Waiting to reread Beckett

Poems in the time of Corona

Waiting to reread Beckett

The news is in quarantine.

That sneezing fit
that surely had my neighbour dive for cover
yesterday
is not the Bogeybug du jour

but dust from disturbed authors
as I rearrange my bookshelf.

Killing days,

I imagine gloved, gowned Doc Quixote
challenge beckoning crowds of crowned virions
as Sancho disinfects his lances,

or Doctor Ahab, unprotected,
grapple to the last with the spikes
on a spherical proteinaceous foe.

Heroes in the mould of Bolingbroke
for a realm grown tired of Hamlet;

Covid's Metamorphoses –
let's not go there.

Still, eh,

stacked at the back,
glimmering brighter
as times turn rough,

as well they might,
as well they will,

breathes Samuel,
wordless, unmoving,
ready.

For now, though,
he can wait.




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