Resistance Poetry 2020.04
Covid-19 II: May Day
With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. … It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. — H.G. Wells, from the opening paragraph of War of the Worlds, 1898
I’ve been thinking a lot about War of the Worlds these past two months. Written at time of disruptive change and end-of-century anxiety, it exudes an apocalyptic aura. It highlights humanity’s egotistic ignorance. It exposes our inability to master the universe. It feels so familiar.
In the end, it is not humans who triumph over the technologically superior invaders but the humblest of creatures, bacteria.
After the threat to Earth is repulsed by nature herself, humans rebuild and return to normal life. But, the narrator remains haunted.
I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill,… to see the people walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, … to hear the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last great day. . . .
And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead. — the conclusion of War of the Worlds
We, too, shall be haunted. Let us rebuild a better world.
Gail Walter (new poet)
Carmen Fong, MD (new poet)
Jad A. (new poet)
Elizabeth M. Renieris (new poet)
Anna S. Andrews (new poet)
Linda A Robinson, PhD (new poet)
Janet van Aswegen (new poet)
craig rory lombardi, bronx born
Ryan J. Petteway (new poet)
NEW POETS
Carmen Fong, MD (see above)
Janet van Aswegen (see above)
Anna S. Andrews (see above)
Jad A. (see above)
Elizabeth M. Renieris (see above)
Ryan J. Petteway (see above)
Linda A Robinson, PhD (see above)
