Sky series: 0.2

The clouds have lowered themselves to mingle with dog-walkers at dusk; peer over rooftops to catch the last of this evening’s Eastenders, or maybe just to check Eastenders still exists. Backdrop sky is exposed in elongated patches of paleness, like partly stripped wallpaper. I pass under a telephone wire strung with birds – like pretty Christmas cards, from people we can no longer hug. Count them. More than six. Quicken my pace, so we can’t be accused of loitering with intent to socialise. Their chatter takes flight after me halfway down the street. Blue ink blotches infect the paper trail looming homeward, discolour the long-view perspective and spread into moroseness. Tower blocks exhibit lights left on to stave off terrors of the night spent alone. Harsh yellow squares like Zoom call windows stacked up into forever, distressing as a lifelong condition. Terms & Conditions. Nobody read the smallprint for 2020, we just wanted to download the software and get on with it – fuck the warranty. Clouds stretched out, lounging in postcard poses, like a cruel promise of things looking better just over the horizon. Don’t wear out your boots, kid, chasing after a delusion; the shops might all be shut tomorrow. It’s a hard road ahead, but the glass shards legacy of our most recent peaceful protest would bite harder into bare feet. This season everyone grew beards, except our politicians. As usual, unable to disguise their bald-faced lies.

Viral Elation Day

Woke up in Nigel Farage’s wet dream:
all the windows in all the streets
were decorated in Union Jacks
and England flags.
He looks on as all the people clap.
Just need to wipe those rainbows clean –
too reminiscent of the LGBT+ community,
of frontline staff
at the NHS and everywhere,
of a nation who’ve remembered to care.
Survival. Compassion. Unity.
That’s not what VE Day’s about;
so drink, sing, be merry, clap and shout,
and only compare

their battles to ours, right now,
if you dare.