UnPoetia:Main Page/Featured poem
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Triste et malum est
Bent double, under luggage and bags,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through queues,
Till on the airport lights we turned our backs,
And towards our distant taxi, well overdue.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their phones,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the tones
Of a cough coming loudly behind.
Virus! COVID! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting on the clumsy N95 just in time,
But someone still was coughing and stumbling
And screaming like a man in fire or lime –
Bright through the quarantine panes and large white light,
As under a graveyard, I saw him dying (See more...)