PPP (Post Pandemic Poem)
Our world, overnight, turned upside down
Enforced suffocation of city and town
Hospitality’s smile turned on its head
Replaced by warning posters instead:
“Stand on the markings, stay six feet apart
Please use the hand gel, pull up your mask
I told you once, stand behind the lines
Offenders are subject to on the spot fines.
Wait your turn, and sir…please keep your distance
Rudeness is not tolerated. I’ll ring for assistance.”
And the cruel wind whistled down deserted streets
“We’re all in this together…so say the elites”
A million playground swings unswung
A billion Christmas songs unsung
A haunting silence, rather than peace
Shattered with drive-bys from zealous police.
For the siren call, the voice of authority
Has a soporific effect on the vast majority.
We hummed happy birthday, not once but twice
We scrubbed and we masked and we sanitised.
Surveilled by the state, grassed on by next door
Things must improve in a week or more.
Managed and monitored wherever we go
Fluorescent wardens to keep us in tow.
Permanent tenterhooks, badly frayed nerves
Only two weeks to flatten the curve.
Stay in and order from Mutton Jeff
For he is blind to your woes, as well as deaf.
Twice weekly parcels from DPD
A desperate glimpse of how things might be.
Our living rooms turned prison cell
Trapped in a loop of Netflix hell.
Welcome to the state of permanent fear!
We craved the pub for contact, not for beer
Businesses failing, mothers dying alone
Pingdemic chimes on your mobile phone
We’re all in this together, that’s what they said
Together? Not by your mother’s bed.
And the cruel wind whistled down deserted streets
“We’re all in this together…so say the elites”
But while we reheated our ready meals
Ministers made unscrupulous deals
In exchange for promises forged in hell
Oh, how far the mighty fell.
Boris embraced the charms of Big Pharma
Unsavaged by the sheep that is Sir Keir Starmer
Educated clowns, turned on by legislation
Nothing but an orgy of elitist masturbation.
They see the world through a corrupted lens
Lucrative contracts with old school friends
While the green monster grinned through guilty teeth
For abstinence is his hand relief.
Innate corruption, that is the virus
Not one of those bastards even tried to inspire us
Or made an attempt to understand
It’s hard working people that run this land
The needle it jumped from ‘freedom’ to ‘control’
All for the greater good we were told.
Ridiculous rules for the greater good
While the great and good laughed, like only they could.
“Keep your face covered, whatever you’re doing
You can lower it slightly, but only when chewing.”
Draconian measures with simply one aim:
The face of humanity must be covered in shame.
Egged on by a salivating, salacious press
Apocalyptic predictions to heighten distress
But while locked in your homemade penitentiary
Ministers danced like the birth of the century.
Glorious spreads of cheese and wine
They partied like it was nineteen ninety nine.
They shouted above the music, they laughed and they joked
They scoffed and they drank and they karaoked.
They ordered curries, suitcases of champagne
No time to feel guilt. No need to explain.
And the cruel wind whistled down deserted streets
“We’re all in this together…so say the elites”
So the road to hell is not paved with good intention
Something the elite forgot to mention.
A symptom of power, or political curse
But they spaffed away billions from the public purse
As if in a rush for economic decline
Hoisting petards of their own design.
No, the road to hell is paved with your tax
Just another of those revelatory facts
Both indigestible and hard to swallow
Now that our hearts are collectively hollow.
But we hold our grudges close and quite discreetly
Time does heal, though never completely.
Scared and scarred is the legacy of the Twenties:
Homo Trepidatious is emotionally empty.
So as the blood returns to our browbeaten towns
A hubbub is heard, a beautiful sound
Reminiscent of pre-pandemic days
But damaged in so many ways
With brushed off hurt and dented pride
We now know the state is not on our side.
For these are our towns, our streets, our stores
Just leave us alone, this is our land, not yours.
Big thanks to Jan Enkelmann for the cover image
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