A Minor Chord - Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855-1919)

I heard a strain of music in the street -
A wandering waif of sound. And then straightway
A nameless desolation filled the day.
The great green earth that had been fair and sweet,
Seemed but a tomb; the life I thought replete
With joy, grew lonely for a vanished May.
Forgotten sorrows resurrected lay
Like bleaching skeletons about my feet.

Above me stretched the silent, suffering sky,
Dumb with vast anguish for departed suns
That brutal Time to nothingness has hurled.
The daylight was as sad as smiles that lie
Upon the wistful, unkissed mouths of nuns,
And I stood prisoned in an awful world.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Image : Pixabay - Vladvictoria

Sneaker Wave - Stephen A. Roberts

The plague was upon us for many long years
It lasted much longer than everyone feared
It went through us all and millions died
Some were clapping while others cried
Those that were left were filled with dread
So stockpiled their stores and cases of lead
Others blasé shrugged off the threat
They knew of no one who had suffered as yet
They lasted the summer when the weather was good
Took no precautions though they knew that they could
Then took their chances and refused the cure
Divided opinions: the facts were not sure
Too late to repent and with furrowed brows
They stumbled through their empty ghost towns
The people who knew them paid their respects
Built a bonfire and burned all their effects
Then suddenly the plague was done
It almost seemed as if we had won
Then a madman made a brand new war
We survived the plague, but what the hell for?

Stephen A. Roberts


Image : Pixabay - KELLEPICS

The Despair of Loneliness - Ian Renouf-Watkins

Loneliness isn’t being alone
Or separate from the throng
It’s being in a crowded room
Thinking it’s all gone wrong

Going unheard unnoticed
Is an average day for some
With feelings of isolation
Keeping us silently undone

Feel pity for the misanthrope
Take in any muted strangers
Embrace the frequently lost
Reduce our many dangers

The alternative is a hubris
Barriers kept up unseen 
Guaranteeing us invisibility 
Until we hang from a beam

Ian Renouf-Watkins


Image : Pixabay - Graehawk

Broken - Ian Duquemin

Leave me alone, let me cry for awhile 
I don't want to talk, and I can't find my smile 
I'm just a boy no one wants anyway 
So I'll hide where I can for the rest of the day

These children around me, well they understand 
They've been hit with a stick, they've been punched with a hand 
Seen so many things a child never should see
But none of them witnessed the damage in me

I live in a world, one of darkness and pain 
Found strength to get up, but been knocked down again 
If nobody wants me, then why should I care? 
I'll just wrap myself up in this cloak of despair 

I don't want to live, in this nightmare so real 
This pain isn't something a small boy should feel 
So lock me away, there's no sunshine for me
It's only in darkness I'm able to see

Will I grow to be loved, maybe even adored? 
Or continue forever, expelled and ignored 
These scars no one sees, will they always remain? 
A constant reminder of sorrow and pain 

Leave me alone, I am broken and bruised 
A child who feels nothing.. But hurt and abused 
If nobody loves me, I'll hide here a while 
Until somebody searches and finds me a smile 

Ian Duquemin

Image : Pixabay - Tumisu

Deadline - Lyndon Queripel

With the cost of living
And the price of dying
It’s no wonder at all
To the Lord I pray
That I can afford to pay
For my own funeral.

Lyndon Queripel

Image : Pixabay - TheDigitalArtist

Lemmings - John E Blaise

He is in a queue a line of people.
No end in sight like a slow meandering river.
Dusty path sweltering heat sore feet.
Vultures ride thermals in the cloudless skies,
Below the humming buzzing flies,
The distant unknown creature cries.
Shuffle forward zombie like for hours and hours.
No end in sight no tunnel no light
Walk forward onwards in a trance.
Avoid the quicksand try to make a stance.
Some of the people wear masks or veils.
Bloodshot hollow staring eyes.
Snake like the line winds and moves.
Towards the final destination.
Shuffle forward zombie like for hours and hours.
Will there be sweet times peace and solace.
Is this the path to happiness.
Life's elixir,nirvana arcadia,Avalon Shangri -la
Is it close how far.
Time to contemplate reminisce remember.
How important and significant life has been.
He has arrived now all can be seen.
There is nothing nothing nothing nothing.

John E Blaise


Image : Pixabay - janeb13

Litter Bugs - Diane Scantlebury

We all want our freedom,
To lounge on the beach, or the park,
In the sun,
But a few inconsiderate, lazy people
Are spoiling all the fun,
Could these be the same ones?
Protesting about the state of the planet,
Or worried about climate change?
Their consciences must have escaped them,
We fear,
When they leave their litter behind them
For some other poor soul to clear.

Diane Scantlebury

Image : Guernseypoets

Overwhelmed - Kathy Figueroa

I wanted to write a cheerful rhyme,
To add a rosy tint to the day,
But it seems I’m having a hard time
Zeroing in on just what to say

I’ve many a disparate feeling:   
On life, this pandemic’s cast a pall.
Its impact has left the world reeling
And I’m quite overwhelmed by it all.

Kathy Figueroa

Image : Pixabay - geralt

Locked Down, Abandoned - Tony Bradley

With no Church, or Community meetings,
no Zumba, with all the beautiful girls
just waving to neighbours, from a distance
as each day, another anxiety unfurls.

With no permitted gatherings to go to,
and no family, kith or kin
I envy the company, of those in a Care Home
than this private Hell that somehow, I’m in.

Tony Bradley

Image : Pixabay - Q K

This Changed World - Kathy Figueroa

Local businesses falter and fail
One by one stores are put up for sale
The virus tanked our economy
Signs of its impact are plain to see

It’s so different in the downtown core:
Masks worn, long line-ups - unlike before  
Will this pandemic just fade away?
Or is this changed world now here to stay?

