Flop

flip flop

from one bad decision

one delay to the next

no fillip fulfilled

but flopped enough

flimsy filleted conscience

flame grilled ideation

sears the nation

flannel fans

the sidelined fans

the tarts and flans

the dollops lollop

unable to gallop

the plumped up

propped up plops

that rule rather than govern

glib guff

guilt gripped

gulped

ending griped

top hat toffs

lop off that lot

lorded and loafed

yet levelled little

you're having a laugh

One two three tier lockdowns

in a two tier country

the second wave

a two tier cake

for the Great British Bake Off

the Great British Shut Down

tier suggesting structure

when none is present

Covidspeak

curve and peak

hands face space

test and trace

fear and inequality

cases and capacity

untruths and nepotism

loss and pessimism

please don't speak Covid to me

I'm just waiting for a vaccine

waiting for another year

better than this one

for the next TV presentation

by the scientists

with all the gravitas

of a wartime broadcast

of grown-ups telling us

the worst of news

the maps and graphs

different colours

different shades

sliding slideshows

the climbing lines

out of our minds with unease

the creep of a disease

over land and through the air

A masked ball

coverings of many colours

patterns and materials

those beautiful surgical gowns

social distance dancing

move those hips

waltz away regrets

trance into herd immunity

as the local lowdowns creep closer

more local

be vocal about your future

your survival

dance on my lovely

what will be will be

hold my hand and promise

to keep your balance

try not to slip up

in the ballroom of spores

Edge of an armada

liminal keels

keening over the bay

on a fateful day

limping blooded

wasped by frigates

and hawk-faced wreckers

trying to get away

invasion doesn't always reward

though this is not our fight

this is our day

and for this you will pay

your cannons fall silent

spiked by salt water

to the depths you dive

to the mystery of our bay

Print press protest

secrecy hinders

contracts without tender

detected heartbeat under rubble

drenched in the virus

so drunk he slept on the floor

he turns her against her family

not predicted to receive service

born with a Mohawk

jailed off screen

and shot by police who

informed the wrong family

conspiracy theories win

an angry note left on a Mercedes

original title and artwork

latest product recalls

how voting works

as weak as Mexico's

Mad Cow fast facts

in their secret woodland lair

I am looking out for a comet

but I am distracted by 

what could be a fox 

maybe only its eyes

or a suggestion of movement

one is never alone in the dark

a moon illuminated tree

at the edge of a field

bales of hay

hedges

reeds

in sharp relief

(I see the moon

the moon sees me)

that way they ask where we were

what we were doing 

and who we were with on 09/11

the day that Princess Diana died

or when the first lunar landing

was broadcast

the graininess of our discoveries

on trembling flickering screens

do people of different times

recognise the changing face

of the moon altered 

as everything and everyone is 

by contact with irresistible objects?

did it look the same to human observers

one hundred

one thousand

one million years ago?

and do we look as they used to?

Are locksmiths key workers?

is the curve flattened yet?

is it flat as I understand flat to be?

will I feel any different?

and what about people who

had been cooped up for months

in tiny flats?

my father died the month before the lockdown

feels like a hundred years ago

that man

in a spring and summer of national mourning

what should we do?

let's plant a new arboretum of remembrance

with statues of nurses 

doctors 

delivery drivers

supermarket staff 

carers 

postal workers

my father

I'll lay a posy of daffodils at his feet

and dig my spade into the flinty mud 

of his settling grave

how much blame will the politicians

seek to allocate to others ?

all of it I imagine

they have not impressed

but then I have always been underwhelmed

by the privileged especially when in power

their inability to relate to the poor

to the everyday needs of everyday citizens

nothing changes just avenues

of revolving doors containing

grinning hyenas in morning suits

always pretending to give

impoverished people a chance

as they are further impoverishing them

please don’t forget these times

though they are concerning

though they are frightening

and likely to remain so for a time

though we lost many people on the way

don’t ever forget what happened

what some had to go through

don’t forget about us

don’t forget about me

and the key workers 

who became locksmiths

trying to free up the logjam

our lives had flowed into

Outside little moves

save for divorced foxes

corner-of-eye birds

and abandoned face masks

breathing in a confident breeze

indoors TVs cover walls

broadcasting shows

of people who used to be famous 

for being used to be famous

but he's safe here he thinks

high above the plain

of the Great Pandemic

the lifts still work

he doesn't remember the last time

he travelled in them

though each Friday he waits

at the gaping shaft

for food parcels from the charity

whose appeals fall on his deaf ears

charity begins and stays at home

he disposes of his waste in bags

that plummet to a ridge of refuse

hundreds of feet below

putrefying as the scavengers

consume what can be digested

he hasn't paid a bill for some time

but no one is collecting the rent

in the mid distance of his binoculars

giant cacti impale curious virus-finches

on their honed horned armoury

the TVs only offer repeats these days

his favourites are complete football matches

in empty stadia with added crowd noise

among the few times 

he hasn't heard racist taunts

at such so-called sporting events

these repeats

these repeats

these repeats

these repeats

A disease that largely affects the elderly

now they're targeting the young

as they too are succumbing to the virus

and could pass it on to old people

as they enjoy newly relaxed freedoms

"don't kill Granny"

the latest deadly catchphrase

in a whole literature of them

and on the subject of our grandparents

over 20,000 people died of Covid-19 

in care homes in the UK

despite Public Health England

stating in February 2020 that

the pandemic was unlikely to affect

that sector and despite the "ring of steel"

the Secretary of State for Health

claimed had been installed in order 

to safeguard our most vulnerable

those who could not escape

and who deserved every respect

and every layer of protection

we needed lions

we got chocolate fireguards

and as for face masks

does my bum look big in mine?

it's getting harder to choose

as at least two industries

have developed alongside

the possible need to wear them

one is the creative attempt

to inject jazz into accidental genocide

through a multitude of designs

in an effort to turn a feel bad time

into something like a feel a little better time

the other industry is somewhat older

it's the one that's lining the pockets

of friends of the Tory party who laughably

describe themselves as a Government

you know the same ones who ordered

55 million masks that were not 

suitable for use by the NHS

I don't suppose they even tried

to get a refund on our tax-payers' money

(Jeff Bezos

Mark Zuckerberg

Tim Martin

Sir Phillip Green

Sir Richard Branson

Sir Alan Sugar)

he sees them on the TV 

reads about them in news apps 

he declines to subscribe to 

he thinks they're contemptible 

and wouldn't urinate on them if they caught fire

all vocal

all opinionated

all money grabbing modern style barons 

with no shame or few scruples

the unacceptable faces of capitalism

the unacceptable faces of humans

three of them are titled

wonder what the Queen really thinks about that

when he’s tired he thinks “titles”

reads a little like  “titties”

maybe he needs new spectacles

maybe he needs a new world

where wealth and health

are distributed more equally