WORLD WAR THREE

Throughout our brief history

We’ve been beset by many wars

When our brave soldiers sailed away

To fight on foreign shores.

So many feats of valour

Through the blood and guts and gore

That kept outside marauders

From reaching our front door.

 

They fought them in the trenches

And battled on high seas

With horrific scenes of conflict

Waged through jungle trees.

Countless numbers died there

While so many more were maimed

And the lives of umpteen others

Disease, privation claimed.

 

Now the airplanes flying overhead

Are not machines of war

No bombs are dropping from the sky

Pray God there’ll be no more.

I can’t hear the guns crescendo

Or the cannons barrage roar

No bugles sound the calling

No troops rally to the fore.

 

 




It was from some ominous story

Coming to us from the East

That some nasty viral clusters

Had been contracted from some beast

But before we knew for certain

It was too late to stop the rout

For this awful new pandemic

Had already broken out.

 

There was no martial warning

No declaration made of war

To prepare us for an onslaught

Like none had known before.

No boundaries were respected

Like a ‘blitzkrieg ‘ they were breached

And before the world could rally

To every land it reached.

 

There were no means of fighting

So began the mass retreat

To the sanctuary of our houses

Was it capitulation or defeat?

What use are those great arsenals

And the fearsome war machine?

What good against an enemy

That nobody has seen?

 

It thrives among the multitudes

Who roam the seven seas

From hand to hand we pass on

This insidious disease.

Our travelling days are ended

There can now be no pretence

When isolation is proven

 As our only one defence.

 



 

It will take a strong conviction

Discipline and self restraint

And we’ll need to stay the distance

With the patience of a Saint.

All this social isolation

Does not come easily

‘For no man is an island’

That’s not what he’s meant to be.

 

If ever there was reason though

To maintain a staunch resolve

Look at the global numbers

Which every day evolve.

The infection rate extending

In an ever growing poll

And watch the dire ‘Grim Reaper’

Count up his daily toll.

 

So to the solitude surrender

And let the days slide by

Looking forward to the dawning

When all our souls are free to fly

For the plague that is around us

Well - eventually will just be

A long forgotten nightmare

And a distant memory.

 

                         Rodd Sherwin




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The Chronicles of SAAMBR