On The Covid Road To Armageddon

Cherry

By Gothicman

Tue, 04 Aug 2020
  • 324 reads
14 comments
 

So many lonely people,
going through some motion of living
with blank faces,
or with faces full of pain.

Clothes plucked from dustbin sacks,
roughly adjusted to no fashionable line,
shielding them only from the wind and rain. 

All chuckling babies once,
unaware of what was to come.

But sadly, with time,
all fates become known,
and for some,
loneliness was always theirs,
others, have known love,
worked hard,
had families who cared,
they have known better days.

But what thoughts now,
when they sleep, eat and rest,
in dark shop doorways, in barns,
or just wander to at best live as they can,
from place to place.

Those knowing only loneliness,
live just one day at a time,
warmed by memories of an easier meal,
or a comforting smile,
from a kinder face.

Those who have known love,
with cherished memories like mine,
will not despise my happy life,
nor look with contempt or disgrace.

For, though I have felt love’s tender caress,
I have also lost in romantic strife.

Yes, I have felt the joy of a lover’s kiss,
sipped red wine on a summer lawn,
slept in warm arms in crisp linen sheets,
felt the magic of an own child born.

I‘m happy and content, not like you,
with all hope gone! 

You who wander to a common goal,
there was a time when…

No, there’s no time to comfort my wretched soul;
the soup kitchen's two miles on,
and we must hurry,
it closes at ten. 

 

 

Goth:2020

Certificate U
Poem
Science fiction
Philosophy
Drama
Crime
Opinion

Comments

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Think of the hundreds of millions Boris is saving on the pensions with +80% of deaths being over 67years. devil

 

Submitted by Gothicman on

Ah, but good economics doesn't work like that, Ed! A country's wealth is best distributed among all the generations, who spend it on a whole variety of local and hopefully National businesses, keeping a dynamic economy going; this is why low taxes and high spending from the masses, keeps everything widespread, viable and dynamic. Unpaid pensions left for central government to spend means waste on fantasy projects, corruption by investing in favoured companies, rather than those with proven form, landlords raising rents knowing they'll be paid for by benefit increases, etc., all negatively distorting democracy. I keep my pensions safe high up on fresh-air ridges like a coptic monk, far above the madding, infected crowds below!
Best, Trevor

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

I get your point. I was (jokingly) referring to state pensions really (such as they are) No no government is getting their sticky fingered hands on my private pension.

Cheers

Ed

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

A poignant  read. Those that are at desperation point and have no idea how to go on except surviving from day to day is so sad. It must be even harder with the new normal.

Your poem brings home the distress of their lives. Makes me realize just how lucky I am.

Jenny.

Submitted by Gothicman on

Yes, as you say, the new normal, for it's not the just traditional homeless wanderers, who through drugs and drink, physical and mental inabilities are not able to be self-sufficient, who will be in this lost hope group, for this universal virus has knocked out so many people in everyday occupations that rely on physical or social nearness, if not actual contact and normal free movement, in order to function. Basic reasons for living will soon drastically change for all unless we can conquer this invisible threat to human life. Thanks for you comment, Jenny.
Trevor

 

Submitted by Mark Burrow on

Poignant was the word that came to me as well. The tone of this is spot on. It's crazy how all the safety nets for the most vulnerable are being systematically removed. 

 

Submitted by Gothicman on

Yes, it is poignant, and so sadly apparent now, this unprecedented division of whole populations distinguished by survival chances, with levels of vulnerabilty depending not only on traditional deprivation and living styles, but simply on whether one can keep functioning both economically and physically when lockdowns are applied. Who would have foreseen this strange division would affect so many, with the Nations vulnerability being so widespread? The general mental effect on an interdependent population living in a long vacuum has yet to be assessed, I fear! Thanks for your comment.    

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

A powerful description of life's reality with haves and have-nots and their contrasting fortunes with the latter feeling the strain of deprivation and living from hand to mouth.

Luigi 

 

Submitted by Gothicman on

Thanks Luigi, for your comment! Yes, absolutely, and this division now a vast section of society; the have-nots being now anybody whose mode of living and monetary income depended on free-movement, social nearness, and/or near contact, not just the traditionally deprived, the socially vulnerable or inept, who have always depended on social care and help to get them through, what hitherto, could be referred to as normal times? This universal threat shows just how much we all are interdependent albeit, in different ways.
Thanks again.
Trevor  

 

Submitted by Gothicman on

Thanks for the cherries!

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

You can hear the gears meshing in the system here. The clunk as the clutch is dropped in.

Never mind. Boris still has the roubles rolling in and the gin palaces are rocking gently in their Monaco berths. The world is fine. And more ways than ever to escape with that magical online bet!

Good no nonsense piece, Goth. Gets to the nitty gritty.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Gothicman on

Thanks Parson, a one-off attempt at long line, easy-read messaging poetry with its incidental rhyme that's somewhat more sing-along than conventional descriptive forms. This virus crisis is a gift for opposition parties exploiting any sitting government's attempts to deal with an unprecedented, little-known, health vs the Nation's wealth, enemy following advice from the neutral scientific brains of the day, and doing this by being only in the role of a judging spectator after the fact, i.e. able to present their own so-much-better views using hindsight all the time? Online betting should be classed as a illegal gangster drug, for users are equally weak-minded.....sorry, written during middle-of-the night drowsiness!
 wink Best, soapbox Goth

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Hope you slept well after that! :)

Yes, difficult for any government.

A Walt Whitman moment? People seem to be experimenting and relaxing. I read about the New Formalist movement last night. Well, "about" might be stretching it. I read that it exists. A non-story really, except for anyone who follows trends in movements. :)

Parson Thru

Submitted by Gothicman on

That's interesting, Parson, whether poetry should only be based on the jungle beat of repeated speech movements or can also be based on novel forms of syntax and remain in the genre! What I find as extremely strange is the Formulist's claim that Free Poetry was rebelled against by poetry readers because "it had failed to mirror and trigger their deepest human sympathies!" I think the reverse is true, that this is Free Poetry's greatest achievement which came about because Rhyme had difficulty in achieving 'gravitas'? Thank goodnes for fresher thinkers like Rimbaud, I say!
Goth