I folded up the sheets of rain as I walked slowly down the country lane on one wet Sunday afternoon,
it was late in June or early July,can't remember, don't know why
my mind was flooded with the same old chatter
pitter,patter on the leaves and from the trees.
I sat under the dryness of the ancient oak and lit a smoke which drifted slowly in the summer breeze
and ate a Branston pickle and cheese soft roll,drank some lemonade.

Days like this made me who I am
a soaked up,washed out yesterday man
but I exist
despite the persistence of the rain,
I play the game and play it well
the proof being that I'm here to tell the tale and smoke a while,
while the heavens empty of the sky
don't know why or for what length of time
days like this will be all mine.
Under the trees
out of the breeze
somebody please
stop the rain.

(with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)

You will have to stay home, sister.
You will charge up, tune in, drop out of all activities.
You will scroll through memes, trawl the news,
Skip the tea, you're running low.

The epidemic will be endlessly televised.

The epidemic will be brought to you in a trillion parts,
With declining commercial interruption.

The epidemic will show you pictures of Trump and Boris blithering,
Dreaming of fried chicken at the end of televisation,
"Oka-a-ay...".
"You are a terrible reporter!"

NHS-badged Hancock will look the part,
But cannot answer the question
Should I look after my sick self-isolated seventyish neighbour?

Fauci facepalms
And is gone.

Watch out, guys.
The epidemic will be televised.

The Epidemic (starring Tom Hanks) will not be brought to you on the big screen.
There will be no big screen.
The Epidemic will not play Glasto
Lit by 300,000 Androids.

The epidemic will be brought to you by friends and strangers.
The epidemic will be televised.

The epidemic will not inject fat into your posterior.
You will not need to shave or deodorise.
As it turns out, you are not worth that expensive holiday.
The epidemic will make you a bedroom star
Vlogging your incarceration to ten followers.

The epidemic will be televised.

There will be pictures of coughing queues at supermarkets
Toilet roll riots, thermometer wars.
There will be pictures of you and your best mate
Pushing that cart down the block,
Packed with Branston Pickle baked beans
Though you posted fifty times online about hoarding.
You will not have dressed for the occasion.

You will not care who wins Love Island.
You will not care who wins The Great British Bake Off.
Eastenders will be cancelled
After 35 years of continuous drama.

You will dodge the police for a quiet walk
On a brighter day.

The epidemic will be televised.

Reporters will cough.
Ministers will be replaced
Suddenly
Parliament will be suspended.
Politics will cease to be televised.

The epidemic will be right back, after a message.

You will have to worry about a germ in your bathroom,
Your food supply, the tiger in your tank, your loved ones,
Whether, if you cease to breathe, there will be a ventilator.

You will consider getting in the driver's seat.
Where to go?

Would you like to see your mother?
Would you like to cross a border?

The Caravan Park is occupied
By the Military.

Slowly, slowly
The screens will darken.

The epidemic will no longer be televised.

The Epidemic is not a game.  You cannot return to a previous Save.

The epidemic is live.

You said no heart has imagined,
but you gave a few hints
of a massive mansion, a river
and a fruit tree with 12 varieties,
spouting monthly.

You said we couldn't imagine
what you've got prepared,
but I can't imagine anything beats
a Coronation Chicken sandwich,
with Branston,
on a warm summer's afternoon
with friends and laughter
and Monty's head
resting hopefully on my knee.

You called it paradise
and you mentioned wine.
If that comes with a new body -
one that doesn't protest
to a fine Merlot
then that'll be fine with me.
That would be paradise.
That'll be heaven indeed.
So long as you don't forget
the Coronation Chicken
and the pickle.

god... it's like being back in a schoolyard,
although i'd prefer that -
the rough and tumble...
   start a fight, get a kid crying -
start massaging his kidneys with fists...
banter -
           teenage boy humor -
WWF and favorite music interludes -
                  curiosity confined to lunch boxes...
weird fruits,
   and plain old cheese & ham
white bread sandwiches -
   perhaps with some
      branston's original pickle...
an orange thrown at someone's head
from a distance of 30 meters,
                         hitting the bulls eye...
half an hour in the morning,
an hour in the afternoon...
             but this current revitalized
schoolyard?
      this pseudo-nostalgia?
   i don't buy into it...
     i have enough funds to buy myself
video equipment -
   mediocre -
   but when people start making videos,
i'm only thinking about
     you've been framed! -
            plus...
     drinking is far more entertaining
than exercising the one right that gives
you a radar presence...
      drinking and writing is a partnership...
talking on video?
     is apparently allied with coffee...
i hate coffee...
              breakfast:
   ice cubes, 10 strawberries,
       10 blackberries,
   crème fraîche,
3 teaspoons of sugar,
   some vanilla extract...
              milk...
BLITZ...
          hey presto...
                                     breakfast...
it's not that it's even the big tech
firms that are to blame...
    and the alternative media,
doesn't exactly have enough avenues
to write more than 300 characters...

like i wrote on gab.ai -

i might have been a fan of the early Japanese
Godzilla movies, Akira Kurosawa,
but within the confines of a 300 character cage?
i write European poetics, Quixotic ramblings
akin to Tom Waits...
the haiku form is not exactly to my liking.

youtube was always my go to place,
to forage and scout for new music
before i embarked on buying
the classic 1980's artifact in the form of
quicksilver...
                    
back into an ontological debacle,
nothing more...
                  
i really try to avoid internet drama,
the mediocre drama
  and their subsequent outlets...
    i did that at school...
      and to recall -
   one one girl committed suicide
at the school...
within the spread of 8 years...
     that's pretty **** good...

not really... poetry is already niche...
it's not built for 300 characters,
notably of the European schooling...
i hate haikus,
i prefer Afghan landays
of their women...
        
and i probably could reach a much
wider audience with video...
but like i already said:
   drinking ***** into the excesses -
and making videos?
not a good a idea...

          like some will prefer the village
life, or a town under 100,000
if not less...
   while others just love the sound
of traffic of an urban juggernaut
compared to the deafening of
the sound of rain, and the hysterics of
screeching foxes at night...

       hmm... jealousy...
   that major trait of the tetragrammaton,
must imply that other gods
do exist...
                   a deity couldn't possibly
be jealous of the non-existence
of beings of equal stature...
                 since he would simply
laugh and squabble,
   over, yet another, batch of blind,
non-intuitive human beings...

i can't write and be sober simultaneously...
so the extra audience number
as show of a competitive mentality
just went out of the window...

i wonder what feeling jealous must be
like...
   watching a 0 turn into a 2000...
    overnight...
then again i'm interested in cognitive tattoos...
i shy away from the current
bite, spit & squabble
   seeing content creators implode -
resorting to cite themselves
in fierce opposition...

     freedom of speech?
   from what i've seen?
      best left on paper...
                 in a medium of actual,
reciprocal effort of the person
writing, to the person reading -
without the passivity of
    the lax listener...
        music is for that...
                   freedom of speech already
has the adequate filters -
written, not spoken...
    given that the former is
in equilibrium -
           books don't bite,
   but a waggling tongue at the end
of the earphones?
    
   - and what's with this boasting about
the number of emails one might receive?
i haven't received not 1,
  in the past 5 years, if not longer...
     and...
              who could ever complain
about such... lucidity of the original message,
where people have actually managed
to leave you, the **** alone?