As the unpleasant Covid-19 virus spreads, Snakeskin has been sent a pair of poems commenting on it. We thought we’d share them with you.
From America, Laura Johnson has sent us this Bop (I’ll explain what a Bop is later):
Bop: Crazy
An unknown illness from the distant East
crawls across our unsuspecting globe,
something like a cold virus, at least
like the very worst gunky-lung sort of cold,
somewhat like the flu we already know
though Trump’s in trouble for saying so.
The coronavirus is making us crazy.
In France the experts must explain
that this ailment can’t be cured with cocaine;
“Wash your hands and stay out of crowds”
(Like, why that huge smurf convention, anyhow?)
In Italy, weddings and funerals are prohibited,
in Walmart, the toilet paper’s all been distributed,
Soaps and sanitizers are sold-out too,
Somehow this didn’t happen with the flu.
The coronavirus is making us crazy.
To exterminate this bug they cancel flights
and senators who aren’t sick self-quarantine —
for fourteen days–“out of an abundance of…[fright.]”
Our stock-markets plunge and businesses take a hit,
No worries, Trump says the government will fix it…
but when have bail-outs ever fixed crazy?
And the coronavirus is making us crazy.
In Britain, meanwhile, Elizabeth Horrocks utters this curse against the panic buyers and hoarders of medicaments, tinned food and toilet paper:
A Modern Curse
May they be forever stuck,
quite bereft and out of luck;
may they find no consolation,
suffer as they’ve made the nation;
may they find they have no hope
for others have just swiped the soap,
bought up all the cleansing gel,
and the baby-wipes as well;
May the panic that they started
cause them to become faint-hearted;
But most of all, may they be, too,
paperless upon the loo!
Others who have versified their thoughts on the crisis may care to add them in the comments to this post.
So what’s a Bop? It’s a poetic form that I hadn’t come across before. It works like this, as Laura Johnson explains: ‘The Bop, if you’re unfamiliar, requires the introduction of some sort of problem, a six-line stanza, an eight-line stanza, another six-line stanza, and a one-line refrain at the end of each stanza.’ Rhyming, it seems, is optional. I may have a go at writing one.
March 12, 2020 at 9:27 am
Hi George,
Enjoyed the two poems. Here’s my attempt at a response. It’s meant to be centred but I couldn’t manage to do it.
Hope all is well.
Best,
Tristan
Contagion
In
That Hotel,
guests avoided going
past That Room. In That City,
tourists and locals kept their distance. Across
That Country, visitors decreased. Around the world,
people from That Country were avoided, even as they avoided their
compatriots from That City. And everywhere more and more bought masks.
March 12, 2020 at 1:33 pm
I loved the c-virus con tribulations, George. Here’s a very silly response to the situation (with no offence intended to those poor souls caught up in the chaos).
Richard.
INVESTMENT?
The Stock Market’s in free-fall
since the Virus came to town.
The Dollar and Yen are in trouble,
and Sterling is tumbling down.
The Euro is currently no-go,
not to mention the Guilder or Krone
and as for Rupees or Escudos, oh please,
it’s best that you leave them alone.
Forget about purchasing silver
or platinum, diamonds or gold:
you could make a misguided investment
and be left penniless in the cold.
There’s only one way to a fortune,
nowadays, and this could be your goal.
Just load up the old shopping trolley
and buy every last toilet roll.
RF.
March 12, 2020 at 2:53 pm
George – Thanks for providing a forum for blowing off steam! Here’s another effort to add to the Co-Vid19 mix:
Co-Vid19 is spreading fast
and no one knows how long it lasts
or how severe are its effects
but it’s a scare, and one suspects
to some degree, for trusting folks,
its actual threat might be a hoax.
Not that reports are all untrue
but how does that relate to YOU?
Is it the plague? Is it the water?
Is it a fire growing hotter
which will engulf us all, like Hell?
Or just the sick and not the well?
Or just the damned and not the saved?
Or just the good, not the depraved?
The bug has freaked us out, and we
are lemmings running for the sea.
