POETRY 
     With a focus on the Pandemic

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VIRAL TRYPTIC
3 Poems
by Corey Weinstein

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Corona's Venus

Venus all March in the western dusk
Poised above the dusted rusty horizon
that yields to chartreuse to violet
then mauve that hints at the night.
 
She rules with the constancy of love
binding us through this our plague
We who shelter, mask and distance
Finding the warmth of her cool light.
 
The brightest but for the sun and moon
Venus nestles between her celestial
champions, Betelgeuse and Capella
The two who guard her transit through.
 
To the south flank Orion’s strong right hand
protecting she and we from this moment’s madness,
Scary crowned particles float in our sweet air
 
Nooses, swastikas, Confederate flags in our streets
Bearded white men yelling assault rifles at nurses
Corporate mooches munching on newborn money.
 
The brightest of yellow stars guards the north,
Capella helps the shepherd drive the flock
across the sky and to our shady destiny
this worldwide tragedy and opportunity.
 
Venus our angel, our Isis, our Astarte
shining healing spells for ordinary people
sealing love among we who are learning,
If love brings us through, the world will change.

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1

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Corona Speaking Simply

You say it’s a war and I’m villain
It’s just that I don’t really care,
Whether I’m millions or trillions
You’d think it would matter. It won’t.
 
You say I’m your opposite number
Though I can’t decide how it goes
I don’t care if a bumbler is leading
Or an expert who no one can chide.
 
You say that I’m killing by thousands
My thanks are for welcoming lungs
We Coronas, you back-boned are earthmates
And on me your care system reckons.
 
You don’t need a defiler
You’re doing well on your own
Where you’re at your most brutal
I make my best cozy home.
 
No pleasure is mine taking elders
You serve them up with such ease
So many on chemical crutches
I know to go right where they’re dumb.
 
My moment of living, I taste it each time
As I educate you deep in your cells
With you I join my dear cousins
In those cells where we best replicate.
 
What do I know of nation states’ flags
Living with critters for so many years
Your money and markets and mayhem
I just can’t care.  Don’t condemn me.
 
Will I change and pass out more pain
Will you change and hold me down tight
My stock is in those healthy who carry
In their sweet cells my story is told.

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2

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Corona Speaks

​We gave you a nectar of the mouth
Alkaline juices create confectioners’ delight
Soft crustless bread pressed into candy
The soft white ball fashioned perfectly by
            your hand.
We love you who suckle your young
and bestow our grace even unto your
garden where the new grow in the womb,
This we gave while we schooled your
            immunity.
We a remnant of the original life form
Your intimate partner by our trillions
In you, on you, hundreds of kinds of my kind,
And we Coronas are as common as a
            winter cold.
And as deadly to the few as we are now,
They say we are obligate parasites
That is if it can be said we are alive,
We often say, we know how to be
            among the living.
We don’t mean to be mean, to kill
It’s just you live like bats hanging close
We thrive in warm moist lungs
Where we can join you and make ourselves
            within you.
Here dear is how to avoid me, the SARS-CoV-2:
Keep it brief, keep it rare, keep it sparse
Fresh clean air good care and shelter
So you and we can learn together how to
            live together.
            If I am alive.
            If you survive.

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3

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR  

A retired physician, Corey Weinstein is a musician, poet, songwriter and clarinet player. He has published two CDs of original music inspired by the Klezmer and Yiddish stage musical traditions and led Umzist, a Klezmer band playing benefits for Jewish elders for more than a decade. He wrote and performed at various venues a singspiel, Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar. He plays clarinet in the Or Shalom Jewish Community choir, with The Jamberries Jazz Band at Shabbat services at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, and with any chamber music group he can find. He lives in the Ingleside of San Francisco with his wife of 37 years, Pat Skala.   

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