Pete Madzelan
Against Forgetting: In Lockdown with Edward Hopper, 2020
“I remember everything. Things I can’t forget.”
—John Prine
I remember everything.
The Covid Pandemic death rate was relentless,
the numbers too staggering to comprehend.
The President was MIA; talked gibberish:
It’s going to disappear. One day—
it’s like a miracle—it will disappear(2/27/20).
The country was a ship without a rudder.
It was exhausting. In my solitude,
I found shelter from the storm in my bookshelves,
seeking out the comfort of old friends.
One was the artist, Edward Hopper,
whose use of light and geometry
to dictate moods of solitude and realism
was perfect during the pandemic days of doom.
Things I can’t forget.
I drive down Main Street during the lockdown.
The street is empty. Everything is closed.
The President encouraged his top health officials
to study the injection of bleach into the human body
as a means of fighting Covid. (4/22/2020)
The still breath of silence swings from street lamps
as sunlight ricochets off walls of slate gray,
in-between bleached buildings of egg shell white
cracking like eggs into geometric angles
casting a mood, giving a moment in mind,
a flash of art in constant spin
inviting me, a face in the faceless crowd—
a passerby to join the scene
drawing me—us into the story
reading the lines, imaging the prose
of brooding alienation from solitary figures without names
unseen and secluded, living in homes and apartments
within the silence of these empty streets
where the isolation of the human condition
is gambling it all; has upped the ante,
pushing all the chips to the center of the table
of being alone together.
I drive down Main Street during the lockdown.
The street is empty. Everything is closed.
More than 100,000 people
have died in the U.S. (5/27/2020)
I pass a remembered diner.
No people beyond the dusty window.
The emptiness a corral of ghosts,
a closet of dreams stacked with dishes
and frying pans waiting for heat, the sizzling of grease.
I imagine scenes from another time
waltzing through my mind in three-quarter time.
The empty diner is alive; becomes Hopper’s Nighthawks
and I just walked through the door
observing a couple sitting at the counter,
whispering sweet nothings beyond ear catch.
The man orders a second cup of coffee,
pays for it with a buffalo head nickel.
Another man with his back to me hunches over,
seems satisfied with his burger
that my imagination can taste
with equal satisfaction,
but right now, I have nothing to swallow,
the diner is closed,
and everything seems so long ago.
I drive down Main Street during the lockdown.
The street is empty. Everything is closed.
Before he left the office in January 2021,
400,000 people died from Covid.
I remember everything. Things I can’t forget.
If Only
It’s morning. The sun lifts an eyelid and peeks,
then streaks like a restless Appaloosa mare
through the evergreen pines
silhouetting this moment,
beams of light pour like wildflower honey
before my sleepy eyes.
If only life was that simple.
It isn’t. The election is near, and the convicted felon,
barely coherent, is increasingly erratic and unhinged—
blathering from his bizzarro world about Hannibal Lecter;
about electrocution devices to fend off shark attacks;
about transition-related surgeries for trans people.
There should be concern for his cognitive decline.
I sip from a cup of coffee
to the flapping serenade of mourning doves
cooing a rhythmic dirge
while a curve-billed thrasher
full of warbles and melodies scampers by.
From a branch, a scarlet bellied finch sings harmony.
The contrasting musical repertoire blends perfectly
as if rehearsed. Maybe it was rehearsed.
If only things were that simple.
They aren’t. The convicted felon, barely coherent,
rants nonsensically, demonstrating a mental acuity slide—
the inability to hold a thought or understand an issue:
His health plan is no plan, but he has “concepts.”
Asked about child care, he served an inedible word salad
that included the nugget: “child care is child care.”
Not a human in sight, just evidence
as police sirens scream
and cars rumble along a nearby highway
traveling somewhere to return
to the unrhythmic tones of predictable bitching
about this and that; about who knows what.
But here, at this moment of daybreak,
I’m separated from that,
even try and forget the daily news.
If only life was that simple.
It isn’t. The convicted felon, barely coherent,
accelerates hateful and dangerous rhetoric
when the subject of race exposes his transparent racism:
He blathers how Kamala suddenly became black;
how his deportation plan will be a violent “bloody story.”
His slobbering over debunked fiction of migrants eating pets,
depicts the rapid acceleration of his incoherence.
I sip from the cup of coffee,
drinking in the unending cascade
of daybreak’s moves.
I place the cup down,
gazing at the elegant streams of steam
rising from the cup’s belly,
floating up towards the glow of the sun
that’s bleeding into day, getting brighter,
radiating this moment in time.
If only things were that simple.
They aren’t. The convicted felon, barely coherent,
is proud of the manosphere he created;
of how he chartered the misogynistic path
to overturn Roe-v-Wade, hoping to make Gilead real
while remaking the country into a Dystopian paradise.
It’s morning. The sun is up.
A hummingbird buzzes staccato squeaks,
fluttering close for a whispering chat,
then pauses to enjoy a flower’s nectar…
