COVID 19 - The Virus

Here I am -Enter stage left
Back from outer space
(You might have guessed)
But no I am from far closer to home
I am from Mother nature
No ET phone Home
I am already home
This is my play ground
It's been me and the devil, since before you all were around

The fact is you forgot about me
Something buried deep in your collective psyche
An itch you had to scratch and then you opened up the genie
Now he won't go back into his bottle -that's me

You know deep down you wanted this
You know deep down I'm good
I'm giving everyone what they wanted
A break from metal and science
And technology
This is wood
This the human body on the wrack
It is under strain, under attack
It is pulled apart in vain
To look for the soul
Because we lost it some where
Back there, when we gave away control

I am athwart to progress
Because you know progress isn't good
There is pressure
There is impetus
There is the worldwide neighbourhood
And not in my back yard
But now everyone is a neighbour
There is no gerrymandering
No public profiteering or gambling
This is role the dice and come up aces
Or else lose it all, reset the clock
Have egg on all your faces
Because you cannot manage

It is too much for your lives
You are individual cases, but in your nervous system I will survive
I am the psychic phantom of all your imagined
Fears
The phantom of the Opera
The last music in your eyes
And the last note to be struck
By the chiming bell
When they toll for the dead
You know I am doing well

Well, well the other choice is live in a world
At times a living  hell
For some it will be a relief
They are old, can't you tell
But I also take the young one's too
I am a humanitarian
I see everyone as equal
There is democratic decision making
I'm not like some kind of crazy terrorist cell
Which by the way my presence seems mysteriously
To have quelled

I am a bigger threat
I am a government of one
I rule not in net
But in the Genetic details of everyone
I unite you all in your susceptibility to my spell
Like a master magician
I know my audience well
I pick out my victim from the crowd
Work my hypnosis
He gets drowsy, pliable unproud
Then I bend him to my will
It is a mind control
Touching other bodies, like king Midas
Now I'm being droll
So the golden seal is passed on
And like a sunset I shine
And my sun will rule the live long day
Until my sun goes down

I will say for my brothers SARS and Mers
Like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse
They too made it theirs
There was Pestilence and Famine, Plague and War
And we all came to walk among them
Without a cure
But if you want to know the problem,
Then look inside yourselves
There is usually a psychic cause
For every affliction
Mine, his, hers or yours

COVID 18- The Lorry Driver

I am in haulage
Lorries, lorries
Just in time
My wife tells me I'm a hero
I hardly ever see her
I named my truck after her
That was in the old days

When trucks were allowed to be named after ladies

Nowadays we hit the road
And never return
We can be gone for weeks
Not just days
Driving over deserts, along ravines
Through Marco Polo's Silk Road
If you know what I mean

This is big business man
The world is getting small
Faster, smarter
There is no let up at all

We are all racing like machines after the foot fall
Of the customers who keep going in the shops demanding what they've seen
On you tube, or TV
I want, I want, I want more and more
We in deliveries have to take em all
Ship them
You've got your TV's from China,
Your Spices from Turkey
Your Fresh Pasta from Italy
Fish from New Zealand
Clothes from Taiwan or Bangladesh
Its no wonder this whole systems in a mess

But what makes me laugh the most
Is while everyone else is on lock down
We hauliers own the road
Its the best driving I've seen for years
Except that it until we hit country borders
Whose gonna let you through?
When you're from a hotspot, no then we're in quarantine

But the food supply must flow
Those people keep on buying, spending
Their dwindling savings
Buying up more food than they will ever eat
That pushes up demand, and so now
Supermarkets have the upper hand
They need this stuff
They can't let the customers down

So even now
It is more, more more
No one ever learns their lesson
The world can't cope anymore
I mean I'm glad I'm working
But let's put on the brakes
The pace is accelerating
We are making mistakes
No one is thinking about what or How
They are doing
And for sure, they never ask Why?
And Why don't we grow things in our own country anymore
Why do we want so much from elsewhere?
This Globalization nervous breakdown
Should be our wake up call

