Cronus – Virus Poetry

By: 

Jason

Prasad

The poem is inspired by the virus and the world's challenging weather conditions.

Who said the shackles imprisoning us is freedom?

Bio-virus,

Pay for milk and you buy a virus,

And yet nobody offers to sell a virus,

Handshake a virus for free,

The unprepared kills victory,

Before it was nearly upon us it will arrive,

If you can, survive.

For Cronus the God titan,

Son of the mother,

But also her lover,

He will cometh like a mouth opening over our world,

We are merely an oyster’s pearl,

The great titan’s wall of shadow cast upon us,

And from inside that dark mouth?

Its God breath howls out,

His coughed wind, sweeping every mountain crust,

The Himalayas, blown away like surface dust.

And the giant pink cloud emerging from the sky?

The God tongue wrapping us all in its flesh,

Tasting the flavour of life.

Earth-licked in tsunamis of saliva,

Waving over any and all,

Drowning even the sound of gasps,

That fight for life ends long before it starts,

Families wait as,

Doctors operate,

Skins sliced open with a life knife,

ICUs that pause the dying from death,

What can stop these lungs from filling with weight of lead,

And what then?

Wish I was robbed of witnessing our end,

Under every paw, claw and feet,

Shell of our Earth cracking in defeat,

Squint at that piercing final light as the God jaws closedown,

Feel Earth fold inside, quacking beneath the ground,

Turns the eyes sightless in a no light night

This pill, he swallows whole, and unlike some fox that spits out a feather,

The world-swallowing Cronus only belches out,

Our drowning boiling weather.

More from Poems

Heathrow Airport Toilets

HOW TO BREATHE

This poem was written during lockdown last year. I am lucky to have my local park, Hilly Fields, opposite my...

Moments

Moments of connection were so precious and effort was made with a simple smile in unexpected places and from people...

Become a Member

Our Members are champions of literature. Their support makes our engagement work in schools and prisons possible and they enable us to celebrate literature in all its wonderful diversity. As a thank you, we give them all the joys of a literary festival and book club rolled into one, all year round.

Become a Member

Our Members are champions of literature. Their support makes our engagement work in schools and prisons possible and they enable us to celebrate literature in all its wonderful diversity. As a thank you, we give them all the joys of a literary festival and book club rolled into one, all year round.