big white ships
with the red crosses on the side

are in tip-top shape
to deal with the chinese [sic] virus*

tremendous, not-very-nice-to-do,
really big, incredible solutions –

it’s all a lot easier to do
[self-swab and if positive

people will go and do what they have to do]

we are going to do some very exciting things
suspending foreclosures until april

when shit can hit the fan
when poor can be poor again**

and doing ships on a daily basis
to beat the invisible enemy

complete victory
total victory

potentially very exciting
[and now mike pence will provide a translation]***

[*] definitely no pun intended; [**] two secret lines; [***] adult words

[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

I have just fed the
oblivious birds in

appreciation of their
ebullient singsong

and despite their
dumb dawn chorus

waking us. With
spring on the cusp

they should be
self-surviving

but this is a treat
of thank you –

and feed still in
the bag.

I might even give
the pigeons a pass

with their still shitting on
the conservatory’s see-through

ceiling each day,
because I have one.

Maybe it’s just
old wives and

folklore or a
Hitchcock/similar film,

perhaps even
David Attenborough,

but I thought there’d be
more foreboding,

more intuitive rustling
and restlessness

like the rest of us.

Thanks to guest editor Joan Pope for publishing in Burning House Press and providing this potent image. Read the poem here. It was written to Joan’s March theme of Sex and Death in the Age of Aquarius.

Check out the others on the site with their equally potent images/collages by Joan.

i don’t want
flags flying

[or just
hanging]

give me
NHS banners

waving
waving

i don’t want
a guy with hair

manicured to
messiness

give me
bald/balding

scientists
knowing more

i don’t want
just men

[where are
the women]

give me
women

knowing more
hair anywhere/anyhow

[from Coleridge’s The Eolian Harp]

But for This Prior Knowledge is a ‘collaboration without design’ between Rupert Loydell and myself.

He has recently posted a set of 8 ‘Prior Knowledge’ paintings on his Stride magazine site, and having enjoyed seeing these so much I was prompted to write a set of linking found prose poems.

This work is collected in a pdf booklet, below, free to read and download. Enjoy. Let me know.

Prior Knowledge

[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

[Found in Trump’s statement: this is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history]

[Images by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]