I have been writing poems and posting them on Facebook.
10 Covid Cantos : Geoff Smith
1
Dare we unmask our futures?
Or will we remain disguised
Avoiding transmission, hoping
Against hope for release
As this night draws to a conclusion
Sky falls, Sun sets, the night sky
Glows with stars followed by Kings
This year we had a hard time burying
Our dead. Embalming bodies, with
Myrrh. Smoke rising as prayers
Sweet scented as incense clouding
Our vision. A golden glow of riches
So we draw masks across faces
Protecting futures praying as we do
That futures will be convivial,
Persuasive, alive, acting, building
A better more tolerable life in years
Ahead, friends, friendships, embracing
A future of promise, possibility
Greater normality, a hopeful future
2
Our yesterday’s call us back
To myths of our own making
Memories of life captured almost
As an L S Lowry painting or singing
From a fairground organ. Returning
Home with goldfish swimming in a
Plastic bag won by tossing a table
Tennis ball into a globe. Luck celebrated
As skill. Every year a family trip on Good
Friday to our Easter Fair at Daisy Nook
Stalls piled high with candy floss, toffee
Apples, hot dogs and ketchup, ice
Cream cones, vanilla, scents of chocolate
Cheese and deep fried chips wrapped
In old newspaper The Manchester
Evening News soaked with beef dripping
Laced with vinegar. Above a Manchester
Sky, sun setting at day’s end. So well
Named, Good Friday no better day
Imaginable as we followed the tow path
Home, past Medlock Mill to Crossland Road
Under a darkening skies’ hazy colouring
Reaching for distant memories of people
All long gone now after these long years
3
Days lengthen
Just moments past
Each dawn each later dusk
In an evening sky
Against blue shadows
A Red Kite glides to nest
Out of eye shadows
Along our fallow edge
Young deer move towards
Summer grazing
On our pastures regreened
As spring announces warmth
To come cautious
Optimism is our theme
In these fag end days of winter
4
What’s that worth, nerve shredding
Sounds of birth, new ages breeched
We imagine futures stretching ahead
Distances shrinking as I head to bed
I can only imagine the limits of what might
Arrive if I hold my breath very, very tight
Covid makes breathing tough leaves you
Feeling rough stresses our well-being
Planning emphasises optimism, as though
Ahead there is a future, a prism of opportunity
But all we can anticipate is fate, unyielding
My opportunities frankly receding quite fast
So I bequeath my future to those who come
After, praying for them, joy and laughter
5
So it’s all change innit
Can’t stay the same
No ones to blame
Just to need to be with it
So I get my stuff together
I aim for a solution
We don’t need pollution
So stop your blether
I’m just hoping for the best
Raising a glass to your wealth
Toasting your health
Hoping that you get some rest
The finale will be chorused
The singers in tune
We will soar the balloon
Our joys will be focused
6
Spring revealing
Beneath snow covered paths
Aconite yellow
7
Passing along past a garden
Gate, saw a sign announcing
Garage sale, clearly a moving
Experience, heading west, coastward
Detritus of a life well lived not
Needed in phase two So we
Call in to check out bargains
Finding treasures to go
So new lives beckon us forward
Hopes, possibilities, dreams, new
Dawns, tomorrow’s possibility
Announces today’s impossiblity
Reaching out towards a new life
Re-imagining myself in an un-
discovered future beyond pan-
demic, life rediscovered imaginatively
8
From Psalm 45
My tongue is the pen of a ready
Writer, my heart is astir with
Gracious words fashioned
As maybe into songs
The rhythms of the day pulse
As heartbeats against
Drum tight skin stretched
Like echoes’ reverb of nation
So we exit the company of those
Who make common cause
Who together break bread
At the tables of success
In the sorrow of going it
Alone we find that love
Is hard edged so we gesture
With patterns of silent grief
Sacrificing prosperity whilst
Denying truth and humility
Embracing self righteousness
Choosing exit over experience
9
Against sky, blue, White
Windmills turn generating
Life’s electric currents
Spinning slowly, angels
Wings thrumming music
For the dance of time
Balancing on thermals
Above Hammermill Plantation
A Red Kite shimmers
In a low sun, light reflected
On feathers that sing
Of what may yet come
On January’s last days
As months turn snowdrops
Offer a forecast, Seasons
Turning as turbines turn
Dancing as kites dance
Singing as birds sing
10
Sodium glare beneath
Setting sun, trash cans
Stacked kerbside reflecting
A warm days heat
Feral dogs hunting noses
Pressed into garbage
Scenting leftover chorizo
As my headlights reflected
On the trashcans dogs
Feral snarling echoed
Across silent meza
Sacks of half torn pizza
Paella plates of garbage
Trashcans scenting night
Airs as my headlights caught
Dogs turntailed to darkness
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