Page 15 - eMuse Vol.9 No.04_Classical

From the Golden Pen of

Robert Raftery
Australia’s Picture Writer The Face of the

The Black Blanket Corona Virus

Well, the French are scrapping the double cheek kiss,
It’s dark and cold in the basement with my brother, my sister and me,
Frozen, frightened, it’s nearly midnight and terror seeps in… And the handshake’s threatened, they might give it a miss,
silently, And it seems the catching of the culprit is decidedly non-desirous,
In my hands my tiny prayer book in that fragment called Saturday The tentacles that attach to this Corona Virus.
night, And the pathogenesis of this global nemesis
When our father became a monster at or around midnight.
Seems to all intents and purposes, put the liner under China,
All through the week he never touched a drink; they liked him a At the outset the Chinese were “sceptical”
lot at the bank, That it had them by their dragon’s right testicle.
But at week’s end it seemed a demon took charge, for on Saturday Just ignore it and it’s bound to go away,
night dad drank But with its stultifying couplets in both air borne form and drop-
A litre and a half of whisky put a cruel ritual on track lets
That duo that drove our daddy into a raving maniac. And in its surface bonding omelettes it was quite content to stay.
I’m thirteen now, I’m a pretty big kid, I’m the eldest of our little pack,
And mum puts us down in the basement under a woollen blanket Hospitals sprang up like mushrooms in the land of Mau and Ming,
As top comrades were carpeted by the main man Xi Jinping,
of black,
He’s upstairs now and he’s hurting mum, and I just can’t stand her Bat soup’s off the menu, there’s a slump in Peking Duck,
screams, And oysters are in short supply and there’s not one left to shuck.
And the need to protect our family is tearing at my seams. Oh what the… heck… it’s off the leash, shows a liking for cruise
ships
I’d kill my father if I could I swear, now he’s lifted the blankets and And soon it’ll be akin to herpes and on everybody’s lips.
he’s standing there,
It’s our turn to take a beating now, he’s grabbed my sister’s hair, Well we’ve worn a bit of bird flu, felt the vicissitudes of SARS,
I counterbalanced the conflict with a solid wooden chair, And aids that put a crimp in sex in random rooms and cars,
Connecting with his chin, he fell unconscious to the floor, Our computers went stir crazy with K2 on a roll,
It was the first time that I’d weaponised our Saturday evening war. Then our porkers got the short shift as Swine Flu took its toll.
Sunday came. It’s breakfast time and not a word’s been said,
Dad was blading marmalade onto his buttered bread, Records rise for pet food sales for your afghan and border collie,
His words seemed carved in granite from a dank and darkened And for how much toilet paper you can fit on a Costco trolley,
quarry, As panic buying slits our shores like a double edge machete,
“For the times that I have hurt you, I am deeply… deeply… sorry!” As Woollies and Coles show gaping holes where was once baked
beans and spaghetti.
The last drink dad ever had was the one he had that night,
With the drink off the Saturday agenda he promised he’d make The markets are down, the dollars dropped and tourism reckons
things right, it’s the worst they’ve copped
And I’m not saying God had a hand in this but I somehow think he did, The stars and stripes are now on song to Trump’s variegated piffle,
For that little book he found on that awful night sat atop his coffin lid. Whilst the Pope they call the Pontiff has developed a papal sniffle.
Was there a power in that little prayer book? I’m inclined not to
doubt it, Christ knows what the future holds, it’ll ratchet us up or retire us
For mum told us after his funeral, that he never went anywhere As the human race, sets aside a space, for the Face of the Corona
without it, Virus .
And I thought of that mantle of safety and the cryptic camouflage,
Of that frail hand-hewn Black Blanket and the fear in its fuselage.
© Robert Raftery

April 2020 eMuse 15