Ellipsis - The Lockdown Poems

Image by Steve Wheeler

It's finally been published! I've been working on this book of poetry and prose for the last few months. In fact, ever since we went into lockdown I have been writing about the experiences, both dark and light, of living through a virus pandemic. There's enough material in the tragedy, honesty, heroism, good and bad behaviour of our neighbours and leaders alike, to fill an entire book. This one is called Ellipsis (you can damn well buy the book if you want an explanation - it's not expensive).

So here it is - Ellipsis is available to purchase for a modest fee in both paperback and Kindle versions (see the links below), for you to read out loud to your cat, laugh and cry with, or simply place on your shelf along with all the other books you haven't read - at least they'll look good in the background as you Zoom call your friends. It's an opportunity to remember those who were not so lucky as the rest of us - those who sadly passed away during this terrible, tumultuous time. It's also an opportunity to have a good laugh at ourselves - the silly things we did or thought or said as a result of all the stress and anxiety many of us have been through.

With titles such as 'I've never washed my hands so much', 'Covidiots' and 'Lockdown Blues', you'll probably see the direction I have taken with this book. The poems are presented in a variety of styles and formats from the standard classic metre and rhyme, through to grime and rap lyrics and free-form stream of consciousness style poetry. Just about all of the illustrations inside the cover (like the one above) are my creation too. It's all there, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Do let me know what you think and whether or not you think I should give up writing poetry and take up Yak farming in Ecuador.

Here are the links to the paperback version and to the Kindle version.

Double agent

I’m an assassin of truth; I’m a double agent 

I hide in the shadows, as my lies I invent

I play two opposing roles that contradict 

My double dealing leads me into conflict 

My identity is fluid; I work undercover 

I rapidly switch between traitor and lover 

adopting many strange and incompatible positions 

unable to reconcile contrasting propositions 

I know what’s right, and know what I should do 

but like a moth to the flame, I’m attracted to 

a dangerous and destructive fiery light 

and I find myself choosing wrong instead of right 

I’m constant but capricious 

trusting yet suspicious 

I’m truthful but mendacious 

staid and yet outrageous 

I’m thoughtful but unfeeling 

hidden yet revealing 

I wound instead of healing 

I’m standing when I’m kneeling 

I live a double life both awake and in my dreams 

What you think you see of me is not what it seems 

Beneath this cool surface I’m a mine of contradictions 

Don’t be too surprised when I confound your predictions 

You can tell me by the ways my mind is always changing 

An identity crisis that is constantly rearranging 

I’ve build my foundations on shifting sands 

with my two faced double standards and the blood on my hands 

Steve Wheeler © 10 July, 2020 

This poem first appeared in the collection Sacred (2020) by Steve Wheeler

image source

You can see it

You can see it in the wandering pathways winding down to sea

You can see it in the sea birds wheeling helplessly and free

You can see it in the tumbled rocks and in the bracken tree

You can see it in the scudding clouds that boil so lazily

You can see it in the foliage as it whispers in the breeze

You can see it in green trailing plants that tangle magically

You can see it in the children as they run and laugh with glee

You can see it in the fiery eyes of youths that disagree

You can see it in the bobbing boats as they’re moored up in the quay

You can see it in the glance of lovers wherever they may be

You can see it as the sunset paints the skyline furiously

You can see it in the doleful shadows lengthening in the lee

You can see it as the stars appear and shine hypnotically

You can see it in the full moon as it reaches apogee

You can see it everywhere you look, and in everything you see

Why then, as you gaze around, can’t you see it in me?

Steve Wheeler © 7 July, 2020

Image from Pexels

Stick or Twist?

We’re in the worst place we can possibly be caught between the virus and the economy. Do we stick or do we twist? Either way it’s a credible risk. The government wants us to go out spending but doesn’t want this country to be trending by rising up the mortality league list and it’s difficult to see through the pandemic mist. Should we stay safe in the lockdown or open up the businesses in the town? Though the transmission rates are coming down we still have a virus named after a crown. So while there’s an active epidemic and the infections are systemic these questions are academic because the outlook’s not fantastic and without meaning to sound bombastic some people need to get their ass kicked.

You see the politicians are in pieces ‘cos they weren’t prepared for this kind of crisis, but it’s the common people who are paying the price, and no amount of apology is going to suffice. Our leaders had no training for this amount of dying but what they do possess is a talent for lying and while the entire world is sat there crying while all around us our neighbours and families are dying, our so-called leaders should be busy rectifying all those initial mistakes that were made all the misinformation that was relayed and the best laid plans that were never laid and the important decisions that were delayed.

The question still unanswered as we are caught between the virus and the economy and if we try to get back to some sense of normality, is how much carnage are we going to see? As the lockdown starts to ease and everyone begins to do as they please are we going to avoid a wider spread of this disease, catching the coughs and stifling the sneeze? Will we soon be worse off than when we first began? As we attempt to reboot our economic plan will the social distancing rules be ignored? Will we listen to the advice from our overlords or will it all be like a monopoly board - go back three spaces, do not collect your reward? Now no matter what the government’s stance is, they’re gonna throw their dice and we’ll all have to take our chances.