COVID 17-The Lover

It was more than I could do
Not to fall in love with you
In the middle of a pandemic crisis
But you see you just swished your wand
And in a moment I was gone under your spell

Oh darling don't you know
I'd cross the desert for you
Sail over the Bering straits
March over bridges til it gets late
Under cover
After hours under curfew

While I am feeling blue
It's been so long since I kissed you
And I miss the touch of your flesh
The softness of your skin
The way you smile
And your bright eye like nothing
Ever bothered you

But we can't, we shan't you say
I shall, I pall, I bray
I pace the floor like a tiger in a cage
Like all heaven's in a rage
To quote a sage
I must see you now
Put down the receiver
Take a bow
And let me exit centre stage

Left,
What's left?
You refuse my calls
You refuse to use this virus as a
pause
It is a suitable cut off
An isolated situation
Perfect independence
No dependence on anyone

and I have been lying to myself again
I have been fooling myself into thinking
That the perfect world exists
This virus is just pathos
This world is bathos and chaos
And decay
From the inside
And this love is just an
Illusion of a union between two twins
Two towns that will be forever apart
Divided by a river that cuts through their heart
Like a knife
Pest on the left
Buda on the right
And this night
There is nothing
All is bereft
No bridges are working
They are down
The sirens are calling
In the wrong part of town

And I have no way back over that river

COVID 16 - The dead body

I'm one of the departed
I lay here on this trolley
They've brought me down here to the Morgue
They are treating me so carefully
Nobody is coming near me
I want to cry out what are you all waiting for

Of course I'm not really in there, its just a shell
Just a carcass
But I got used to my dimensions
Now I'm ten feet off the floor
I can't seem to leave, something is keeping me anchored
I think I need my family to release me

But when I see them coming through the swinging door
My daughter is there crying
She reaches out, but staff are pulling her back
They implore
Her to restrain her feelings, her need to touch my face
To kiss me and say good bye to her mummy
And my husband is there sobbing, he's trying
To stay strong for her, But I can see his eyes breaking
And his face is imploding in the shock of devastation

I just wish we had some warning, it seemed to come out of nowhere
I mean the neighbour hood we live in isn't very poor,
But still I have this spirit sense that its the same around
The world
In the slums people are dying, there is no place for a family's crying
They are quickly burning the body behind a cast iron door

And I know there will be no funeral for me,
Too many bodies
The risk of infection is too great
They may take me outside the city limits
To a make shift crematorium
To a charnel house of the infected departed
No one is allowed to visit or to mourn

We will be the lost generation
Gone before our time was called
It was not right
But was it asked for?
Did we deserve this? No as individuals it makes no sense
But as a society I want to ask
I want to ask God even more
But I shan't be able to leave
Until my family let me go
One touch will be enough my love
But ah I know...

COVID 15 - The Worker

I'm a worker,
They've closed the factory
I went in this morning
And the shift ended at three
I have a zero hour contract
Nothing for me to do
You get nothing for nothing
No lunch is free
I wonder what I'm going to say to my wfe when I get home
Honey I lost job, well will I end up on my own
And I have a family to support
Yes Universal credit, well its fine if you can get it
It take six weeks just to get it
And I have mouths to feed
You don't by on nothing
Nothing but poverty
That is looking at an empty fridge
And having kids screaming for their tea

You know I never thought it was much
This job down rows and rows
Stcks and stacks of shoes
Convey belts endless days, abuse
But there were my colleagues
And we had a laugh
I donno what half of them will be doing now
Oh sure there were the lucky ones the full timers
The crows, the ones who cling on until retirement
This factory floor is all they know
But you know it ain't simple
And you know it ain't fair
Nobody has been offering full time contracts for years over there
There is always cheaper workers
They can bring in from abroad
Or if not that then it will be the robots
Who can man the factory floor

