The doctors said you weren’t allowed
To see Mum in her final hours;
It wasn’t safe to will her on
Nor wet her lips with stolen snow
In case the virus you’d bring in
Might claim asylum on the ward.

Behind her mask Mum couldn’t tell
The story of her party trick:
Apple Pie with packet custard
Baked to death and turned to cinders,
Fed to Dad with stoic humour.    

No doubt it’s best you hadn’t seen
The carnage of the resus room
The febrile pumps of hand and nail
The gasps of good-intentioned strain
That reached a pitch at ten to three
And then from shrill went monkish silent.

On Barn Hill snow is falling thick
The Gaderbrook is filling up
The numb routine the porter starts
Now takes disfigured life away
And Northwick Park can breathe again.

they're living in flowers
up high and across the sea

while we avoid potholes
and bugs just to scrape by

For the last few thousand years, humans have continued to trespass, venture into inhospitable areas, burning down, meddling, or just poking around in natures complex, natural chemical laboratories.

The more humans encroach upon the natural world; the more exposed we are to a highly complex eco system; a system that has evolved over millions of years to support a huge diversity of life in which humans play a tiny part.

As a species we struggle to survive the mosquitoes, not to mention the trillions of other diverse insects, animals, fawner and flora we are now disrupting and introducing to our populations, is it any wonder so many of us are dying.

This disease is a symptom of our consumption and lack of contentment?

Standing in the sun
Putting on dark glasses
To protect eyes from
the sun
and to conceal
the hurt that’s in the eyes
hard hidening.

Standing in the rain
You can’t see
the teardrops
falling softly on the  face
blending in
with falling rain
All because of pain

Hard to hide are
those trembling lips.
Full with sad emotions
One would think
They want a kiss.....
Now with mouth/ nose cap
What good camouflage
this is.

Shell✨🐚

Outside the rail car is untouched.
Seventy years old and it appears ready
for the next journey
as it languishes in this graveyard
of steel and aluminum.

Inside it is different.
Graffiti and abuse.
Seats ripped from the floor
and piled one on the other.
An old mattress lays at one end.

This is what happens
to travelers like yourself,
left too long in a single place.

When you dated the woman you love, you would drive
two and a half hours for coffee and conversation.
Folks thought you were mad. Perhaps so,
but it is a madness that has plagued you all your life,
this hunger to go, the place never mattering
as much as the journey

Not made of steel and aluminum,
the stillness has left you rotting from inside.
It is worse and more deadly than rust.

It is time to leave this place. To go
before your weaknesses and demons write graffiti,
break the windows and crawl out
of the darkest recesses of your mind.

It is time,
to travel east, towards the sun,
towards the sea, the destination a second thought,
the flight towards light the first.

Dear Mom & Dad,

I won't be coming home quite as soon as once thought. I have found a place where they really like me; a place like no other. Instead of being shunned and despised, like most places, I'm invited to everything:
parties,
picnics,
and parades,
my neighbors even welcome me with open arms. Suffice-to-say, I finally feel like I belong and plan to stay a while in this country.

Your Son,
Covid-19 Coronavirus, III