Captain Tom for Prime Minister 

or Health Secretary if that 

particular promotion isn’t available

or anyone else really instead 

of the current cumbersome incumbents

this embodiment of unpreparedness

these foggers of obfuscation

the economy

wealth versus lives 

the workforce dwindling

for the ghost gig

the leadership inadvertently solves

the crisis in social care 

through neglect and amnesia

maybe that's how the prisons will go too

no relations but expensive

to the taxpayer

the elderly and the guilty

captive audiences

sitting ducks

but the baby was saved

the robots wait in the wings with 

virtual mass graves for virtual funerals

and there's an unexpected reprieve for the environment

some good comes from every evil

some light in each darkness

(the Chinese revise the Wuhan death toll upwards by 50% 

people are not as malleable as data

but when they’re gone they’re gone

and become data though the poets 

try to breathe fire into that clay)

Norman Hunter

a Leeds United great 

plague victim

bites your legs

glory glory

the Health and Social Care Secretary 

offers care workers a badge

yes a badge

a fogging badge

a sticking plaster on a disaster

does it get any better than this? 

(no, not much but we have each other

and the air we gratefully breathe

and the baby that was saved)

ground control to Captain Tom

ground control to Captain Tom