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

Please keep your distance

I don’t want to catch anything from you

and I'm sure you feel the same way

staying indoors like a rained-off

summer holiday but this time

with endless advice on

how to fill our days as if

we can't be trusted to function

outside the tethered thinking

of workplace diktats

I tell you how I will spend my time

I will memorise the confusion

incompetence and untruths

that have led to this moment

while I fashion my response

among the sawdust of my lockdown lock-up

I will weaponise a disarticulated 

wooden garden chair leg

convert it into a crude war club

a coup stick for future skirmishes

over toilet paper and chocolate digestives

sand it a little

scrape a chisel along its length

adorn it with smart black Gorilla tape

and a libation of teak oil

a camouflaged and concealed weapon 

that still looks like a chair leg

as that was what it was made to be

ordinary domestic now deadly

like any household object

I choose it because its shape presents 

itself to me from among 

the other fractured wood

the flotsam of my materialism

because I assess that I might need it

to defend myself in the resistance

against the unelected 

super rich rulers of the world

the "supremacists"

the dark money and dirty companies

In the pews

mouths open

to out spew

the hymns

known off by hearts

in heaving chests

the rote

the rota

the cheeks

redenned and

redeemed

corrugated teeth

framed by yellowed collars

and furtive eyes

on servant girls

and recent widows

this interior world is shadow

and that which inhabits

its shade

the weight of the Bible

its brass clasp keeping

the colour pictures

of faraway places tight

until the right moment

the envy

the avarice

so many reputations at stake

in Adam's grove

where Lucifer takes over

the sêt fawr

sitting side by side

with the faithful

as the Word is heard

but no longer received

(sêt fawr-great pew)

If someone says the word "unprecedented"

one more time I will not be held accountable

for what comes next

what about the Spanish Flu

the Black Death and other plagues

including the Bible ones?

did they not happen?

did they "unhappen"?
~

does no one read history books any more

and did no one look at what was happening

in China in these supposedly connected times?

what about those warnings from the World Health Organisation?

are we no longer a part of the world?

do we think that we exist in a bubble

and that nothing or no one will burst it?

what about our own scientific community?

what were they thinking or couldn't they agree?

and why is there always a "lag" 

in official data on weekends

can't they rota staff to give a 

24/7 pandemic

24/7 coverage 

in the information world

as figures received on Tuesdays sometimes jar?

where are we on those charts 

those peaks and troughs of our lives 

our deaths?

why don't we learn anything any more 

particularly now that we really

do have something to learn from?

it's almost as though our minds 

are erased as we sleep 

making everything appear unprecedented

as it's harder to have a viable past this way

I want my past even if I don't always like it

On twenty two consecutive days

in April 2020

over 1,000 people died 

of Covid-19

in my country

though Ministers daily

downplayed this abomination

with figures of three digits

my country

in need of care

though you wouldn't know it

from the way it is treated

by its careless rulers

those leaders that morph into

cheap game show hosts

Brylcreemed

three digits

knowing winks 

and prizes you can't use

my country

a bump on the earth

a thing of beauty

radiating from the smiles

that come gladly to the faces

of the low paid and short changed

I applaud them

I applaud anyone

who has not swallowed

the lies attached to the events

of these rariefied days

as the undertakers work overtime

and the monumental masons

inscribe new stanzas

on the Avenues of Tombs

Munching a Crunchie bar 

he splutters as the daily death figures

don't come down quickly enough for him

when the total reaches 44,000*

he starts to feel a bit like 

it's Medieval days again

only this time with apps 

that don't always deliver 

and the act of dying more private

splutter splutter

mutter mutter

stutter stutter

he gets restless as the deaths

are now at least twice the amount

the scientists said would be 

an acceptable outcome not so long ago

who can you believe?

who can you trust?

thank God for TV remotes

pity they can't switch off his mind too 

and those of the others

though at times he thinks

even this is debatable

the weather suddenly 

turns cold windy and damp 

unsettling and depressing

a summer bypassed

he feels a shiver in his t shirt

remaining resolutely sun-worshipping

despite the evidence

*insert your own country's figures or update the UK figure if so inclined

He dreams of capital cities 

the pyramids of money 

the cut-price labour that raised them

now laid off

in quarantine

blacked out

streets 

avenues 

squares 

lanes 

the underground 

and overground railway tracks

emptied

no children at play 

no vehicles in motion 

parked forever

a sky reprieved

and exonerated

is reflected in lakes

fountains and tributaries

where fish nervously return

and dolphins are anticipated

sea eagles ravens and sparrows 

rule the high buildings 

their glass blue 

in the reconditioned atmosphere

quaking in expectation

learning to breathe again

sleeping cities

are secret cities

how conurbations are effaced

stifled by their inattention

buried under their obese ambition

as sleep comes to his dream

and the dreamt citizens

of the pestilent civilization

the last supermoon of the year

a flower moon

blossoms over a trembling stillness

and the lights are still on