They Didn’t Tell You

They didn’t tell you when you trustingly submitted to a covid test that you’d have to quarantine for fourteen days even if you tested negative.

They didn’t tell you the queues would be so long, could take up to ten hours to be tested, and that there were no toilet facilities available, no hot dog stands

And they certainly didn’t tell you a fortnight in quarantine by yourself would be as gruelling, as solipsistic as a fortnight in solitary in a maximum security prison — and that you never even get to see your jailer

There is no training for this.

And anyway you’ve only got eight more days of madness to look forward to, so it isn’t all bad

Until you realize at the very end, your state’s in hard lockdown for at least a week so you have to go through it all over again

Circus

She hands me the change.

I miss.

The two coins bounce off the rubbery counter.

I catch them mid-flight.

You should be in a circus, she says.

I am, I say.

I mingle with clowns every day,

juggle my bills,

keep the customers satisfied,

drive around in an old jalopy,

put on my happy face

as buffoons bluster their way

through a pandemic,

get up in the morning

and start all over again.

What a performance!

She smiles at me nervously.

Anyhow, have a good day! I say.

You too, she says, as I walk away,

beeping my rubbery red nose.

The Problem with Aldo

 
Aldo thrust his hand forward
eager, anticipating.
What could I do but shake it?
I didn’t have a coronary,
a brain bleed
or a meltdown
but shouldn’t we have touched
elbows instead, feet
[‘The Wuhan Shake’],
given a fist bump to each other
or even the Tibetan Tongue Greeting
though it seemed as warlike as a haka,
something a little less intimate
than a handshake?
Are we loosening up too early?
I wash my hands furiously with sanitiser
& keep 1.5 m from myself
for the rest of the day.
You can’t be too careful.
 
 

Two Pockets

Ever think about pockets? the post asked.

Whenever I buy clothes, I say, I always think pockets.

Doesn’t everyone?

Two pockets. Roomy, Capacious, Like the report said.

The top left for the wallet, the right for the mobile so I can whip it out like a gun from a holster and do a Covid Safe check-in.

.If someone buys me a shirt with no pockets I won’t wear it.

If someone buys me a shirt with one pocket, I might.

Sometimes you gotta compromise.

Trousers too. Two hands, Two pockets.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

I like to walk around sometimes with my hands in my pockets.

It helps me think.

I’ve got a dressing gown with one pocket. What am I supposed to do

with the other hand??

I’ve heard that shrouds have NO pockets.

I don’t intend dying anytime soon.

• google Roadtirement Blog for the post and video

On the Hop

Did someone throw a switch?

One moment we were out of the woods.

The next in.

We’re going in hard, fast, early,

the Premier said.

And that’s how it happened.

Six days hard lockdown,

stricter than Wuhan

or Melbourne.

Pubs, schools, businesses.

Even the police were caught

on the hop.

Who decides these things?

.Hard, fast, early.

Then three days later

we were out again.

A lockdown based

on a pizza worker’s thick crust

of lies.

Even my grandson in Vienna

heard about it.

Did you?

We’re the Easter Bunny State

where decisions are made

on the hop.

The Poem Outside my Window

There’s a beautiful poem outside my window

a shrub two and a half metres tall

with coquettish purple flowers

and a little frost of throats.

There are other colours too

lavender and white

a trinity of colours.

It has a botanical name, of course,

though I much prefer its common name:

Yesterday. Today and Tomorrow.

I’ve written about it before but not like this,

Yesterday was our 215 th day with no community transmissions.

Today we have 20.

Tomorrow?

We watch the News Bulletins, updates from the Chief Medical Officer,

Blooms of anxiety.

Viral blooms.

Yes! I Was There …

between 1.45 and 3.00 pm on Sunday

when I ducked in to get a pint of milk

but I only have to get tested if symptoms appear.

Now every cough

sneeze

run of the nose

headache

is freighted with significance

Torpedoes

I want to make a bee line for the shop —

there is panic buying again —

but my bowels won’t let me,

Please let me go, I say.

But my bowels are recalcitrant.

When they get in this mood there is nothing

you can do.

I threaten them with torpedoes,

my moondrop grapes

but they grip their fists even harder

against the attack.

So rather than sit and wait & twiddle my thumbs

I write this little poem.

My bowels immediately relent.

There are enough bad bowel poems out there

anyway.

Mine does not want to be added to the list.

My bowels heave a sigh of relief.

Wolf Down

A few years ago I read a book called Wolf Hall.

Now I’m writing about Wolf Down

what the cat does with food when it’s been stuck

on the roof all day;

what we do now

wolfing down pleasure,

sunshine,

the great outdoors,

going for drives,

doing stuff together,

hoping to outfox the old virus for another day.

Tower Haiku

trapped in this box

frightened as a fox

staring at the cops