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#SIP Poem - by Dan Williamson

Updated: Jul 8, 2020


The Pandemic We All Needed

Yesterday we ran through the woods and To keep busy I tried to guess what present you had ordered You assured me I would love it and I assured you that With so much hype It was sure to disappoint and You assured me that it wouldn’t and Later I admitted You were right But for now Among the pines Against an old quarry rock My ankle hit an angle and My knee gives in And I begin to walk home While you run off to explore We were lucky The world was in lockdown And two weeks prior I was almost homeless In a foreign land And now I was here With a future and a roof With health, fresh air And friendship And you were saving lives Hating the clapping On the streets each Thursday Where were they When bodies heaved in the Hospital halls Why had they voted out the immigrants They were clapping for now Drinking too much coffee Avoiding the news Hearing news here and there Of a friend’s friend’s death Of the overwhelming lonely Or lost jobs en masse Or insufficient income Or the business Feeding the family On the brink of collapse And then there was Fuck the experts and Listen to the experts And the R0 of car accidents Is simply not comparable And if people say We overreacted That means We got It right And surely the economy Will kill more than we’re saving And surely only the weak will die And who cares about the elderly They’re soon to go anyway And please stop shaming me For my critical perspectives And predictions of how this looks From ahead And every prediction possible Of how this will change Everything It was the pandemic we all needed Etc etc and on and on Because there’s nothing else to do Saying I never thought it would turn out this way Grieving, divorced or dying or even reborn At this specific point in time I never planned for it How could I have known But then life is always like that It’s all out there But I’m in here Sleeping well After the first month of meds Not oversleeping for a change Taking it day by day Most of all I hope no one I love dies Not least myself And that I can carry on One day With all the things That I enjoy






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