Steve Wheeler © 5 July, 2020

Image from Pexels

This poem was first published in Ellipsis by Steve Wheeler, Wheelsong Books, 2020.

Drying Up

This is giving me a lot of consternation and I'm not sure if I can give a coherent explanation ‘cos the state I'm in right now is a complication. It’s not something I’m used to, not this situation ‘cos for the first time in my life I'm running out of inspiration. I’m having to use some extra perspiration and a deeper application.

Needing to put a little more effort in but it’s hurting and I find it kind of disconcerting to think that my mind runs dry occasionally and I'm not able to create so spontaneously and I can't think of any new ideas to think like my printer has just run out of its ink and my keyboard is broken and some of the letters don't work and my Wi-Fi hub connection is going berserk and my space bar is jammed and just keeps repeating and all of my efforts are self-defeating and my creativity is retreating as my motivation is depleting and I keep back spacing and deleting and there’s lots of white space that needs completing.

It's frightening to think that this might not be an intermission and that drying up might become a permanent condition.

Just like in Grease the chills are multiplying and I feel like I'm losing control as my poetry is dying and if I told you I was comfortable with any of this I would properly be lying but I'm trying and I'm trying and there ain’t gonna be no denying that any effort at all is better than nothing and maybe even this attempt at expressing myself is something and whether I rap or I rhyme or whether or not I can make it scan I'm in need of a strategy and I'm looking for a master plan to keep my ideas going to keep the poetry flowing to keep the creativity showing to stop the motivation slowing it all boils down to this: get it down. 

Get the verses onto the page and keep them going round. Express myself in every way in lyrics and in rhyme. If I can do this I ain't gonna dry up and I won't be wasting my 

time.

Steve Wheeler © 4 July, 2020

Image from Pxhere

The virus and the damage done

As the vulnerable were locked inside and shielded

Then each of us in earnest with our gods, we pleaded

To end the dread that raged and roared about us like a hurricane

Soon we began to slowly realise that in our pain

None of us might ever be the same again

For each of us our future plans lost and conceded

As we watched each yesterday accumulate

Each day became yet one more crossed off date

In a calendar of desolation that stretched out before us every one

The death count mounted and infections spiralled on

Not one of us could shield our minds from the devastation

And the mental scarring of the damage by the virus done

And now although we are not without hope

Within that minuscule flickering of positivity

There lurks a certain taint of inevitability

A sense that the damage has already been done

And that no amount of redemption can bring us back out into the sun

And as the distance grows around us and the innocence dies

The security that we once knew petrifies

And so as we emerge, our eyes blinking with unease

Into a brave new world diminished by such insidious disease

We know that there will be no more days in the sun

Although each in our way attempted to be shielded

Our sanity was ultimately yielded

To the virus and the damage done

Steve Wheeler © 22 June, 2020

Image from Pixabay

This poem was first published in Ellipsis by Steve Wheeler, Wheelsong Books, 2020.

White Noise

Photo by Steve Wheeler

I was up at five again today to see the summer light stream \ through the curtain / but it wasn't this that brushed my torrid dreams \ aside it was more likely the turbulence of life in fact I'm certain /

that since the crisis hit us like a slow burning conflagration \ my brain has been exercised by thoughts of creeping doom / and it doesn't take too much imagination \ for my tired suggestible mind to irrationally assume /

that everyone I hold most dear must surely succumb \ and I will be the bearer of a lethal infection / But this although a remote possibility is pretty dumb \ to dwell upon when it robs me of my sleep and is only a vivid confection /

of a strained imagination. My dreaming offers little respite contorted as it is in strange \ contrived and convoluted tropes / and it makes me feel as though each night my rest is disturbed and rearranged \ as I am led away in ropes /

of anxiety down dark highways of doubt and fear to places surreal \ and disturbing / to a rational mind and every night the visions rear in mists of imaginings that are at once palpably unreal \ yet if I allow them to be so perturbing /

I was up at five again today to watch the dawn break silently beyond my window pane / and I am so very tired of all the white noise in my life and how it tries to shake my soul but in the final analysis another day of this has started and I am simply weary once again /

Steve Wheeler © 2 July, 2020 

If I Could I Would

If I could only write poetry like Nigel from Half Man Half Biscuit and spill the beans on the more obscure aspects of modern living or how my life has been an utter train wreck but I dare not risk it not even for stardom or for a potentially larger than normal royalty pay cheque.

If I could liberally pepper my prose with names of all the places I've never been and tell the stories of all the bad things I've never done that were largely innocuous but some were downright obscene even though most of it was fun but actually it wasn't because it never really happened.

If I could casually remark about some of my attempted romances that crashed and burned for various reasons none of them within my personal control well maybe one or two I could mention you'd see that I'm an ordinary bloke just like all the others you've spurned because some other eye candy had caught your attention.

Steve Wheeler © 1 July, 2020