Key workers

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.

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This caustic coronaverse is brought to you by the letter K.

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News in three lines

In Bristol thousands of young climate crisis protesters turned out in the rain to listen to Greta Thunberg.
Despite the atrocious weather the rally was peaceful and no rubbish was left behind.
Afterwards some locals complained that the protesters should have been at school and not churned the grass to mud.

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Wars in Syria and elsewhere have resulted in many dying, others becoming refugees.
Meanwhile coronavirus is spreading almost unchecked around the world.
The good news, however, is that some Christian groups say the end of the world isn’t imminent because we haven’t had widespread famine.

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The majority of the cabinet supported austerity after the global financial crisis of a decade ago, opposing pay rises for nurses.
Because of the referendum many foreign nationals in the health service have now left the country, leaving it understaffed.
This week the nation will again applaud health service staff who help tend those affected by the virus, including the prime minister.

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Three pieces inspired by Félix Fénéon: in French nouvelles translates as both ‘news’ and ‘novels’

Twisted rhymes

Mary had a little lamb
(she ate it with some mint):
She’d killed it with her own fair hands;
Her heart was cold as flint.

Sing a song of sixpence,
Politicians lie,
Spouting arrant nonsense:
“Brexit, do or die!”

Jack and Jill weren’t taught to kill
but he went on to slaughter:
to have some fun he took his gun
to shoot some son or daughter.
He wished to make his country great
or maybe strong and stable;
with every breath he dealt a death
as fast as he was able.

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All images: WordPress Free Photo Library

The Joker

Teeth too big for his mouth
still he spits out bile with a laugh,
close-lidded eyes concealing disdain
for a populace he leads by the nose

Spared grillings by broadcasting ninnies,
cocking a snook at all and sundry,
a joke of a man, yet as serious a threat
as you’d ever get in a month of Mondays

His nodding head a pain in the neck
(though emphatically not for him)
he laughs all the way to the bank,
a loose cannonball on deck to scupper us all

Spinning a farrago of lies
the joker in the pack
may yet turn up trumps

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Seasonal

Cursed may be the warmakers,
candy-from-babies’-mouths takers,
the liars and the news fakers,
the politician oath-breakers,
the hackers and the muckrakers,
the refugee forsakers,
and billionaires who want more still.

But peace to those of goodwill.