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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.
This sestain is the latest coronaverse, brought to you by the letter O.
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The virus from outside, just like a trojan horse,
attacks the victim’s inside, violates our very source,
though they try their very damnedest to repel it,
our bodies have their work cut out just trying to expel it.
The chronicles of nausea, vomit, diarrhea,
demonstrate a failure to keep clear
of the dread coronavirus,
an illness sent to try us.
Symptoms gastrointestinal —
in the analysis somewhat final —
is reported by 1 in 10 or 20
women and men: queasiness aplenty.
Today’s coronaverse was brought to you by the letter N.
Mask refusal
aids infection,
superspreading
surges inevitable,
ignorant comments,
malicious memes,
manipulated statistics,
uninformed speculation,
neoliberal nonsense,
irresponsible actions,
stubborn opinions,
abhorrent views,
taunting remarks,
isolation avoidance,
overt disobedience:
nothing good.
An acrostic coronaverse brought to you by the letter M.
© C A Lovegrove
When lockdown feels like house arrest,
remember who’s the jailer.
When feeling an unwelcome guest,
you’re really not the failure.
While lockdown serves to keep you in,
remember what’s kept out:
a thief so small, and short and thin,
who’ll steal without a doubt.
Coronavirus does not care
if you are good or bad.
It catches us all umaware:
the mum, the child, the dad.
Just like the thief who seeks your wealth
this burglar is not kind:
with sneaky stealth it steals your health,
your body, or your mind.
When lockdown eases do not say,
Hey, now we can go mad!
You want to live another day?
Take care, stay safe, not sad!
This coronaverse brought to you by the letter L.
Thus sayeth the rulers, All hail key workers!
And we did hail them.
They that provideth health we hailed, and social care, and childcare;
those in teaching, social work,
the justice system and, yea, in religion we lauded.
They who claimeth authority
by popular mandate
requireth managers of the deceased,
the Fourth Estate, and many others,
to do their duty as prescribed;
and also those in government
that respondeth to exigencies of plague,
and provideth for the management
of message massaging,
all as deemed necessary by the rulers.
And many other such toilers
as the rulers shall choose to designate,
in their wisdom and their charity.
The rulers shall lead key workers
out of the slough of despond
created not by their own inadequacies,
as their enemies do proclaim,
but by those very enemies;
and their names shall be exalted,
and may their profits endure forever.
This caustic coronaverse is brought to you by the letter K.
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‘Twas brilliant, the way science worked
to make coronavirus ancient news;
those vaccines going where virus lurked:
it’s good to counter awful news.
One, two, and phew! for now we’re through!
The arm has had its little jab.
The side effects are far and few,
and kudos goes to every lab.
O fab’lous day! Hip hip hooray!
Just one more jab and then we’re done.
Let all who can, be jabbed, I pray,
though one quick prick is rarely fun.
Beware the antivaxxers, everyone!
The lies that fright, the lies that kill!
Beware the news that’s fake, and shun
the ever-turning rumour mill!
‘Twas brilliant, the way science worked
to make coronavirus ancient news;
those vaccines going where virus lurked:
it’s good to counter awful news.
This coronaverse parody of Lewis Carroll’s poem was brought to you by the letter J.
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We don’t know what’s in it!
That’s what they are saying.
However they spin it
let’s hope they are praying
that if they’re not immunised
they won’t get affected;
they just won’t be apprised
of what’s really injected.
There’s a chip we can’t trust
in what comes from those labs;
and those experts? They just
tell us lies ’bout the jabs.
They’d rather get factoids
from some chappies online
than boffins’ and medics’
advice on what’s fine.
A coronaverse brought to you today by the letter I
© C A Lovegrove
Hospitals filled and overflowing;
health workers working all hours;
horrid trolls, always lying,
hateful, plague-denying;
households just like ours
healing, dying;
hope flowers.
Hoax? What
hoax?
This coronaverse brought to you by the letter H: a nonet for the ninth of March
No one an island.
Viruses respect no walls,
built however high.
This coronaverse brought to you by the letter G: a haiku, or rather senryu
The hypochondriac’s wet dream includes some or all of the following:
Fever or high temperature.
Maybe a continuous dry cough.
And a sore throat.
Fever or high temperature,
fatigue too, perhaps:
body ache, chills, headaches.
Yes, I feel that.
Fever or high temperature,
and a loss of (or change in)
sense of smell or taste,
even loss of appetite.
Anosmia. That’s a good word.
I’ve got that.
Perhaps it’s “high” fever:
is the cough more severe,
with shortness of breath?
Is it — pneumonia?
So, I seem to have
high fever and anosmia,
muscle weakness,
a tingling and a numbness,
yes, in hands and in my feet.
Ticking all the boxes.
I’m dizzy and confused,
and probably delirious too.
That’s it, I’m off to bed.
… Wait, what’s on telly?
Coronaverse: Monday will bring the letter G
I sing of arms, and of the man,
and woman too, and legs and mind.
Though virus is a plaguey thing,
inertia’s too, I think you’ll find.
Before we shuffle off our coils
let’s exercise from hearth and home,
and ere we cease from mental fight
let’s exercise our right to roam …
but not too far from our front door:
for don’t they say that less is more?
Let ‘balance’ be our touchstone word
while Covid beats at mankind’s gate:
do what we can, stay safe and sound,
and patiently keep watch, and wait.
With lockdown workouts in our homes
(and cycling, running, jogging, walking)
crosswords, quizzes, books and poems
(and phone calls, zoom calls, keeping talking) —
much mental exercising is the key,
and not just physical, trust me!
Coronaverse: an alphabet of terms related to Covid-19. Tomorrow brings us the letter F.
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Politicians data-driven?
Pressed for details they ignore us,
dates of easing seldom given,
days of lockdown stretch before us.
Better to ignore the chorus
of demands to ease restrictions:
Covid-19’s bounds are porous,
plague rides free of firm predictions.
But uncertainty brings frictions,
tempting some to break the rules,
claims that virus facts are fictions,
those who credit them but fools.
Data comes from sense-led asking;
until then let’s keep on masking.
* * * * *
A Spencerian sonnet written in trochaic tetrameters: the rhyme scheme is abab bcbc cdcd ee
Coronaverse: an alphabet of terms related to Covid-19. Tomorrow brings us the letter E.
Zenrinji 