Lockdown Sonnets

When you've fallen off, shush. Reconnect. Slowly sinking in, familiar, strange. Familiar books like faces. Voices out of range. Faces whispering. Indirect. Calm like company, trees recollect. Calm like change Settled in the pickle jar. Colours rearrange. Windows reflect. Between the in-breath and the out-breath, the pause. The oiled hinge facilitates the door. A hum which hardly registers as a sound. A lull between effect and cause. The tide relents, retreating from the shore, Releasing the drowned.

Fretful like wind in the chimney breast. Is the world still out there? I suppose. In some sense, somewhere. Guilty, bored, depressed. I couldn't be arsed getting dressed Or brush my hair. Between various meals I stare At the TV without interest. Let today be done. Sweep it away. Pointless guff. The hour has run. Nothing to say. Enough, enough.

I fancy a day off from doing these So let's keep it brief. Warm sunny day. Builders next door hammering away. Breakfast. Walked into town to Sainsbury's: More gin, rump steak, salad stuff, cheese. A few people on the streets; mostly they Kept their distance. Still, I'd say The lockdown is creaking. Days like these It's hard to resist the pleasures of outdoors. Staying in like me (watching Murder, She Wrote ) Seems the greater crime; the forecast's cold After today, so everyone ignores The wagging fingers. Days when the overcoat Is cast aside, like the vulnerable and the old.

Lockdown! Drink up! Celebrate VE Day! The Greatest Generation , and All that. Let the whole nation band together in pious sentimentality Over Something most know only from TV Or films. "Remember!" - I truly don't understand What's meant by that, however grand The tone. What about what ? For me, Of course, it can mean my dad - But that's just it: I actually do Recall their humdrum faces, their elsewhere eyes. Sanctification is an insult to the sad, Haunting truth they lived through. We are celebrating lies.

It's a striking thing about life today How keen we are to be indignant, pontificate. When something bad happens we can't wait To get on Facebook or Twitter and join the fray. We can't rest until we've had our say, Booming in the Voice of Reason our great Insights, and slapping down the fools we hate With logic and hilarious memes. We slay Them endlessly, but somehow they don't die. In fact, they have the cheek to claim they've won And we're the fools! Neither side will admit That reason's not the issue. I can see why: If reason can't get the job done We might need a harsher way to deal with it.

French toast is not a skull upon the fire, Wipe up the blood, check Watson's brought his gun, This file contains a photo of a nun, The spider weaves her dream of Warwickshire. Five empty bottles silently conspire Against me, but I'm hid beneath the sun. Lord Byron's testimony has been done. The fairies bide their time behind the wire. I'm scattering the ashes of the day And rolling up my liver in the bin, A spell against insane utility. Keep meaning and the builders far away; A secret ink to expiate all sin And hang unspoken papers on the tree.