Category Archives: Welfare

Save Lives

Off in an ambulance without goodbye

Maybe to live, perhaps to die

Where is the justice, how and why

It has to stop, we have to try

 

Keep your distance, wash your hands

Safeguard essential workers across the lands

Do your best to follow the plans

Or you could be marching to the heavenly bands

The Visitor

Listen if you will in the quiet of the night

To the scraping and scratching of things out of sight

To the noise of blood as it roars in your ears

To the beat of your heart as it measures your fears

 

Somewhere in the house a clock says tick-tock

Below in the street a key clicks in its lock

The third stair from the top creaks as it might

When stepped on in stealth by something so slight

 

Then hinges in want of an oil drop or more

Announce a faint shadow at the bedroom door

You turn on a light to see who is there

Not even a dust mote moves in the air

 

Return to the pillow, try to find sleep

The visitor is gone, no need to weep

Confinement

I’ll be two months old tomorrow

Half of that in what the telly calls ‘lockdown’

Mum and dad try to hide their sorrow

Not able to take me round town

 

Grandparents’ hugs; just a distant memory

I must hope they are still alright

One day there might be a remedy

Though that day isn’t yet in sight

 

Tight confines of mother’s womb

Now swapped for my parents’ home

This serves as a loving classroom

But how long for the chance to roam?

Remember

When Covid has, at last, gone

When public places once more throng

Recall with sorrow those we lost

As countries count the final cost

 

Then talk of all the brave and true

Who selflessly thought of you

Not going out was hard enough

Many faced challenges much more tough

 

Medics, police and essential folk

Donned again their professional yolk

Their lives at risk to safeguard yours

No choice but adventure out of doors

 

REMEMBER well the sacrifice

Of HEROES who did not think twice

The Supermarket Mouse

I must stay positive, I really must

Scampering across this film of dust

Whiskers tremble on twitching nose

Alert, examining empty shadows

Mice, who once were spoiled for choice

Now mourn their loss in squeaky voice

Tiny claws make tinny sounds

On bare metal shelving battlegrounds

A dozen different types of bread

Empty spaces here instead

Beans and pasta, once stacked proud

Now all gone, with the crowd

Long life milk disappeared

Hoarded selfishly, and not shared

Toilet rolls that made a good nest

Vanished suddenly with the rest

Long gone ancestors and early forebears

Told of shortages in the war years

Awry the plans of mice and men

Failed to stop it once again

COVID-19

This orient-born global threat

A cloud passing before the sun

Its silent shadow crossing our lands

Killing without a gun

 

The world awaits the final account

Holding its collective breath

Invisible, insidious, stealthy, amoral

This viral agent of death

 

There is no border it respects

No peoples beyond its reach

‘Self-isolate’ is the official advice

Don’t panic-buy they pathetically beseech

 

Come the time when those left re-emerge

Grateful to be disease free

Only to know it will happen again

A Malthusian catastrophe

The Window of Lucidity

Tossing, turning in a sweat soaked bed

Tugging moist sheets from legs of lead

Cracking an eye to the light of dawn

Another day’s prospect, this new morn

 

Pulling on socks, trousers, shoes

Tee shirt with logo “What’s to lose”

Brushing teeth that taste of booze

How did I get another new bruise?

 

What did I eat, it’s hard to remember?

My stomach churning like a blender

Shakily pouring a glass of juice

All this down to alcohol abuse?

 

Perhaps I should cut back a bit

But can I show the needed grit?

Jut now I have the power to decide

But think tonight, I’ll go with the tide