In the latest addition to our isolation blog series, we are continuing to showcase some of the fantastic poetry creations that have been shared by the English department since SGGS students and staff went into lockdown.

 

Life Continues in Lockdown – by Lucy Yang

Darkness has descended, and breathed upon mankind

Stars, in their massive multitudes, now flicker freely

Reflecting intense sorrow – of which we were once blind,

Streetlamps illuminate small pools of serene stillness,

But these pools from oceans when altogether combined.

For the first time, the neighbourhood seems so silent;

No drunken laughter or hooting horns to disturb

The pained prolonged nightmares endured on the island

Which though the worst-hit in the continent, persists

In brave battle – day in day out – ’gainst the tyrant;

The nuclear force which already claimed so many

Has caused the tears, the irreversible damage

In mind and on body, this year worse than any.

Nevertheless, the nation lives on in lockdown;

Birds still sing, bees still buzz, buds still bloom in plenty:

Hope is not lost; this crisis will flow past with time,

The river will be restored to its tranquil state:

A relaxed pace will resume, peace will rest the mind,

Soldiers will be saluted, knights will be honoured:

The Earth, harmony revived, will return divine.

 

Three More Weeks by Stella Wilson

Three more cakes to bake

Hold a three minute stretch in pain

Keep refreshing those same three apps

The same

Three more weeks they say

Again

I’m out for the hour again

Watching each wandering cloud

I count the trees

I count the bees

No more crowds allowed

Not now

Three more weeks they say

Again

A nod to a stranger six feet away

A stinging warning of wasp-striped tape

A shop assistant in a thin glass cage

An unmasked face

Turn away

Turn away

Three more weeks they say

Again

 

Life in Lockdown by Sofia Edwards

The world has been turned upside down;

And everyone walks around with a frown.

The news is negative,

And everything’s repetitive,

And yet the sun still shines.

You do the assignments that you’ve been set;

Confined to the house, it’s not over, not yet.

The lonely relative,

Knows everything’s repetitive,

But yet the sun still shines.

You step outside into the fresh air;

And sidestep people who are unaware,

That they’re insensitive,

So very repetitive,

And again the sun still shines.

So when clouds come back and sky is grey;

It may not be a better day.

Not everything’s imitative,

Or as repetitive,

And the sky will split open and rain.

But one day this will all be over;

And when the virus finds closure,

We will remember this moment,

Of boredom and postponement,

And be happy that it has come to an end.

 

Life in Lockdown by Talia Calvert

Our freedom is suppressed, a bird in a cage

The world clings onto news of brighter times

Families are smashed apart; can we turn a page?

And think of when the bells of hope will chime

For now, inside is where we must be

Only leaving for essentials and exercise

We know that in the end this will help to set us free

We cannot argue but instead must compromise

While we stay home, our earth once more thrives

She can finally breathe clean air again

All because we have stopped our greedy living of our lives

We are reminded of the beauty she has to sustain

We wait for updates, news and more information

We are the blind leading the blind

All we are able to do is unite as a nation

And help the vulnerable by being more kind

The loss we face, can’t be put into words

Too many innocent lives destroyed

We know they fly now, soaring as birds

And this helps to fill the painful void

Hope is not lost, we are ready to fight

As the soldiers of World war 3

 we cannot see our enemy, even in broad daylight

We stay, protect, save all for our beautiful country

 

Life in Lockdown by Zoe Greenwood

I always thought that the coming apocalypse

Would be heat death, or zombies, or war

In reality, I think that the aliens

Don’t seem so bad anymore.

We always wondered what it would be like

To travel through space or through time,

Living through history, we said, would be fun!

This is not what we had in mind.

“We’re living in such unprecedented times”

“I hope that you’re safe”, so I’ve read,

I’ve baked so much cake in the last month, and reached

The terminal capacity of bread.

In some ways the movies and comics were right

That the people have lost all control,

And to me it’s no wonder that no-one foresaw

This shortage of toilet roll.

The feeling’s an odd kind of boredom

It’s not the lack of things to do-

It’s the sense of the days all blending together

Happy Fruesday, 94th of June.

Some people have seized this chance to learn skills-

Art, dance, everything in-between

In my opinion, that’s all fine to a degree

But I’d question some haircuts I’ve seen.

I never understood why dogs go so crazy

When they see a fellow dog on the street,

But now I find I’ve begun to appreciate

How they feel with every human I meet.

The world is a really weird place right now

There’s a lot no-one understands

But please don’t forget who the real heroes are

And for goodness’ sake- just wash your hands.

 

Life in Lockdown by Meg Nuttall

My friends seem miles away, trapped in their houses like flies in a web,

There is an impenetrable iron wall where the door used to be,

I can't go to school, but not because I can't travel there,

And people are dying, in many places every day.

Everything seems to be going wrong,

People losing their family and friends every day, no-one untouched by the virus,

People who should have lived for longer, done more things than they’ve had time for,

Spent more time enjoying what life gives.

But, at the end of this deep dark tunnel, there is a tiny beam of light,

And people are recovering, day by day, until, one day, we shall be free of this virus,

Soon, people will begin to fill the streets again,

And we can see our friends face to face.

People won’t forget the lockdown, how many people we miss and were missed by,

We won’t take seeing our family and friends for granted any more,

Through all of this, there have been positives: people cycling more and having time with family,

But even so, we shall always remember the illness that shaped the world and changed it forever.

 

To A White Desk by Briony Webber

Verbatim whispers of the gentler kind

Seep through the cracks in my sweet solitude:

Thy waves of honeydew do oft elude

My tries to lock thee in my forest mind.

Open the attic — dust bursts unrefined

Like vinyl-bound verisimilitude;

My days are now all one, all the same hued

As the white desk to which I am confined.

At night when Hypnos lulls me deep serene

I yield. Queen Mab roams to a whirring hum

Of modems, clocks, and statistics from whence

Obsessed, I see mirage in quarantine:

I know its taste too well, like thrice chewed gum–

But alas, I live in a future tense.