Is it asthma, is it covid?

For a whole year we lived to hide

Yet some of us are still stuck inside

Afraid to step into the light

I watched the drama on tv

In three parts on sly T V

A tale of fiction for all see

As if none of us were there to see

Millions dead, betrayed and forgotten

As if our minds have all gone rotten

Spoiled by the debris of our own lonelines...

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Our lives like a sinusoidal graph

Happiness short-lived than half,

We are all anxious

Of the future ahead

Taking the lives of millions,

It still yearns for more,

And has shaken the world

To the core

As if not enough though,

It keeps mutating in a row,

Coming up with more pals(black fungus, parosmia, strokes)  

It has made people a toast

For they ha...

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It was fun while it lasted

Now it’s time to leave the crease

Take the plaudits, raise your bat

Let the innings cease

No need to hang around for tea

Just take your bag and shuffle off

And please, don’t go near the cakes

With that painful, hacking cough

Looks like rain, did you check the covers?

And coil up the boundary rope

Without proper preparation 

I’m ...

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after Philip Larkin

Never again such crowds

shouldering such exultation,

no more the sea lion choir

hauled up on the stands.

The stadia and arenas

silent like grief,

the sun quenched in remembrance 

of a million flowering hands.

And shutters on the High Street

tight against the abyss,

the weekend staff furloughed,

the checkout bleepers schtum.

The h...

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October 2020

Once we’d bagged the first we should’ve quit

but we are so elated 

to make it safely down by noon 

we press on like a perfect pair of twits,

sights set on a much-alike, elevated

cairn across the valley, reckoning soon 

we’ll add another summit to our list.

We scale a gate which warns us to KEEP OUT!

and brave a barbed wire fence 

before the grad...

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Just the right amount of squeeze 

at my hip

of a lemon 

on the pasta we craft for each other

of the sponge he knows I don’t like to touch when wet.

A tongue, a croissant, a bottom smack, 

exactly when we wanted one

A well-timed tease, balletically treading that tightrope line 

from this now, to the next, to the next to the next please

Moments studded above our ...

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Another New Year’s Morning.

Smoked and smooth-whisky aged brain with a stab in the right temple.

Start as you mean to go on.

The primary glee of proverbial blank slates fresh starts new year new me           (new you, hopefully)

Rubbing my hands together and over the smooth cream pages of 2021

Ready to splatter in powder paint blue red yellow black pink pink pink..

A Ne...

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Hello Face book,

Hello Twitter,

No more facts for me.

No more peer review,

No more research papers,

I’ve given up the science scene.

Free to determine my own reality,

Free to believe in what I choose,

Free to say no to the Covid vaccination for me.

Some say me selfish?

Some say me short sighted?

That the Vax is the only way out!

Information does not ki...

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Liverpool won the cup…

In an empty stadium

And stadiums of souls around the world

Ascended into heaven

It was the best of years

It was the worst of years

Vaccines were produced at break neck speed

And lies disseminated to stop people taking what they need

Heath workers went the extra mile

Risking life and limb

Applauded by million with a loud din

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It isn't snowing but the world is put on ice
Shivering and sliding and slipping by in life
Better get our skates on,
Better wrap up nice and warm,
Got to learn ourselves a new way to survive.

Thinking of the problems that are past and yet to come
Got that crushing tingling feeling, feeling numb
Better switch our brains on
Better struggle through this storm
Got to keep on going strong an...

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This year has been different and certainly strange,
So for this Covid Christmas we must all make a change.
With our loved ones we may not be able to share,
But remember them still and know that they do care.

Although Covid-19 makes us all be apart,
Try to be strong and remain stout of heart.
Though at this festive time numbers may be reduced,
Know a wonderful Christmas may still be produc...

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We Get It!

We get it

It’s dangerous

Lethal, I think they said

We hide indoors

Obey the laws

It’s better than being dead

We get it

But it won’t harm

Getting a hug or two

It’s Christmas after all

And deserved

After what we’ve all been through

We get it

The vaccine’s near

So we’ll all end up being alright

A kiss

Under the mistletoe

...

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Retraining Bert

Chefing is not what it used to be

His boss called him in and explained.

'We're now on tier 3 says the edict,

and boozers like this have to close.'

'No boss, we're exempt,

like the 'Spoons have been told.

We sell grub and that's kosher

just the ale house is doomed.'

'It won't work like that lad,

the punters are scared.

And I can't serv...

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Spirits

The first

Showed me how it had been

The laughter and the tears

Sliced turkey

Rich juices flowing

Lights and tinsel

Greens and reds and silvers

The smell of pine

Needles on the carpet

Arguments and recriminations

Old wounds opened

New wounds pierced

This was how it was

The second

Showed me how it is

Lonely day holy night

The only ...

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Where am i?

I ask my mindless brain as I disassociate

I disassociate to the point that everyday feels the same

Everything i do blends into one giant blob of nothingness

Nothing matters. Does it? 

It doesn’t. Nothing has ever mattered.

That's why we alter our state of reality.

We alter it to feel something out of all the nothingness.

We take the shot. We take the h...

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It is right
It is right
'Only those
That stand under a tree
Know how ants bite!'

"Unless I saw things
Firsthand
Flaunting, I
Used not
Facts to understand!

In this regard
I often said off hand
'Concerning Covid-19
You could be off
Your guard
I do not agree
With a bizarre
Lockdown decree.'

Me if you ask
Why put not you
A face mask?
I will laugh
Behind your back.

While ...