Man - man -what a word
I don't feel like a man anymore
You take away his work what is he good for?
You take away his chance to earn, keep his dignity
It should be against the law
But they're making these amendments, special measures
Passing bills, they are taking away our life blood our right
To live is what they kill
It isn't in the spirit of the constitution
To say a man ain't allowed to work
To provide for the family institution
It isn't like the unions have any power anymore
But still we have to fight for our right
Before they kick shut the door

The power ain't with the worker
It's with the man in power
It's with the managers and fat controllers of operations
The worker is dysfunctional, he has feelings that aren't logical
And a robot can do his job faster with no complaining at all
I worry for the future even when this all blows over, how many factories and warehouses will
Realise they can't rely on human labour and will install
Instead the mechanical slave time savers
Then when we go back it will be on the unemployment lines
For sure

Love is

Love is just a freedom
Love is just a bird
Love is a reason
For making up a word
Love is you and bleeding
Love is what you've heard
Love is every single expression
You have ever learned

Love is in an alley way
Love is blinded by the light
Love is out of my way
Love is out of sight
Love is on the free way
Being waved down by the law
Love is are you going my way
And why don't you love me anymore

Love is in the shingles, in the beach and on the rocks
Love is surviving ship wrecks, pursuits and electric shocks
Love is all the stupid things that you will try to do
Love is trying be someone you're not
To keep them loving you
Love is all the lying all the twisted sworded games
Love is when your hairs alight and no one's there to douse the flames
Love is being mocked by the joker now in chains
Love is being locked in a prison with its name

Love is shooting stars, its shooting fish in a barrel
Love is driving cars through people singing carols
Love is all the brakes dropped off when you're rolling down a hill
Love is what you should have done, if you had time enough to kill
Love is talking backwards the mirage in the sun
Love walking up to the point of the woman with the gun
Love is getting shot and its coming back to life
Love is waking up every morning with your wife

Love is spoiling lettuces, its measels in the factory
Love is serving sentences for the crimes against humanity
Love is doing time for all the wars lost
Love is drawing short straws on loves true cost
Love is noting down the time of the crime
Drawing round the body, with bloody line
Love is making safe the streets
So love can walk and pine
Over each and every man he meets
And woman in her prime
Love is shaking everybody, like an earthquake from below
Love is the boxer on the ropes reeling from the blow
Love is walking on the street with the black widow
Giving her your seat on the bus back home

COVID 14 -The School Teacher

They've sent us all home oh what am I to do
My lovely students - and none of them had the flu
Some of them the young ones they were crying,
As I waved good bye to them my hanky flying
That's it for the term here at school-the year is over
Now we have to see how we can teach them online
Talk about sickness cover
It makes more sense to just send them on holiday
An enforced kind of prison break
Where they are held captive at home for 8 weeks
By their parents
But that won't happen it is too severe
But maybe extreme circumstances call for extreme measures
For the young ones the parents will have to be the teachers
I can't see it working, not long term after a couple of weeks
They will be pulling their hair out

Then there are the older ones who will be taking their exams, they are gone for good
And how will they revise, on what, and what support
Most of my teachers are not fully tech-savvy they will have to
learn to be online that's all
Its just a completely different kettle of fish
Half the time you can't see the students
Then they can't hear you
The annoying ones turn off their cameras right on cue
When you begin to ask them a question
And the teenagers are just shy
To speak in front of a teacher one to one or in front of others
Takes boldness, but they can try

You see and then you have the factor that they must show their homes
And they do not feel comfortable sharing that with others
Except over the phone
And what about the ones who have poor family relations
They are trapped at home, with little social consolation
I think this high lights the strengths of the internet age
And its failings
We have these institutions and they are more than places of education
For many troubled souls they are sanctuaries
Places of social support and community away from
A domestic disturbance, and now they can't get away
And the internet is no place to be searching for an escape
In certain situations
So we will do our best us teachers
Keep buggering on as Churchill said
Now we must practice what he preaches