Gripped by foreboding
of a nascent dread
we watch as our liberties
are stripped away
whilst chains of transmission
decrease the space where some feel  safe,
force many back between four walls.

As the light fades ever faster,
the temperature dips
I am recalled
to a dialogue with the dead
that takes place inside my head.

My grandfather, Jack,
volunteered for France at 16
it had a romance the back streets
of a railway town lacked;
that romance proved not to be fact
as he fought behind barricades of corpses.

I knew him well when he was my age now,
his was my first funeral
sometimes I am possessed by
Jack’s spirit: his impatience and his ability
to see right through hypocrisy and cowardice.
Yes, indeed, the worried well might just as well
live in hell.

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