The Last Pangolin - Greta Scape

The world’s last Pangolin
played a plaintive violin:
tunes by Handel and Mozart,
as the planet fell apart,
mellow music for the soul
as the world went down a hole
and its music was inspired
as all humankind expired.

Greta Scape

Social Distancing - Richard Fleming

No man’s an island, wrote the Bard
Conversely, no island’s one man:
it’s sixty-thousand trying hard
to social-distance if they can.

Don’t stand, don’t stand too close to me:
that’s what The Police sang anyhow.
Weirdness is now normality.
We all are social lepers now.

Richard Fleming

No More Hugs - Diane Scantlebury

Don’t want to think
About dying just yet,
But when the daily death toll rises
There’s no safe bet,
Who’d have thought
A venture outside snatched,
A brief breath of fresh air
To catch,
Could be my last,
No more hugs
Or meetings,
No more kisses
Just silent greetings,
From afar
Through a misted window
I can only wave and stare,
At my loved ones
Standing out there,
Mouthing reassuring words
That I can’t hear,
No more hugs
Just an air kiss,
Warm embraces
Sorely missed,
From afar
Along with the food parcel
On the doorstep
Separation we must endure,
In hope that normality
Soon will return,
And there’ll be hugs
Once more.

Diane Scantlebury

Goddamn Seagulls - J. Archer Avary

The bastards wake us up before six in the morning
screeching and squawking bloody murder outside the house.
I stagger out of bed and slam shut the bathroom window,
dry-mouthed, head pounding from last night’s overindulgence.

I climb back into bed and close my eyes but the clamorous
cacophony continues, closer, louder, shrill and piercing.
My wife pulls the duvet up over her head and turns to me, pleading
‘You need to do something about these birds, just make it stop.’

Angry now, I jump out of bed, storm to the window and see
dozens of snow-white gulls swarming in the street, fighting like hell
over ice cream residue stuck to the sides of a plastic container. Garbage
is strewn all over the road and seagulls feast in a gluttonous orgy.

I stick my head out the window into pink daylight and crisp morning
air. An alpha-type seagull cranes its neck, looking at me with its
beady narrowed eyes like ‘get back to bed, you meddling fussbudget.’
Its mates swarm and circle overhead, caterwauling tuneless epithets.

It’s way too early for this, garbage in the street and these
goddamn seagulls. I lean out the window to my waist, boisterously
snarling, snapping, barking, bellowing canine fury into the street.
The hellhound hullabaloo act sends the seagulls scattering.

Tranquility is restored to our quiet corner, and mankind’s dominion
over the animal kingdom remains intact for another glorious day.
I close my eyes and join my wife in bed, aching for one more hour,
one more dream, but it’s not happening, it won’t happen after that.

J. Archer Avary

The Return Of The Flask - Stephen A. Roberts

Image: Jill Chadwick

In a lonely place
Deprived of the chance
Of a shop-bought flat white;
I watch the waves dance

It’s time to revert
To the ways of the past
To the portable brew;
The return of the flask

Coffee or soup
Laced with whisky or gin
Enough for two cups;
While social distancing

Sleek metal design
A Thermos that lasts;
No longer the risk of
A mug of smashed glass

Stephen A. Roberts

Glass - Trudie Shannon

Just glass, clear, unfrosted glass stands between them
Them, being strangers, one to the other.
It is raining, the sky loud and heavy.
One walks with a plodding dog, its head down and she in its wake.
And the other stands hopeful behind the glass,
The glass awash with rivulets of running water
She stands in a hallway, a seat beside her.
She can see the road, the low walled apron of grass
And beyond the grass the stunted trees, beyond them
The dilapidated greenhouses and beyond those
The ever alluring horizon,
Though it is barely visible today, the mizzling rain holding it to ransom.
She sees the figure walking past, hood up with a small dog
And automatically raises her hand to the glass,
Just clear, unfrosted, unblemished glass
Save for water patterns ever changing upon its slick surface..
She raises her hand, one human being to another
In peripheral vision the hooded woman
Catches a glimpse of red behind the glass and turns her head.
She raises her hand much like an automaton and
Instantly there is eye contact and duality of smiles
Revealing the invisible woman behind the glass to herself.
And the woman with the dog walks on
The dog plodding and she in its wake
And the rain runs mad down the clear unfrosted glass
And the stranger in the red cardigan sits in the chair
And gazes at the road and the low walled apron of grass
And the stunted trees and the dilapidated greenhouses
And the alluring gem of the seas horizon.

Trudie Shannon

Nightmare - Ian Duquemin

I'm frightened to sleep
Yet I'm frightened to wake
My life seems so fragile it's going to break
The nightmares of night
Are now nightmares of day
The monster I've dreamed of now coming my way

I can't close my eyes
To the darkness inside
When open there isn't a safe place to hide
Now locked in a room
With a wall as a friend
Just hoping this nightmare will come to an end

Ian Duquemin

Reuben The Romeo - Tony Gardner

Reuben Mahy liked his sport
As long as he was never caught
For his sport was not competing
Rather it involved some cheating

Mrs Gavey, or Le Page
As long as they were over age
Were a challenge for our lad
And a new win made him glad.

For weeks he'd stalked the Mrs Duquemin
And he thought at last he'd won her
When her husband came home early
Reuben thought he was a goner

He told an unconvincing tale
But Duquemin had heard the reports.
Mr Mahy paid that day
Now no more he'll play his sports.

Tony Gardner

NHS - Richard Fleming

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning …

The ward is a war-zone, a battlefield
where daily dies our confidence,
our grounds for hope, our energy.
Each start of shift, we rise to face
an enemy whose strength exceeds
our fearful expectations.
Poorly equipped, still we advance,
driven by our integrity,
while, on all sides, the dying plunge
downward through a corrupted sea,
their last breaths greenly frothing out
from choked throats as they spiral down.

Our masters moralise and watch,
hand-wringing as the casualties
increase in numbers day by day.
Spruce Generals, they spend hours with charts
while we must soldier on each day.
To those who fill the wards, the sick,
for whom there is scant hope, we fight,
but these are not good deaths, instead
men thrash in panic towards the end
as a green sea invades their lungs.
We do our utmost, still they die,
the old, the hardly old, the young.

Through night-shift trenches, barbed-wire days,
we grimly trudge, barely awake,
round-shouldered, prematurely old,
towards our shift-end scrubbing-down,
a brief respite and restless rest.
The virus takes no prisoners
and those it spares are subtly changed:
their swagger gone, they rise each day
aware of their fragility
while, night and morning, we return,
dog-tired, to grapple with our fear
because there are no conscripts here.

Richard Fleming