Excerpts from T S Eliot's "Covid Wasteland"

“April is the Covid month, breeding
Lockdowns out of the dread bug, mixing
Boredom and more boredom, watching
Netflix with much wine.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Minds in blessed ignorance
Of how bad this all could get.
Trump surprised us, suggesting we all guzzle bleach and”


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“Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Can't get a Coronavirus test
Not being a celebrity. Here, said she,
Is your card, the shag-haired British P.M.
(Those his words they all are lies. Look!)
Here is Kier Starmer, the starmerer,
The stare-eyed.”


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“O O O O that Televehision Rag—
Let's watch Tiger-King
It's quite baffling
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.’

‘Don't do that. The police will have a word.’”


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“Virus the Increasing, logarithmic dead,
Ignores the cry of trolls, the news cycle
The profit and loss.
                                A current under all
Picks our lives to whispers. As it rises
We pass the stages of our age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Consider Virus.”


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“—O sallow sallow
Le Prince Maladie au monde abolie
London Town is falling down falling down falling down
Why then Ile fit you. POTUS’s mad againe.
Cough. Shallowcough. Deepcough.
       Wuhantih        Wuhantih        Wuhantih”