Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2014.
Isuspect Covid-19 s more of a struggle for people living in big cities than in rural areas, especially for those of us who live alone?
Perhaps
it is because I am growing old, but I take far less pleasure from living in
London than I used to. Even so, my life is here. While I take much
pleasure in its wealth of leisure facilities and history as and when I can, I
remain acutely aware that I am passively complicit in this mad world of ours
going about an everyday business that leaves much to be desired...
London, like so many cities and suburbs is overcrowded and the air quality
leaves as much to be desired as the neighbourliness and sense of community that
once existed, and now has become yet another endangered species wherever it
remains, as it does, even in certain pockets of modern society. (West can learn
much from East in this respect.
I
suspect we all run a familiar gamut (to one degree or another) in cities and large towns across the world. In recent years, fake news and social media make a
significant contribution to personal anxieties and a sense sometimes of being
on a treadmill
Whatever, all we can do is take each day as it comes, nurture a positive-thinking mindset, and make the best of what life offers rather than whinge about the worst ...
L-I-F-E,
MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Manic
streets, paved with eggshells
(Oh,
so politically correct...)
Big
Issue drumming up passing glances
(Equal
Ops prime suspect.)
Beggar
and dog at the supermarket
(On
the outside, looking in…)
Tailbacks
on the home run, a nightmare
(No
respect for Car is King.)
Blind
man making his own way home
(Small
change for a pickpocket...)
Arthritic
bag lady taking up a park bench
(Move
along, security alert!)
Hey,
I bet that one’s a terrorist, see?
(Looks
foreign to me...)
Thin
is sexy or so we’re asked to believe
(Gorging
on glossy magazines...)
School
kid mugged for a smart phone
(Better
not to get involved...)
Teenage
lovers sharing well-used needles
(What
about HIV-AIDS?)
Shoplifters
killing off the High Street
(Business
as usual...)
.
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2007; 2020
[Note: An earlier version of the poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007. For any overseas readers, who may not know, The
Big Issue is a newspaper sold on the streets of the UK and other countries by
homeless people; it gives them a regular income, and more importantly
helps restore their self-confidence while preserving their self-respect: