Masks for All in General

Science-fiction readers among you may have had a scene from a novel coming to your mind, lately. It has been to mine.

It must have been more than two decades ago that I read the Lisa Goldstein novel having this closing scene:

The tyrant who has persecuted mask-wearers finds one of their masks in his hands.

He tries it on.

Whether he then sees the world clearly, at last, or sees himself clearly — or whether Goldstein makes either aspect plain — memory fails to tell me.

The memory, though, does help bring to the fore this thought: that in fomenting rebellion against those state governments which have adopted lock-down methods to mitigate contagion's impact, our unmasked president is, indeed, persecuting mask-wearers.

Cheers . . .

Major Tom To Face Trump

Dissociated Press, U.K. — Major Tom, famous for his courtyard perambulations in support of the British NHS, has accepted the nomination for the BOAST (British Organization Against Stupid Trumpists) party, which has gained admittance to the U.S. presidential race thanks to an epidemic-caused rules relaxation.

Observers have noted that Major Tom would run circles around the U.S. incumbent — being only physically impaired, not mentally. While his candidacy would shame the Grammatically Offensive Party, or GOP, his clarity and eloquence would set a bar for American candidates that most could best only by going under, not above, in a sort of political "Limbo."

His example of placing human compassion and personal effort above self-inflation and personal gain, however, would so dwarf the GOP that the American public would need to take care — to avoid stepping by accident on its members.

When asked for his opinion as to his chances, Major Tom quipped, "Not only do I know how to finish a race, I know how to finish a sentence. Correctly, in both cases."

The Winter King

The Winter King

You look out on a world now crusted thick
with ice and snow, now that the Winter King
sits on the eastern throne and everything
stops —— caught short, clutched in cold. A con-man's trick

klept him the scepter; social subterfuge
dispatched a knight or two who might have ruled
more justly. Blathering his rude, unschooled
prejudgements —— promising a resort refuge

for the gently taxed well-heeled, he kills
a lady bearing torch in flowing gown ——
perhaps does else, once knife has kissed her down ——
and smiles. To win a test of wills with ills!
Pleased that an ursine purse pulled down this crown
his porcine party wallows in his swills.

(Note that I posted here this poem as "You Look Out on a World," in 2017, thinking it a fair enough draft. I felt the desire, though, to finish it. This month I have done so. Cheers. . . )