Blitz(ish)

I wrote this poem in response to the comments I have heard about the UK’s response to Coronavirus being like The Blitz during WW2, comments which I think are completely wrong.

In December 2019, we had the choice for a chance of hope

but we voted for more of the same –

in the blue flame of Universal Credit, Windrush and Grenfell

a study in scarlet of cutting essential services

now in COVID-19, the worst public health crisis in a generation

hospitals littered with the bodies of the dead

austere times makes the NHS sneeze blood redder than York’s rose

Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash

whilst the British public clap for our carers, the NHS plod on

the faces of doctors and nurses marked by the masks of stress and PPE –

Corona virus runs riot through British towns and cities

like Peter Pan’s shadow, an invisible assailant battering public health

no pixie dust to help nurses going to foodbanks avoid wealth inequality

cus there’s no magic money tree. In light of a battered NHS,

we clap with thanks knowing that national health’s a tinderbox

but we applaud anyway rather than show our thanks at the ballot box.

Photo by Arthur Osipyan on Unsplash

but many clappers at 8pm each Thursday imagine

an England of green fields, afternoon tea and daffodils

thoughts of Winston’s cigar, spam and nostalgia goggles

comparing Coronavirus to the British Blitz spirit

the attitude of keep calm and carry on

in the tint of Dunkirk and wartime stoicism

this not a throwback to the “Good Old Days”

lose the nostalgia goggles, forget about Blighty and air raids

and no Austrian archdukes are being shot

we are not subject to bombings night after night

nor told to evacuate our children to the countryside

but some us are dependent on the kindness of our neighbours

the streets are emptier now, I see more smiles

and smell the burning sage of fear at the shops

the 60 plus, working-class, people who are Black or brown

the supermarket has become a burned house

Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash

Earth is closed, and the universe looks on

but Britain’s set on the keep calm and carry on song

as for the clappers, whose numbers grow, this is what the children

will remember: moments of hope and happiness, morale –

not Peter Pan’s shadow, the sad eyes of nurses and the fragile NHS

or the looming Depression; nor our culture of junk

in our fights for pasta, shelf-drugs and Andrex.