Oops! 404 Virus Not Found
I wrote this poem after ‘War’s Whores’ by English poet Hollie McNish, which is about sex workers during World War One.
The majority of the general public
don’t have the privilege of access to a diagnosis,
fighting for their lives
in the Corona Wars
celebrities are tested
the public, told to sit tight.
Coronavirus counts
more than 700,000 cases
Test positive for the politician
Question marks for Joe and Jane Bloggs
is it more than systems and victims?
for some, minds are
being lost in isolation
no privacy to reflect or contemplate
but millions of corona-positive
individuals sit scratching their heads
awaiting their fates
and despite what Boris states
about washing hands with soap
there is more at play
than cells and microscopes
China built hospitals
Corona pop-ups in a matter of days
but for too long the UK argued
like children at play
and the USA still stands in abstinence —
unlike the collectivism of Asian countries
we in the West have reacted really badly
across the souls of individualist Britain
an invisible killer in hay fever season
Britain turned its back.
now a plague teases Old Union Jack
to force a squeeze on healthcare’s arms
the NHS buckles under nurse-soft palms
for an invisible killer to choke
the life of our angels in blue
stuff lungs so tight they forget —
to breathe; to gasp; to exhale; air
to run on lanes as soft as Coronavirus
a disease born from blindness
closed eyes running towards the light
just wanting the pain to leave each night
bat’s eyes wide-eyed shut stitched in guilt
as children that dreamed of adulthood
left to die wrapped in Mothers’ quilt
supermarket run rages rampant
like a major battle
what passing bells for those who die as cattle
only the monstrous anger of the guns
as queues for food meet 300 tums a pop
and prescription drugs, pasta and toilet paper
evaporates into the atmosphere like water vapour
as virus sinks freelancers and artists
corporations swoop in on the carcass
feasting on death down a side street
is this how we want to write our history
for corporations like Wetherspoons
they’d sooner not pay their workers
no acknowledgment, no thanks
as corporations finish their left-hand wank
moneymen go up and down, day and night
as employees lose their jobs and lives
and Richard Branson sings them a lullaby
but as society compares the Tories
to Winston and his War Cabinet
these paintings of nostalgia,
I imagine war fatigue
and how we glamorise our history
we teach the youth of today
that inequality’s wrong, but we play
the tune of the oppressor’s song
forging narratives written
in profit over people,
praising policies that kill
murderers measuring lives with graphs
and statistics stood like cenotaphs
But god forbid!
we ever condemn
oppression in Crisis COVID
how domestic violence
has surged since the lock-in
and Corona has brought
out society’s worst and best
from pedagogies of the oppressed
to the Tories starving the NHS
I wonder in this saga of #clapforourcarers
will we remember how many of us
found solace in our neighbours –
and for every clap for our NHS
that came from a Tory
