This Volatile Core Of Rage

We have all sensed it,
simmering there,
just beneath the surface
of our new reality.

Our paths have been blocked,
our trajectories skewed,
and resentment seeps
through the shock.

The public mask
that we now must wear
does not quite muffle
the bubbling of potential violence.

The commonality of our plight
must now unify,
and inspire us to share
a better future for all.

Microcosm

We have been reduced.
We have been diminished.
We have been shocked.
We can, however, now see our world
as a place of interconnectivity,
and the  rapid spread
of rumour, or distrust,
and disease.

It seems so small,
so fragile,
that we can sense
it could disappear,
and human-based time
would end.

We pick sides;
we assign blame;
we rage and cry,
and yet it seems
all we really want
is an impossible
return to “normal”.

This is our one chance
to sculpt a new normal.
A standard where equality
and compassion
are the pillars
upon which we might build
our new, and inclusive,
tomorrow.

Knot Of Anger

There lives a tight knot of anger
deep inside my head.
I have set up mental retaining walls,
but they have broken in the past,
and the beast ran free.

I am not always aware of the dark
and foreboding animosity
that rumbles and complains,
pushing against the restraints,
ranting about freedom.

Some time periods are calm,
momentarily,
until a fevered whispering
blisters my sheltering mind,
and sends me paranoia.

There lives a tight knot of anger
in a cage devoid of light,
coalescing into fierce emotion
as society devolves slowly, surely,
into change, or oblivion.

If I Suddenly Cry

If I suddenly cry
please do not be alarmed.
It passes like a thundercloud,
and leaves
unsullied skies.

Sadness sneaks,
and jumps out from behind
ordinary things
(is anything ordinary anymore?)
to beleaguer your soul.

It is not so much
that I am sad,
rather simply overwhelmed
by this paradigm shift
to some Lovecraftian dystopia.

If I suddenly cry
kindly know it will pass,
and I shall momentarily be distracted
either by something slight and shiny,
or perhaps unimaginably horrific.

I Should Like To Think

I should like to think
that, in my head,
there is a place
where a boy runs
with a stick
by a picket fence
that goes
thack, thack, thack.

There needs must be
an ocean vista
where this old man
can look at tomorrow,
faithful beagle by his side:
but it seems,
in my dilemma,
to be quite out of reach.

I should like to think
we are smart enough
to learn, and to correct.
Our threatened, locked-down spirits,
are withering, while we wait
for a global realisation
that “normal” is gone,
     for good. 

Just Another Day

Chet Baker on Spotify;
bread rising;
dog basking on south verandah;
dinner planned of scallop mornay;
why, then, does comforting,
predictive,
and linear thinking
seem so difficult to achieve?

Tendrils of like-minded thought
tantalize the web-me,
but the rising insanity
from manipulated masses,
goaded by their ideological masters,
terrifies me,
and keeps me from contemplation
of tomorrow.

The pandemic of group-think
is achieving equality
with Covid19:
if the one doesn’t kill us
the other will.
There is no conspiracy,
other than conspiring openly
to survive.

Wishful Thinking Kills

And yes,
we are so very tired
of isolating,
and of being made to do
that which we do not willingly do.

And weeks have passed,
and the sourdough starter lives,
but there courses through us
a spirit of rebellion,
a mighty scream of
“fuck you”.

So they open the parks,
and relax the rules,
and all you can see
are people too close,
too exposed,
too vulnerable
and anxious
to pay attention
to
the
bottom
line.

Are we, then,
so fragile,
so dependent
upon the contact
with others,
that we completely,
abjectly,
foolishly,
abandon logic?
Whatever happened to
“self isolate and stay safe”?

It is time to evolve
beyond climate,
beyond politics,
and beyond having to cope.
It is time
to abandon stupid,
and embrace common sense.

On Long-term Planning During a Pandemic

The cogs ratchet slowly
upon their allotted circuits.
Vibrations of the
“click, click, click”
cause time parameters
to shift,
to morph into vague sepia images
that bear
unimaginable glimpses
of an obscured,
and uncertain,
future.

This country does this:
that country does that:
politicians waffle,
granting themselves
exemptions
unavailable
to the non-elite.

Conspiracy theorists
scream of government control,
of 5G electromagnetic manipulation,
of chemtrails,
of the removal of “freedoms”,
and of how vaccinations will
kill everyone.

“Click, click, click”

There is a future,
but it is unclear
how it will progress,
other than with vast societal

CHANGE,

for the betterment
of all.

Thoughts On Sheltering In Place

Domm, domm,
heavy 
hollow
echoes, 
shadows
of what may come.

Thunk, thunk,
sculpting a thought
one chip at a time,
but time
becomes the harmonic
that shatters
the opus.

Weird sounds,
unlikely linkages,
and hiding,
hiding,
hiding and sheltered
in the backroom
of my mind.

Once there was a time,
and once a time there was
when we knew who we were,
when we knew where we were going,
when we almost
knew why.

I Never Pictured Here

Sure:

imagining on occasion
     being other,
          being elsewhere,
               being headed
for someplace
     that I could not recognise
even
     as I arrived.

But then,
there were,
you will know,
events.

And stranger things
have happened
that
I never pictured 
here.

March/April 2020

I never know when
it is,
but I do,
vaguely,
comprehend
where.

Plans are long interred,
to be celebrated, 
perhaps,
in requiem,
after this time
of now.

It is to contemplate:
it is to meditate:
it is to await,
without imagining,
tomorrow.

Lockdown Ping-Pong

It tantalizes,
just a bit,
     those rogue thoughts
of tomorrow.

Now you see them,
now...not so much.
     They morph,
crying in small voices.

And just when you think
you can look forward
     you can’t;
retreating callously to now.

Maybe tomorrow
will make transition
     more viable
than this shimmering,
          shadowplace,
                    kaleidoscopic vision
of what must be.

Return to Normal

Years from now,
when I am gone
but my lockup colleagues remain,
you will try,
through data analysis,
to formulate a question
that will help us understand
just
what happened.

You must be careful
to use your word skills:
no room for political 
policy statements
here.

What happened?
What didn’t we do?
Why were we so slow
to stop the spread,
but focussed instead,
on controlling the message.

Assigning blame allowed us
to ignore action
until
it was
far
far 
far
too late.

Let your future
give us an answer
that will not further alienate,
     will not further confuse,
but offer
some slight glimmer
of comprehension,
and of
Hope,
in an uncertain Tomorrow.

Lockdown

...and I have become
more threatened
more enfeebled
more focussed on the micro
letting the macro monster roam free
and out of my mind

...and I have developed mechanisms
whereby
I do not think ahead
I do not anticipate
I do not speculate
but by this diverse,
and constricting,
route
I avoid tomorrow

change will come
but it will be a nuanced change
a change of social consciousness
a change fomented today
while we are locked down
in our various ways
in our varied lives
waiting
to go slowly forward
into 
our 
shared
tomorrow...