Race and Covid- Everyone In Their Corners

[Ken Gigliotti]

Race and Covid- Everyone in their Corners

In the matter of race,and Covid19,
We are in fact, all in this together.
Words are repeated in media,
Media is the message.
An agenda.
Mushy,time sensitive,
Streams of high emotion
and thin results.
We are all better than this.
It is now venting to calm,
a festering calm  with hope and not without results,
A cycle of a repeating record of raw emotions,
and little else, file footage for next time.
File footage from last time.
Simple documents of failure, and small steps forward,
and good intentions walking together.

We are all in this together.
And yet we have never been so divided.
This to is a fact,
When repeated too often
an aspiration or a fact becomes a cliche,
Words read too many times,
Without conviction,lose meaning
Words by the sayer and heard by the listener,
Media drowning in noble messages.
It clamors to keep up, missing the simplicity.
The rubber has hit the road, and
the things it didn't see coming,
seem so obvious.
They were there all this time.

Understanding facts is opened,then closed
Words lose the depth of the message,
meaning becomes a factoid,
Words repeated so often,
again becomes a truth,
and back again to being a fact.
Opening then closing ,
Covidnews, a virus of closing
and six feet of permission to gladly keep.
Hug and hand shake free.
Faces hidden.Borders closed.
Distance to be kept gladly, who would have thought?

Street proofing in the 2000's,a  perfect virus for the time.
A pause for Western thought who's latch key kids are now adults.
a timeout,
to examine just what people need to know
to not end up on the news.
A new book of simple etiquette for two generations of
silent,roaming mall rats meeting adult life,politics and small business.
Business waste lands, shoplifting and boarded up,
Closed banks, food stores, corner stores,
Security cameras and staff that fallows.
What is their fear.
The 9mm has changed everything.
A greeting, heads up, hands free, human to human,
Communicating with your eyes
as if it needed to be said.
Like Nixon's, “I am not a crook," good enough for any shop owner,
A simple message.

The perfect virus for the times we live in.
Another excuse to grow apart,
Everyone in their corners.
Every inequity coming to the surface,
Every unjust practice oozing onto every street,
out of every heart. Venting, it is a time to vent,
Then a time to think and act to fix what can be fixed.
A future fix, for the future.
Just as the Cold Cold War bankrupted the sad east,
Covid will bankrupt the carefree west.
We will still stand.
Things that should be known to all
turn out to known to only a few,the banks are next.
The few who endure.
We are all in this together.
Like it or not. The past is sliding forward,
New truths are forming.

Everyone in their corners
six feet apart and at the same time, miles apart.
Six feet at good first start. Listening then acting. Or chaos.
The shallow parts of media and government ponder.
Each other moves back into the ring as the usual watchers look on.
With swollen eyes,bruised and battered bodies,
 all the others in the colour spectrum now lock eyes,
 tap gloves, face to face ,drop their hands,
and meet with their minds,hearts and souls.
All were raised to be better, in this moment.

By ken gigliotti 2020