Pages: ON THIS DAY 2020 I wrote 'Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour!' for British Standards

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

ON THIS DAY 2020 I wrote 'Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour!' for British Standards

ON THIS DAY 2020, as coronavirus began to rage, I wrote ‘Milton...’ which was later published on the New Boots and Pantocracy Website Postcards From Malthusia DAY EIGHTY-SIX: Robert Sheppard | new boots and pantisocracies (wordpress.com) (There are many fine poems there on the lockdown theme: and before that, like mine, the focus was Brexit!)

But here’s the poem again, in case you missed it.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour

Cummings, Britain hath no need of thee! You’ve
found your swamp to drain. Religiomaniacs,
fruit salad generals, poets laureate (no friends,
but I defend, like Milton), even your puppet’s
National Thrust, where, naked under heavens,
majestic sticks, in Lethean flood, stick – all are forfeit
to your ‘scientific’ elite: ‘complex contagions in a
thermoacoustic system’ reapplied as insecurity
from starter home to care home, neatly monetized.
The intelligent rich (a moron’s oxymoron) claim
only selfish men may raise us up, return to power. Free
Dom, self-isolation is your viral wet dream, of use,
your voice white noise in a Seeing Room’s drone.
Bo’s cheerful hand rests on your thoroughbred’s thigh.

16th March 2020

This poem comes from British Standards, which you can read about here: Pages: The final sonnet transposition from John Clare (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)

British Standards is the third book of the ‘English Strain’ project. You may read about the first book and second book here. Indeed, you may now buy them.

Book One, The English Strain is described here (on a post that was written before it gained its title!).