Wednesday 22 April 2020

Below are two poems written about the present medical crisis. So far there are 6 in the series, posted at www.sonnetwright.blogspot.com . I invite people to submit poems, or even ideas for poems, for the Coalshed Poets blog on this or a related, however distantly, theme. Please send to bellowingbob1@aol.com.
Important: Please put your poem in the main body of your email from where I can copy and paste it. No attachments please.

Dave Alton
(Coalshed Poet - National Mining Museum) 

Covid-19 (No.6)



Take a strand of RNA, tie a knot
And make a wish, count phases of the moon.
Pray nothing pernicious comes this way soon,
Or if it should then it doesn’t draw your lot.
One hundred years after the Somme ended,
Exercise Cygnus played H2N2
On the gaming table: Only, it’s not flu
But coronavirus that’s descended.
It seems predictions were catastrophic,
So, were noted and quietly filed away,
Until came the contagion, came the day
For the accounting of the mounting sick.
Austerity, efficiency, not fate
Has proved “just in time” is far, far too late.

                                                                                                   Dave Alton