8. Covid – young love

I began writing my book Poems from Poems just before lockdown in 2020, so inevitably the strangeness and alarm of that time features in several of my poems. Here are a few examples:

My take on Andrew Marvell’s incomparable To His Coy Mistress aims to show the frustration of the young man separated from his beloved – time goes so slowly, yet precious time is going to waste:

“The irony is that we have all this time,
And yet to be together is a crime…
With petty pace, slow Time benumbs my hands –
What profits it to dream of foreign lands,
When what I burn to have is near, yet far
As any dying comet or collapsing star?

… And with the loss of passionate embrace,
Time hangs heavy – yet Time speeds apace –
For us, as for all lovers over the years,
The fervent passion of our hopes and fears
Is mocked by knowledge of mortality…”

On a more cynical note, I changed Betjeman’s complacent young Executive into a selfish young office woman:

“….They say the office block is shut and I’m to work from home,
But meeting people is my THING – I really WANT to come
To town each day; they say no way – I’m being penalised,
And staying here’s so tedious, I need to socialise.

And what about the clothes I bought? They’ve all gone to waste;
I slop about in tracksuits now and don’t make up my face –
My boss says that I’m lucky that I haven’t yet been fired,
But I should be appreciated, I should be admired!…”

Next: Covid – other perspectives