Liza McAlister Williams
Brooklyn, New York
March 12, 2020 at 4:51 pm
Went shopping this morning, ahead of potential advice to stop at home as much as possible.
Stocking up
Tins of tomatoes, beans
tuna and anchovies, jars
of peppers and olives.
Chocolate, coffee, wine.
Packs of muesli, lentils
rice and pasta, long-life
milk and orange juice.
Anti-wrinkle serum.
Street food from a stall,
newly cut hair, salt air
on a beach or the wind
in the boughs of a tree,
a robin’s warning call,
eight toilet rolls.
March 12, 2020 at 6:27 pm
Now I know why the shelves were empty went I got there, Sharon. Nice one!
March 12, 2020 at 7:00 pm
I can always let you have a squirt of anti-wrinkle serum if you run out. Thanks, Richard.
March 12, 2020 at 9:35 pm
I could use some, if only for my brow.
March 12, 2020 at 6:50 pm
I’m afraid this is what came into my head this afternoon when I heard of our ‘raised response level’ (or whatever we’re calling telling sick people not to go on cruises.)
A Few Words From Our Leader
Throw a pensioner on the flames, Rishi
to fire our industry.
Can’t impregnate an oldie, Rishi,
they’re not much use to me.
I have imbibed the elixir, Rishi,
and I shall never die,
so throw a pensioner on the flames, Rishi –
and watch the hedge funds fly.
March 14, 2020 at 7:57 am
Here is one from “2000 cases and rising” Madrid:
March 14, 2020 at 7:58 am
Contagion
We wake in yesterday’s tomorrow
to find it like the day before.
From windows we watch, wondering,
worrying, wary, weary
The thing is out there somewhere, thriving,
teeming, roaring through the body’s gorges.
Handle, hand, hankie. Knob, droplet, drip.
Kiss and cuddle. Get into a huddle. Trouble.
Toilet tissue for what might issue from
the anxious excessively. Tins got in. Carbs.
Unvisited elderly full of fear, ears pressed
to transistors, not sure where trust is.
Leaders launching calls to war,
ardent for hard-earned victories.
Silent sets on barroom walls.
Sunsets on silent streets.
Days and dates not needed,
the future held up in the past.
Optimistic predictions of better futures
as egos yield to the needs of each.
March 20, 2020 at 4:36 pm
Some say the disease originated from bats. Others say it came from a pangolin held captive in a Chinese market. I’ve gone with the pangolin theory.
In a crowded Chinese market
A wild and desperate sneeze
From a sick and shivering pangolin
Kick-started this disease.
A virus found a human host
And made a close connection,
Then spread like Chinese whispers
In every bad direction.
It multiplies within our chests
Till droplets from a cough
Can randomly choose victims
For Death to carry off.
Oh pity humans doomed to meet
Their end when ripe with sins,
But pity more the wickedly
Abused poor pangolins.
The Chinese grind up pangolin scales,
Considering them superior
To other kinds of medicine
For deafness and hysteria.
Science may call this nonsense,
But cannot stop the practice
Of pangolins perishing needlessly.
So the unpleasant fact is.
And when I think about all this,
I formulate this thesis:
That humans have themselves to blame
For the spread of such diseases.
March 20, 2020 at 5:28 pm
Sorry about this folks, but George got me started on the subject of Pangolins. …
If those Pangolins were Lemmings
and went leaping without looking
then in China where they eat them
there would be less Chinese cooking.
Folks in China could eat cheeses,
replace Pangolin with Cheddar,
then there’d be a few less sneezes
and no Pangolin-diseases.
March 22, 2020 at 9:27 pm
Hi George – “I hold with those who favor” pangolins, too! Here’s a further comment:
Some say the world will end in fire
some say in ice.
And now the pangolins are higher
on our list of suspects dire
than pigs or bats or squirrels or rats or lice.
So if it had to perish twice
I think we know enough of mice:
they’re pesky, but don’t roll the dice
until you rule out pangolins.
Best, Liza Williams