POETRY IN THE AGE OF COVID-19

Posted: 30th April 2020

A poem by member George Forsyth.

 

Now April nears its end and soon it will be May

And my lockdown is now in its forty-fifth day.

With the virus, therefore, I am unlikely to be infected,

Yet, with normal life, I am still completely disconnected. 

 

So many diary entries have been scored out

And my normal life continues in this drought.

I am not alone, of course, everybody’s in the same boat

Until, for Covid-19, the experts create an antidote.

 

This crisis has brought many communities together

With sponsored runs in the warm sunny weather

And myriad other ways to raise money for hospital staff

Who are too busy or tired or sick to do it on their own behalf.

 

I’m one of the lucky ones, free of this dreadful disease

That has brought the whole world to its knees.

But, since, I have been blessed with a modicum of brains,

I will reserve the bleach for the toilets and the drains.

 

I look to the political interviews to learn my future fate

But questions and answers are very rarely straight.

After being hated by all for so many years

It seems the only decent interviewer is Mr Morgan, first name Piers.

 

It’s a world turned upside down and no mistake

But what will be left in this virus’s wake?

How much of our old life, before it came,

Will still be there for us to reclaim?