mercy on us.’ It is often recited in mass during Lent; as a member of various choirs, I sang parts of Mendelson’s “Kyrie” at Easter.

Kyrie Eleison

i.

Have mercy on us
Dear President Drumpf
As you sit with a slumpf
On your golden throne.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us who care
For those with contagion
Without the protection
To keep us safe.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us
Dear President Drumpf
As you take a dumpf
On your golden throne.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us without
Medical insurance,
No healthcare assurance
When we fall ill.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us
Dear President Drumpf
As you polish your stump
Speech on your throne.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us whose pre-
Existing conditions
Bar from us salvation
From COVID-19.
Have mercy on us

Have mercy on us
Dear President Drumpf
As you wipe clean your rumpf
On your golden throne.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us who implore
You to save lives with more
Masks and respirators
For the dying.
Have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us
Dear President Drumpf
As you flush your latrine
Then wash your hands clean.
Have mercy on us.

ii.

So many children’s multi-coloured arcs
Displayed, not faded yet from time and Sun-
Day picnics in the home for family fun.
Persons keeping distance in the parks,
No traffic sounds drown out the songs of larks.
Free lessons, music, food-runs by the million
Feed old and lonely people some compassion
While vital help arrives from worlds apart

Homeless sleep in empty parking bays,
Yet patient lines, bare shelves, blank stares, the death
Toll breaks a record from the last weekday.
Behind closed glass, a child looks with dismay,
Grandpa’s open mouth gasps- for breath,
White doors shut closed, he’s gone away. Kyrie…

iii

wrinkled trees murmur
and release clouds of starlings
our breath dances with them

31.03.20
ohh