Martin Slidel: CV-19

They want to programme you Into a new world In which you do as you are told They want to take greater charge Of an old world, dying They do this by lying They don’t want you to starve They don’t want you to suffer – much But the small-print distracts from the large  They want to programme us Into a new world In which we do as we are told In which They take greater charge In which the greedy get greedier In which the needy get needier.

I see you everyday Passing the same way Your phone keeps you at bay And never a word we say Instead, you quicken your pace Instead, you lower your gaze And yet, to signal your virtue You show your face and hip-hooray I have signalled you (Not learnt or taught at school) Life and Death is no charade Our days slip and slide away And never a word we say Your phone keeps you at bay Passing the same way Aside from the parade I see you everyday. Photo by Martin

Do you want to know the truth Do you want to know who you are Do you want to know how far You can fall? Your only care the bandwidth The wires wired on you The circling crows on high The carrion call thrown wide Were you ever here to begin with All of us passing through And once you have (passed through) You do the things you always do You don’t want to know the truth You don’t want to know who you are You don’t want to know how far You can fall.

All we can be sure of is: The arrogant keep warm The ignorant, misinformed The world will turn No lessons to be learned Only bridges to be burned In the flare of the corona Aware that we’re pulled closer Away from earth, to the solar When this will all be over. And when all this is over All we can be sure of is: The rich will not be poorer; it is The poor who will be poorer; it is All we can be sure of. Photo: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona

1 Sleeping fields wreathed in speed Tractor tracks rimmed by rain Mid-evening, mid-winter, and no one rises There is no guard to meet us This carriage stops At a stopped world. 2 We have lost our souls Save for the words of pop songs The ideal of beauty as armour Clatters in celebrity headlines. Listen: (Where have the people gone?) – That is where the people have gone. Hampshire, 2005 Photo: London, 2020