Quarantine Blues.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

you eat your breakfast,
hot coffee, and fried egg
and some slices of bread,
a matchbox of beef,

watch TV, savor the bad news,
murder and hacking, and the rising
number of covid infections,
nothing about travel guides this
time or those funny morning shows,
the trend of the day perhaps,

solid news and updates about this
pandemic, how the countries are
managing their own calamities,
wars set behind the news, and
protests stopped for a while,
lots of speeches on tv, presidents
and prime ministers, and health
leaders and military men briefing,

got tired finally, and being full
you take the dishes, put them on the
sink, wash them and put them back
to their proper places,


you clean the table, put back the
chair soundlessly and then you turn
off the tv, and open the door of the
veranda and sit there watching the
world slowly unfolding before you again,


same routine everyday, no office work,
no travel, no bonding with friends and
relatives, and you feel the loneliness
of being in quarantine,


you sit back, relax and whistle a song
carried by the soft winds towards
the sea or the mountains, or perhaps
just around the corner of this empty village.