Rhymes

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to play with rhyming verse, and in particular that I’m in love with the Onegin stanza, which is like a sonnet but with shorter lines. The Emerging Artist (who incidentally has recently been working on a project to submit to a competition only to have the competition, which would have led to an open-air sculpture exhibition, cancelled) said I should put this recent sequence up on the blog. I didn’t write these with any intention of showing them around, so blame the EA if they displease. Of course if you like them, I’ll happily accept praise.

9 February
First drought, then fires, and now it's raining
night and day a steady thrum
with windy descant never waning:
bushfires gone now, floods have come.
Our balcony was strewn with ashes
then with red dirt. Now it splashes
inch deep and our thyme will drown.
The lawns are green that once were brown.
Raining, pouring, old man snoring,
how I loved rain when a boy
in Innisfail, a primal joy –
so definite, so life-restoring.
Now we're cooped up in our flat – 
warm inside. I'm fine with that.

10 March
Drought, fire, flood, and now this virus.
Covid-19 tops the bill.
Don’t touch your face, wash hands, require us
keep two metres from the till.
The papers preach self-isolation.
Norman predicts devastation.
Toilet paper shelves are bare.
Trump says we just shouldn’t care.
The Spanish Flu, AIDS, SARS, Ebola,
tiny predators en masse
toss us down a deep crevasse:
iPhones, cruises, Coca-Cola
promised lives of endless joy.
The gods think we’re a knockdown toy.

22 March
Hooray for social isolation.
Splendid? Truly, not so much.
On one side there's devastation,
on t'other six months without touch
of granddaughter or a movie.
Beach and gym closed, and all groovy
birthday parties now on line.
It's books' and Netflix' time to shine.
No more non-essential outings.
Work from home unless you're key
and key means nurses, teachers, see,
not the bankers, brokers, shouting
pollies. Oh, and not the arts! 
God save our isolated hearts!