Ben Gunn Syndrome: A Pandemic Parable

by Mell McDonnell

So, white hair wafts about his ears,

and. swatch of ragged thoughts billow around his shoulders.

Notched stick tells days, week, months, and maybe years.

Marooned.

May as well eat berries, oysters, salted goat.

He’d rather have a tiny piece of toasted cheese.

Bent double, he lopes up Spy Glass Hill.

The flat-glass ocean spreads below,

and way away, a speck:

a sail? a sail!

Mell McDonnell is a person of several careers—as an instructor in English at the University of New Orleans, as a freelance financial writer, and as marketing/public relations director for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a member of the Denver Women’s Press Club and Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. Ms. McDonnell’s poetry appears in The Silver Edge (Leaping Berylians Society, Denver), Third Wednesday (Ann Arbor), and The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry. Ralph Almeida is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and creates in Brooklyn, NY.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

by Mell McDonnell

The Last of the Pandemic Poems 

I’m thinking of the way
we used to go off

like Roman Candles, laughing
like sparklers—to

theatre, concert hall, dinner with friends,
even the grocery store, going

the long way round
just for the fun of it, so

yes, yesterday, when,
everything (or nothing)

might be beginning, again—
and was, or wasn’t,

but who knew it then, and now
it’s walk into empty rooms

and say, “Why did I come here?”,
existential question, replaced by

“Where are my glasses?”
“What was her/his name?”:

accumulation of absences,
when even the cats are dying,

and words  drip:
longing, lassitude, torpor, stupor, sluggish—
clawing at fog,

but maybe this year is only
a wide parenthesis, and this sentence

will end.
What’s next?

Continents, earthquakes, oceans of air.  .  .  .
Oh, hit me with happiness—

we’re still here.

Mell McDonnell is a person of several careers–as an instructor in English at the University of New Orleans, as a freelance financial writer, and as marketing/public relations director for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University of Colorado, Boulder.  She is a member of the Denver Women’s Press Club and Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. Ms. McDonnell’s poetry appears in The Silver Edge (Leaping Berylians Society, Denver), Third Wednesday (Ann Arbor), and The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry. Ralph Almeida is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and creates in Brooklyn, NY.

Todos Vamos a Estar Bien

by Mell McDonnell

We’re going to be all right.

And how much more believable when
in Spanish it slips
silvery over the tongue,
exhales as breath—

this space

something newborn:
mine, yours, ours—

inhale .  .  .   .  exhale .  .  .  .
lungs, life, communion.

Todos vamos a estar bien.

Mell McDonnell is a person of several careers–as an instructor in English at the University of New Orleans, as a freelance financial writer, and as marketing/public relations director for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University of Colorado, Boulder.  She is a member of the Denver Women’s Press Club and Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. Ms. McDonnell’s poetry appears in The Silver Edge (Leaping Berylians Society, Denver), Third Wednesday (Ann Arbor), and The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry. Surekha spent her formative years in the beautiful hills of Nilgiris before she moved to her hometown, Thalassery, to pursue a career in fine art. Her works have been in many exhibitions across India, and most recently to “Revived Emotions,” an international exhibition at Ratchademnoen Contemporary Art Centre, Bangkok. She served as the head designer for a leading Kerala based jewelery chain for 17 years, leaving behind an oeuvre of more than 3000 designs. Painting has always been her first love, exploring the moods of nature, and finding shades, colours, tones and textures in landscapes, especially focusing on her memories of Thalassery and Nilgiris.  

Time in a Time of Pandemic

by Mell McDonnell

I 

Threads and spools 
liquifies 
runs river-like— 
mercury  
in silver oxbows 
circles 

makes moat about the house 

puddles, then 
pools 

II

Overflows moat
floods pool
breaks breakwater
runs, runnels, tunnels under
hours
days
weeks
months
plunges over
rocks, falls
rivets
to maelstrom’s
whirl
faster, deeper
churns:
sides slick as
oiled glass
deeper, deeper
hang tight
clench
branch, bow.

No, let go.

A feather
floats upward—

here’s Alice’s pool of tears
warm, salty
swim leisurely
in Alice’s company:
the  mouse,
the duck,
the dog,
the dodo.

III

Up from salt pool,
drops pearl from forearms,
drip from fingertips
to springtime’s garden—
deepest and deeper green—
time’s vine twines,
moves the moment,

warps and bends toward
summer’s reckoning.

Mell McDonnell is a person of several careers–as an instructor in English at the University of New Orleans, as a freelance financial writer, and as marketing/public relations director for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University of Colorado, Boulder.  She is a member of the Denver Women’s Press Club and Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. Ms. McDonnell’s poetry appears in The Silver Edge (Leaping Berylians Society, Denver), Third Wednesday (Ann Arbor), and The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.