X placeholder

Disease X,
a hypothetical pathogen
capable of causing
a future epidemic.

That’s what they told us.

Disease X, the placeholder name
for the very serious threat
posed to human health
by unknown viruses.

That’s what they told us,
back in 2018.

Disease X, on a pathogen shortlist
prioritised for research
by the World Health Organization.

That’s what they told us,
back in 2018,
but we didn’t listen.

Disease X, the sure knowledge
of a serious international epidemic
from a pathogen currently unknown.

That’s what they told us,
back in 2018.
But we didn’t listen.
And then it was too late.

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Today’s coronaverse is brought to you by the letter X.

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Update daily

Do you search for daily updates,
cases new, jabs, even death rates?
Data junkies, figure monkeys,
number mystics need statistics,
searching out the numbers’ meanings
but forgetting human beings.
Each and every Covid sufferer
is a father, child or mother,
sister, uncle, aunt or brother,
not a cipher, A N Other.

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Today’s coronaverse doggerel is brought to you by the letter U.

Quarantine times

Forty days isolation,
that’s how it used to be
for Venetian plague ships,
quaranta giorni;
forty days for new mums,
impure until churched,
forty days for Jesus
in the wilderness,
forty days for fasting
in the time of Lent,
forty days of penance:
that’s how long they spent.

So stop your moaning
when told to quarantine:
it’s only fourteen bloody days,
not half a lifetime.

Outbreak control

Image generated from the text of this sestain from https://experiments.runwayml.com/generative_engine/

Whenever an outbreak emerges
authorities fear there’ll be surges.
Surges are hard to control,
with limiting them always the goal.
The best way to stop Covid’s spread?
Obey rules, or risk being dead.

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This sestain is the latest coronaverse, brought to you by the letter O.

Boredom solutions

© C A Lovegrove

When each day feels like the next,
stave off boredom with a book.
Engage your thoughts with tale-based text
when each day feels like the next.
Novels keep grey matter flexed,
opened pages worth a look.
When each day feels like the next,
stave off boredom with a book.

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Coronaverse: an alphabet of terms related to Covid-19. Tomorrow brings us the letter C.

Limbo

We’re all in a stateless state,
stuck between a life and death
with our need to isolate.
We’re all in a stateless state,
all bereft and desolate,
dying with each living breath.
We’re all in a stateless state:
stuck between a life and death.

The sharp touch

It creeps round my collar,
it slinks up my sleeves,
steals through the soles
of my shoes with such ease,
spies on the small of my back
and nips at the nape of my neck;
my fingers, my toes,
my ear lobes, my nose,
all start at the sharp touch,
the cold steel,
the grip
of winter

French letters

Chapter One: Chaperone
Part Two: Pas de deux
Tome Three: Ménage à trois
Volume Four: Carrefour

Book Five? Fin d’affaires

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Franglais by numbers

On Camber Sands

sibillant squeals,
insistent, persistent:
parent-pestering young gull,
close-following, food-demanding,
noisome, brain-numbing:
nature’s survival ploy

seconds tick, cries continue,
minutes pass with constant mews;
unsated hunger; wanders wide;
wonder of wonders! parent flies,
youngster follows, peace returns:
save for surf’s hiss, bliss now reigns

but I still hear it

Tell me what

Sissinghurst Castle estate

Tell me what you think
I’ll tell you about your time in the future
Tell me what you mean
I’ll tell you what I have done for you
Tell me what you want
I’ll be doing the same thing again

Will there ever be
a meeting of minds
or will we forever be
passing strangers?

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Lines partly generated using predictive text, followed by my response

Found poetry

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Last week

Image: WordPress Free Media Library photo

Sunshine wall to wall day
Mind you stay in the shade day
Choose sun protection factor 30 day
When’s it going to stop day
Thirsty day
Frying under the sun day
Sweaty day
Sunburnt day