Feds are importing beef from Namibia while American ranchers are having to destroy their herds.

If I got rid of everything made in China that is in my home, I wonder how naked would I be?

In order to create ‘herd immunity’ in sheep, they are brought together, not separated. To create ‘herd immunity’ in ‘sheeple,’ (sheep + people = sheeple) they must be separated for their ‘own good.’

A Crowned Lady
Parades sadly
Through cities,
Into hills,
And valleys,
Beyond the Southern Cross.

She prays fervently
And all I do is
Touch my forehead,
My stomach
My shoulders.
Up to down,
Left and right,
As if condemned.

Perhaps I should
Be more afraid
But strangely
I find myself calm
Or the waking dead.

All the while I joke:
Toilet paper hoarders,
People who react,
Who do not act,

Me, myself and I,
Absorbed by ‘what if,’
and
Benjamin Moore paint,
Green,
Color code 33a352.
And like blood,
It covers my hands.

Thrashing in still of night,
The overhead fan cuts
The rooms quiet darkness
Like an executioner’s ax.
But still…
there is that code
And the fact that
No fact begins with ‘if.’

I need a couple of new imaginary friends. My old ones are under quarantine.

“Jolene” + start singing “Chlorine, chlorine, chlorine, chloriiiiine… Please don’t drink it just because you can.”

It came to me as a high, whining sound, the kind of sound that only a dying jet engine can make as it falls to earth. I had jus’ stepped out of a business when I heard it, looked up and watched as a T-38 Talon trainer came rocketing vertically into the center of the parking lot.

The aircraft didn’t explode upon impact. Instead the crash came with a deafening roar and air-blast that knocked me down and blew me into the street.

Instead of erupting into flame, a small static discharge lept from the craft, zapping me, rendering me too weak to get up and continue running. Seconds later that firework sparkler-like discharge became a complete conflagration as a detonation finally took place.

All around me I saw people suddenly bursting into flames, the feathers of birds began to burn as they flopped about. This was quickly followed by trees, cars and buildings spontaneously exploding into a firestorm.

By this time I was laying in the gutter, between the sidewalk and street. But it was not enough, as I felt myself becoming engulfed by the hot tongues of flame that danced over my body.

This is how I woke up this morning: trying to capture my breath and understand that I wasn’t really on fire. It was nothing more than another night-terror, this time aided by a meal of two tacos and a dose of Tapatío before bedtime.

I’ve not been back to sleep…

While trying to think outside of the box, I learned that I am the box.

There’s never been a vaccine developed that can kill a virus — not even for the common cold. Let that sink in…

An artist, that’s all Paul wanted to be ever since he could remember. All throughout school, kindergarten to twelfth grade, he turned out pieces of work, from paintings and drawings to sculptures, that ‘wowed’ everyone.

That was over four decades ago, when they said he’d be the one to go places, setting the art world’s trends for his generation. Time, unfortunately, has a bad habit of destroying such tributes and then eventually the individual dream of the one praised so highly.

Today, Paul sits on the hard wood floor of a newly built home, touching up the places where the large construction brushes and sprayers had missed their mark. He’ll go home this evening, far too tired to even think about his own forgotten craft.