A Literary Life

(A poem written and submitted for Southwark's Poetic Map of Reading, which is to celebrate the power and joy of reading.)

Infected with isolation.

A debilitating disease –

Difficulty breathing and 

Depression. 

An Obsession 

For sanitiser,

For Pfizer,

For a tantalising tranquilliser –

Fashioned from fiction;

A fantastic addiction. 

Scared to tune into Sky News.

Amid the tormenting trajectory of

Hospital admissions, 

Politicians 

Revelled in wine. 

He waited in Bermondsey’s breadline. 

His wife, fighting on the front line

To save lives. 

At night, they both succumbed to

A literary life –

Full of fictitious strife

And carefree characters. 

The Portrait of an Artist,

The manifesto of a Marxist,

A court case by Harper Lee,

All snuggle within the sea of their impending tea;

A normality of which feels free,

Against a future they cannot foresee –

Through the lens of a pandemic. 

Systemic 

Seclusion.

Yet, a whimsical illusion,

A fantastical fusion 

Of fictitious frivolity,

Prepares to greet them

From beyond the breadcrumb. 

Situated on their

Sincere sofa

Lies a copy of Simple Pleasure(s),

Whereby love might measure,

Their mad, mad melancholy.

Or maybe in choosing to exist,

They have enrolled on Schindler’s list.

Saved from sadness,

From biological badness.

No one obliterated

Yet.

“We must not forget” –

Begs Anne Frank’s Diary

Of a Young Girl,

With the sad simplicity of Steinbeck’s 

The Pearl. 

Now, they live in infectious fright.

Pandemic plight; 

A psychiatric disease,

That suicide will appallingly appease –

Too often.

Claiming the life of their daughter’s son,

They must fight to warp weariness into a pun;

An ulterior meaning.

The Art of Dreaming.

Literature offers them The Great Escape -

A break,

From COVID’s cruelty. 

 From The Stationary Shop of Tehran,

To Syria’s Secret Library,

They drift across The Starless Sea,

To magical midnights upon the Yangtze. 

Together they smile in sweet serenity,

And happiness they can again, foresee. 

Look at life in a poetic way,

So nightmarish demons are kept at bay.