As lockdown ends, there's another pandemic

Another pandemic

Piled pyramidally on top of the bin

Precarious crates and paper plates

Lord it over the overflow ...

A plastic salad tub or two

And paper masks

Crumpled blue

With broken strings.

There’s no pub near the lone pint pot

That leans rakishly against a birch,

Nursing the afternoon’s dregs and

Staying stock still so as not to lurch.

Bottle tops trodden into London clay

Sprout between tussocks of weary grass,

While a barber-pole straw dallies with daffs

And a pizza box spreads like porn-style ass.

Percussive rain on a discarded can

Refreshes the parts with a pinging tune,

And a neon spoon floats across the pond

As though water has borrowed the moon.

Bedraggled plastic caught in branches,

Remains of bunting tied to trunks

Shiny metal stars, bombed into the air to greet a birthday

Fallen now like blossom

Sparkle on the ground

And vie for space beside the wall

With shreds of a dog-torn rubber ball

And a plastic five that speared the cake.

Lockdown is easing as spring is sprung.

Let’s surge to freedom and

Show nature what it’s missed.

April 2021