24 May 2020

Poem

On Sunday May 10th, the British government changed its public coronavirus slogan from "Stay Home/Protect the NHS/ Save Lives" to "Stay Alert/Control The Virus/Save Lives". Generally, this change has been met with puzzlement and has been criticised for being far too vague. 

The instruction  to "Stay Alert" has been echoing in my head for two weeks now. I thought of small mammals in the long grass, sailors in crows' nests and soldiers looking through night vision binoculars at the 38th parallel in Korea. But this was the poem I came up with...
________________________________________________________

Stay Alert

Like beauty danger lurks
A  highwayman
Ready to disarm you
To rob you of your breath.
Look left, look right,
Check your way is clear
For it may be very near
Skulking in the shadows
Of unease
Concealed by trembling trees
Or waiting round the bend
Just up ahead
With the unsung dead.
“CHOOSE LIFE”
Said the T-shirt
Stay Alert
Choose vigilance
To secure a
Stay of execution
- Your contribution
To saving lives.

20 comments:

  1. Lovely poem. Theres a local facebook group down here saying "stay a Lert. We need more Lerts" the change of slogan was unnecessary and confusing. Better still they should have just said "Be extremely cautious when going outside". Someone gets paid to think these slogans up!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reading it and for reflecting upon it ADDY. A poem about a "lert" sounds like the sort of thing Lewis Carroll might have written.

      Delete
  2. That's great, YP. That your offering also made me laugh is, so I hope, forgivable in these life saving times.

    U

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Skulking in the shadows
    Of unease"
    That will become one of my 'memorable quotes'.
    In fact I think I may create a poster and put it underneath. Hardly a 'platitude' but a warning.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honoured to have attracted the thoughtful attention of a "retired bureaucrat" Graham.

      Delete
  4. I like your poem. The warning to "stay alert" seems very, very vague to me. It's not like we're looking out for Nazis (although yes, those too) but an invisible microorganism. There is no way to see it or hear it or smell it or feel it until it has already invaded. And then it can be too late.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe I should have blended a sense of that invisibility into the poem. It is indeed an untypical enemy.

      Delete
  5. I like the image of the danger lurking as a highwayman waiting to leap out and accost us.
    Will he be wearing a mask I wonder?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That very thought had crossed my mind too JayCee. But what kind of mask?

      Delete
  6. A very appropriate poem for our times YP.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I like your poem. Well done sir. Perhaps they should have hired you to write the slogan?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for every post you share. I do read each one. Poem appreciated. The invisible foe.
    Joy

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, I like the term stay alert but it could be more directly linked to covid 19.

    ReplyDelete
  10. For such ridiculous advice, you've taken it seriously and produced an excellent poem. Perhaps Boris should put you in charge of his communications.

    Of course, the previous advice should really have read, "Stay Home -- unless you're a symptomatic government official in search of childcare in which case, feel free to drive all the way across the country."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve, I hope you won't mind me pointing out that if he was an official or an elected politician even at Cabinet level he'd have been gone long ago. He's a political appointee answerable to no one except the PM and without whom the PM won't know which lie to tell next.

      Delete
    2. That's certainly true, Graham, although I wonder how much support he has among the public. I'm afraid a lot of people WOULD vote to elect him!

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

Most Visits