day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY FOUR

Super Spreader: in a Time of Coronavirus 

Holds indoor rallies
no one wants to attend
except the loyalists
whose idea of world
affairs is shaped
by Reality TV or
the young, the foolish
and the impressionable
who fear nothing
especially not the obvious
or the inevitable.
Believe hype and lies
they hear and see
from the man who
plays president on TV.
Who is, in fact,
a super spreader,
The Covid Don,
worse than Typhoid
Mary and ten times
as dangerous.
Who only hears the melody
to Talking Heads remake
of old song revised as
Covid Killer.
Who ignores the rude
and nasty words he doesn’t
like. Thinks Super,
when applied to him, 

is a compliment.
Applauds his own
ignorance, his nomask
face frozen in half-assed,
cocky grin. Thinks Blue
Oyster Cult is a new group
of loyal New Yorkers
singing his praise.
Asks not for whom
the bells toll.

--Alan Catlin