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Gobsmacked and shocked (Poems)

Is this really happening?

Are the video clips on the TV real news?

The people of the world are being attacked by a deadly virus

That is spreading right across nations like a bushfire

No-one knows how to extinguish its flame!

Governments are scrambling to provide intensive care beds

People suddenly breath in invisible molecules of destruction

That rapidly attacks the respiratory system to crowd life out of the chest

Health systems scramble over-burdened as demand for specialist care grows

Daily new figures for each country declare the number tested positive

Countries close their borders and aircraft are grounded

Tourism grinds to a halt

No one can go in or out and trapped travellers are quarantined

The virus spreads at an exponential rate never seen in our lifetime

Social distancing and lockdown turn streets into people-less places

News cameras show cityscapes devoid of life with not a person in sight

Nations declare war on this ‘little devil’ virus

Places of noise and laughter where people congregate are shut down

Hotels, nightclubs, gyms, cafés, restaurants and churches ordered closed

Round One Measures are put in place to do battle

People are told to stay at home and cancel holidays

Go out only to do what is necessary to live

Buying food and going to work, if they still have a job, as businesses close

The voice of the Prime Minister interrupts TV programs to announce rescue packages

Funding to provide support for people and businesses to survive this sudden interruption

Set to last for six months or even much longer

Scientists across the globe mobilise a search for the code to smash this virus

To bring back peace, sanity and the hope of some form of return normality

Though not all will be with us because of this calamity

There will be gaps in families taken by this spread of death

Lives will not be the same

Economies will have been severely battered to scaffold survival

Industries will need to be rebuilt as well as lives

The hardest hit will be the aged and the immune compromised who are most vulnerable.

2020 will be remembered in the same way as the great plagues of previous dark ages in history

But the world will go on

If wisdom has increased

Humanity will be changed by this event and be equipped to cope next time

With the crises’ that challenge the survival of humanity.

Hopefully, people will have a renewed culture of supporting one another and of working together,

And the economic system renovated into a more secure network

Driven by caring for people, in contrast to the capitalistic driven system, to make more and more profit without considering the vulnerability of people.

Ideally the great divide between the very rich and the very poor will be reduced

and humanity will have a brighter future where all can feel secure

and have a reasonable standard of living.

People are planning, working and praying for victory over this evil

that love and kindness may again be shared

in a new world without the dangers and conflicts of the past!

Neil P. Schiller

23.03.20



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