The Beagle Editor,
During the bushfires I wrote 15 poems about the experience and after other Bodalla poets had read some and urged me to get into print I dug into my savings and got Eyprint to run off copies. These were then on sale at $10.00 each under the title Fire Sequence and seemed to hit the spot with terrific feedback and copies going to Canada, France, Germany, Scotland and Vietnam.
Fire Sequence was also timely as now CovId 19 has taken focus off the bushfires. The booklet is no longer on sale but did raise $2,150.00 for the Bodalla Fire Brigade. Meanwhile, here are two poems that are virus-inspired.
COVID 19
We’ve got this noxious virus
COVID-19 is its name.
If we don’t follow rules and regs
we have ourselves to blame
First of all keep social distance:
two metres sit apart;
not easy if you’re deep in love
and would sit heart to heart.
Those raised on class division
have no problem with this rule
upper, middle, working, rarely breached
an out of reach gene pool.
You may find yourself in lockdown
and having to stay home
frustrated at not going to the mall -
or beach to play and roam.
No point in going stir crazy -
with a clutch of books to read,
TV, music, Netflix, chess
you’ve everything you need.
Try not to touch a surface
where others went before;
or if you do then quickly
seek to sanitize each paw.
No kiss to cheek or friendly hug:
such contact is now banned
and germs are so insidious
you cannot shake a hand.
Watch out for sore throat, fever,
plus a cough distinctly dry –
and if you’re tested positive
no need to scream, sob, sigh.
For unless you start with poor health
you’ll probably survive,
since of those who catch the virus
Eighty percent remain alive.
Ursula Nixon March 2020
And the second one features toilet rolls!
Villanelle: Toilet Rolls
A shopping list may focus on fresh food
But not on toilet paper roll by roll
That seems to capture now the public’s mood.
It’s not that toilet paper is eschewed
Though it is now replacement on the whole
Of shopping lists with focus on fresh food.
To battle over toilet rolls is crude
With trolleys full of rolls in heaped up shoal,
Seeming to capture now the public’s mood.
This is obsessive need that’s almost lewd –
Seeking more toilet rolls from pole to pole!
No shopping list with focus on fresh food.
Psychologists reveal that people brood
And virus fear makes them buy every roll;
It seems to capture now the public’s mood.
All supermarket shelves are bare and nude
Of toilet rolls as shoppers seek control.
No shopping list with focus on fresh food
Can seem to capture now the public’s mood.
Ursula Nixon March 2020
Above: Ursula Nixon: photographer Ted Richards
