What Rough Beast | Covid-19 Edition | 04 26 20 | Andrew Zanazanian

Andrew Zanazanian
Lonesome Scourge

Stand you now, our porcelain walls, bedecked with tidings
of ashes that creep through the day’s mortal brawl
with anguished sleep, to endure tomorrow’s hiding
that’s brought earthly motions to an infantile crawl

Keep you to your caverns, of imprisoned joy
To guard our little time, from nature’s ploy
With cloistered hearts and coarse vigilance
We play our parts, for all mankind’s dividends

Gather your wits, and staunch your despair
mete out the days through this baleful repose
as we begin our climb up countermeasure’s stair,
up delicate steps where hope like ivy grows

Steel your selves, come the mutative foe
It’s solitary war, but you are not alone;
though we all have heard the cawing of crows,
we are yet sentinels of life’s frail throne

—Submitted March 23, 2020

Andrew Zanazanian is a senior honors student majoring in English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He self-describes as “a first generation American of Armenian heritage, born and raised in the Central Valley in California.”

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