They can’t have heard actual music playing,
I always use earphones, remembering not to hum
since the on ban classical music – too culturally specific.
I don’t have a favourite, allowing each one to move me
reminding me that life’s not flat but undulating
and jagged like a rock face.
After Covid-19, it was the tracing app – reasonable
in terms of health. Then there was to be no negative
or critical publications about government.
The questions started, why were you here
how do you know them? Even comedians
were banned. Amazon stopped publishing.
I don't even say I love you on FaceTime anymore,
they try to map moods. I don’t want them to know
how I feel.
My daughter has done a small disrupter
for my hoovering times – I let the cello or violin
enter my soul. Lately, I come back to the requiems;
Mozart’s Dies Irae shows me death
stalking my path, insistent bass provoking
a dread of nothingness
In Verdi’s Lachrymosa, I hear angels weep –
somehow it eases my grief. Faure’s Agnes Dei
gives me hope of seeing my loved one’s again.
All travel is banned and contact with outsiders.
How did it happen so fast? No one in or out.
Anyone living abroad corrupted, outlawed.
It’s the poets next, my daughter tells me, subversives.
Not on side with the national narrative.
They promote feelings and ideas of free speech.
They’re pounding the door. Surely, it’s not me
they are looking for?