Kathy Figueroa

Image : Pixabay - Queven

Theatre of Bad Dreams - Stephen A. Roberts

We played to empty houses when we started out
Now it’s just the same because no one is about
No more cues for the actors to enter
Just exit stage left, right and centre
The show now must not go on 
In crippled and Covidious Albion
Do everything the government asks
Bring on the mummers in costume masks
Do not cough and do not drink
This thing is more dangerous than you think
Keeping out the diseased hordes
Means that players can’t tread the boards
No more showings of Macbeth
In case the audience catches their death
The future now is so uncertain
The theatre faces the final curtain
And as the lights go down on Piccadilly
I rehearse my final soliloquy

Stephen A. Roberts

Lockdown #2 - Stephen A. Roberts

I shielded I hid I cowered
While all around me Corona flowered
I tried to ignore that obscene weed
By focussing on my own need
I sat I wrote I thought
I read I watched I panic bought
I clapped I cried
For those that died
I stayed I prayed
For those afraid
I scoured everything in a search for truth
Listened to the music from my youth
I saw the heroes and the hypocrites
The isolated and ignored, in bits
Without surprise I watched the numbers rise
The politicians bluster and scientists surmise
I Facebooked, Zoomed and Skyped
I found new recipes that celebs had hyped
I online shopped while people dropped
Yet all around, the world had stopped
We had to hide
I sympathised
Shielded and powerless, I began to write
Of the end of days
And our old ways
Gone into the night
Just like before
There’ll still be war
Visible and invisible
Beating at our door
Together we can beat
Cancer or is it China
But can we slay That covid one-niner...
Surely this isn’t reality
Bring back normality
I want my Weetabix
My Purple Bricks
Some cheap Tesco fizz
With a daytime TV quiz
I don’t know how to feel
Where’s my package deal
A cruise appeals
With all inclusive meals
Cheap including flights
Stay there 7 nights
Maybe a villa way out of sight
Bathed in an ethereal light
Somewhere I can touch your face
Far away from Track and Trace
But the truth is this
Let’s tell and kiss
Like so many fools
I didn’t break the lockdown rules
I didn’t go on the motorway
Where I couldn’t see my way
I did everything they told me to
I’ll ride the second wave with you.

Stephen A. Roberts

Invisible Enemy - Joan Etoile

In nearby trenches the enemy was real
He was over the top behind a hail of steel
Waiting with his gun and knife
And a picture of his wife

Some years later he came again
For 5 long years of death and pain
But we understood the threat back then
And countered it with brave women (and men)

That wasn’t the end of the totalitarian scare
It morphed into the Russian bear
In this cold war we cowered in our beds
Waiting to be vaporised by the Reds

Now we hide and wear a mask
Doing what the virus asks
Give up your job it’s more dangerous 
Than a charging rhinoceros

Never mind that there’s bills to be paid
Stay alone indoors and be afraid
Running blind in full retreat
This invisible enemy has us beat

Joan Etoile

Covidiocy - Donald Keyman

Am I one, one of the seventy-three?
Waiting by the phone ever so anxiously
Checking my temperature and my sense of taste
If I’m about to die I’d like to see my killer’s face
To check for empathy and some sense of shame
A realisation of the gravity of their selfish game

It seems highly unlikely that they lived alone
It could have been your lodger or you perhaps used their phone
Did anyone not realise there was a spreader in their midst
Maybe you lived with them or were someone that they kissed
You might well have taken their empty glass to the bar
Helping to spread that virus to people near and far

The exponential potential of your actions cannot be ignored
You need to ask yourself if it was a luxury we cannot afford
A text message arrives it’s from the States again
Telling us to obey the rules if we’ve half a brain
I still don’t yet know if I’m one of the seventy-three
Waiting all alone to gasp for air and die needlessly

Donald Keyman

The Death Song - Ian Duquemin

This song's about the night I died
The knife. My blood. My suicide
I bet my soul that no one cried
No angel came, so someone lied

The veil of life and death was thin
It brushed against my butchered skin
I took a peekaboo within
My death on show. My mortal sin

I hoped someone would welcome me
And see what others failed to see
A soul who longed to be set free
His shame that held no dignity

So here I am, and still I'm lost
Who sacrificed and paid the cost
Whose pieces shattered, stained and tossed
Now crumbled into ash and dust

The grave awaits, so dark and deep
A place for my eternal sleep
To bury secrets sworn to keep
In silence where I sadly weep

Remember me as nothing good
A child, a man, misunderstood
Who longed to love, but never could
As every living person should

Ian Duquemin

Vote Vote Vote - Donald Keyman

We’re on the slippery slope oh yeah
To a Marxist Utopia
Equality for all sounds nice
But it comes at a huge price

The back of an envelope oh yeah
Holds the plan for the Marxist Utopia
No time must be lost
Before we all count the cost

It’s money for old rope oh yeah
To peddle that Marxist Utopia
And slowly bankrupt the place
So it can no longer wash its face

Surely there’s still hope oh yeah
That we reject the Marxist Utopia
Head off those eco-fascists
With their sackcloth and ashes

So get out and vote oh yeah
But not for a Marxist Utopia
Vote for the people who care
Not to leave the cupboard bare

Donald Keyman

The Ghost Ship - Tony Bradley

A reality check, I’m ailing
all my devices are failing
this wall’s too high, I’m scaling
my verve, my zest, are trailing
this wall’s much too high, I’m scaling

My boat’s taking in water, I’m baling
the sails are ripped, they’re flailing
my colours to the mast, I was nailing
but, like my skin, they’re paling.

Tony Bradley