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My love life is a dusty relic of the Stone Age

The risks of COVID are too much to handle

My new blow-up doll's not quite the same

But dames are just not worth the candle

I miss the gossip working from home, and

I'm growing obese eating non-stop cookies,

I'm depressed from thinking about my fate,

Facing queer street from on-line bookies

The allotment affords me a b...

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The world has gone from worse to worst
With people dying left and right
We know the cause but what's the cost
A dying race from an embrace
We hope that cure will come for sure
And see that worst will come to pass

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As originally published with Clay Literary's Raven: https://www.clayliterary.com/post/design-a-stunning-blog

‘Neath the blistering heat, California poppies cast

themselves to the hillside sun as wayward children

start to lose their breath, as you now fight for yours,

running to chase the summer blues away.

The young and old all begin to fail; heatwaves

take the lun...

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Covid Mary

This world is made of razorblades and bile

Where every step is dangerous to tread

Bloody footprints stretch out mile after mile

Leading to the bone mansions of the dead

They chew on rotting meat and bitter wine

And breath the fetid air of charnel house

The graveyards filled with beggars is a sign

Of every corrupt moral they espouse

In darkened rooms they ...

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this bizarre plea for that dystopia

dug here with slumber  

which might sleep for friendship.

maybe creep and demise passing,

a prayer and an assembly,

me and God in his chamber,

a euphoric chalice

that grasps a spade to dig

but who am I to find such bliss in the anxious ground?

I take a spade and dig

but who am I to find such bliss in the anxious ground?

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March - June 2020 :

During the early months of the UK lockdown, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - I've been organising and running an online community writing project through various Facebook community boards, but in two different communities: Fakenham, in north Norfolk, where I live & work, and the Isles of Scilly, which I've known and loved for over twenty-five years. The two poems produ...

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Old Vic

Once these doors close

The lights are dimmed

They may never open again

The soft ghosts of actors

Fading in our memory

Leaving only distant echoes

The bright gaudy costumes

The greasepaint and powders

All left where they last fell

The empty seats collect dust

The stage becomes a mausoleum

Of tragedy and comedy

Pennies draining ...

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Mom and dad

Me if you adore

Kiss me not

Till COVID-19
Is no more!  ///

As part of the sensitization work on physical distancing  I heard a kid on ETV saying so.

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New Normal

We hang around like statues

At McDonalds and Ikea

We wait in line for haircuts

Or to grab a pint of beer

We stand apart together

Following the six foot rule

We can gather for a shopping trip

But not to go to school

We spy upon our neighbours

And complain at barbeques

We daren’t go too far from the house

Because of lack of loos

We wear a m...

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Elegy For Days Lost

Another day has come and passed

Left pain and sadness in its wake

The seconds, minutes, hours amassed

The sun will give the moon will take

The distant friends the loved ones lost

Amid the times of dread disease

Each family will count the cost

And curse the name of days like these

And yet the sky was clearest blue

I wrote a poem, sang a so...

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Like Saul on the road to Damascus
when Jehovah stopped for a word and held forth
Mary Wakefield met Lord God Almighty
on the A1. In March. Heading north.
In a car with something quite deadly
(who was apparently feeling unwell)
his road paved with the worst of intentions
off to Durham, or – hopefully – hell,
coughing and sweating and whining
like some self-centred, sociopath scrote
Domini...

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GHOSTS OF COVID 19.
We see you and reach out amidst this sea of unknown faces
We watch through tears, in silence and remember familiar places
Where once the streets held smiles from many families black and white
Where music flowed through windows, well into the night
Where street lamps held the kisses of all lovers neath the moon
This chance I never got to feel being taken far too soon
Our ...

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At five o’clock the Tories dribble poison in my ears

trying hard to hide their perma-smirks they giggle at our fears.

Trumpeting as triumphs, all the targets they’ve not met.

They twist the truth like wicker man and hope we’ll all forget

that they failed to act in time to protect our brave frontline

And they watched the death toll climb, while they told us we were fine

But w...

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Freedom At Last

Flames raged in the cornfields around it,

Bobbing there in stagnant waters

Tethered to a solid mooring post

With a thick, coarse rope.

Each spark from the furnace

A risk to its rotting timbers

As it took hold and smouldered

And smoked and spread

Oars crossed and laid on its floor

And the spattered markings of crows

Bleaching spots of ...

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Annie was eighty and lived in a care home

Someone had wanted her out of the way

Unsung staff were her guardian angels

Love of the job more important than low pay

The home was a sanctuary for Annie

For her age she was mobile and fit

Her life was peaceful and quite secure

Until the day the covid-19 pandemic hit

Matron and her assiduous staff

Worried about Annie a...

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The Silent Commodities Born Poor

     The treasure chest is full,

And many a full treasure chest are there

Secretly concealed in caves,  in safes,

In Nuclear Bunkers,

     In the avarice mind of our Gaoler.

     Now the cull,

Now the greed is there for a good

While – there be no need for

The silent commodities born poor,

A wealth of their intellect...

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Event Horizon

Yesterday

I looked out of my window

The man taking his dog for a walk

The mother and child hand in hand

School children hopping and skipping along

Neighbours chatting over a fence

The postman delivering parcels

A cat slinking under the hedge

The wind whipping leaves

The rain falling

Yesterday

Today

I looked out of my window

The dog ...

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Still living

fallout met

by masses,

without guns

no bullets

just mute

disease,

creeps fast

striding shrill

in media

mantra, fear-

I could sense

in spun words

on print page

sold for pence

ignorance

pushed quick,

cutting harsh

and bleeding,

blood pounding

though veins of

arms, afraid,

survival

met impulse

like long fight,

fal...

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