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.