Tag: poet

Balcony Folk Look Down at Lockdown – poem 34

look at the people all marching about 
making the most of the hour that they’re out 
swinging their arms all the bags are at home 
furloughed along with the iron and the comb 
no defined route just the whim of their feet 
swerving round all other soldiers they meet 
randomly crissing and crossing the green 
imagine some lines showing where they have been 
a map of their journeys like tangled up string 
with no destination extraordinary thing 
a fast-forward film of the aerial view 
would show all the dogs passing very quick poo 
and speed up the shoppers in Sainsbury’s queue 
we balcony dwellers need something to do 
like hang from a rope or a flying trapeze 
abandon all hope or swing down from your knees 
be gloomy and mope or sail over the trees 
and show you can cope with restrictions like these 
 

Mixed Observation Ward – poem 33

 I flew back from England to see my poor mum
 In fear of sad words and last parting
 She was crying with laughter and glad that I'd come
 That man over there can't stop farting
 She whispered a nurse put a pipe in his bum
 Her hospital fun was just starting
 Despite her low numbers she didn't succumb
 It wasn’t her mood they were charting 

 She wasn’t expecting to hear a guitar
 Just behind the thin fabric partition
 Is it angels in there it depends how they are
 Most patients just need the musician
 Two verses of Edelweiss small repertoire
 Enough is enough repetition
 Mum's band with maracas was better by far
 Do they not have some kind of physician

 Last night when I came she was grumbling away
 I listened to what was the matter
 She’d like a cream tea a nice cloth on a tray 
 And six kinds of cake on a platter
 The chef sends her gruel both lumpy and grey
 She’s getting too hungry to chatter
 So we’re home to do dumplings and doughnuts all day
 Sink our fangs in meringues and get fatter

Let Off Lightly In Lockdown – poem 32

 
 
 
 How large is your problem 
 How long is a string
 What counts as catastrophe 
 Any old thing
 Good towels gone rigid
 Fresh cornflakes gone soft
 That thing that you liked 
 Surely lost from the loft
 Your socks all unravelled
 Your teabag just burst
 Such things didn’t seem
 Quite so tragic at first                                                                
 When news was exciting
 And frightening and new
 And clearing out cupboards
 Was cheering to do
 What fun it was finding 
 And fondling old junk
 And poking in plugholes
 And hoking out gunk
 But now for a challenge
 It's glum in this trough
 Let’s have some explosions
 Big fever bad cough
 An earthquake that sweeps you
 Off north on a flood
 Through rough seas and cyclones
 To boiling hot mud
 How big is your problem
 What's really at stake
 It’s not Armageddon
 To run out of cake
 Whatever you suffered
 And dreaded before
 The way to forget it
 Is suffer some more