How’s social distancing going for you?
The templated enquiries loop on
like a subtle nod down office corridors
or the staff room’s chart music songs.
My answer’s the same each time.
It’s fine and I mustn’t complain.
Sometimes that’s said in all honesty.
Other times it’s masking the pain
of wanting to be off my balcony
up on the heath in unkept grass
scribbling in my little notepad
writing odes to days long past.
Nostalgia’s funny, the smarts say.
It embellishes what really was.
To some extent I agree.
In other cases I don’t because
those years were really everything.
We marched with such a charge
from local haunts to house parties.
Those square miles felt so large.
Now I’m switching channels.
News cycles will drive you mad.
You’ll learn more hungover
glued to the latest QVC fad.
The readers find audacity
comparing all of this with war.
Boxset binges trap and kill you
but are hardly Dunkirk shores.
What a chance at long last
this is to finish a book or two.
How telling of man to order more
when there’s piles to get through.
Whether writing or reading
you’ve got to broker the time.
Together under one roof all day
is to walk a difficult line.
There’s love at evening meals
of tales from different working days.
Relentless Nintendo Switch battles
conquer grand plans with a haze.
The days feel little different now.
You can’t tell the weeks apart.
Time’s filled with online shopping.
Sense checks empty pointless carts.
What use is a new bomber jacket?
An orange sweatshirt and white tick.
Over-priced sea salt hair sprays.
A pair of limited edition kicks.
The breakfast news death counts
grow more harrowing and bleak.
As premature as the perspective
might this wishful optimist peek
to a future when this is all over
where we spend much less on junk
value our time outdoors
sleepwalk through life less drunk
spend more time with loved ones
phones pocketed to free our minds
governments supporting all classes
despite their historic budget crimes.
My god there’ll be virtue signals
but let’s not forget the British trait.
The minute they relax the rules
we’ll rave to the lift of all this weight.
Squeezed back into carriages
buying ironing water of a weekend
we need to act, not vainly hope
we don’t foolishly descend.