Tag: covid 19

Hairless

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

These lockdown times! I bet by the end of it, half of us will look like we never set foot in a hairdressers or beauty salon in our lives. My razor sits untouched on the sink, it’s been there for weeks. But you know, I just don’t care. Being stuck within four walls, with limited social contact, I haven’t felt the need to be primping and preening every day. It makes me think, jus who are we doing it for? Us? Are we shamed into believing that we are not ‘normal’ if we don’t render ourselves hairless? Or not beautiful? Do we live our lives constantly feeding into media hype on the standards of beauty? Are we afraid of ridicule and rejection?

A poem:

Hairless

The razor sits there
On the sink
Looking forlorn
Day after day
Like a predator
of feminine power
reborn

Lockdown lethargy
Won’t be seeing a lover
Can always cover
my stubble
But why the fuck
should I?
I don’t need self isolation
to prove myself
to another

Smooth armpits
Smooth legs
Smooth fannies
Smooth chins
Smooth moustaches
Red lips
Killer false eyelashes
Supermarket dashes
for razors
and baby lotion

That razor’s been
sitting there a
very long time
Since I was a girl
and the magazines
said I would be pretty
if I was hairless
Look at me now
My fanny’s a big hairy mess
my cheese grater legs
don’t give a fuck
I don’t care
I don’t want to caress
anyone who cares less
of me
because I won’t dress
my body
in false aspirations

Who feels the need
for pretty?
Is it me?
Do I look in that mirror
and see
a monster
created by the media
fuelled by misogyny
I’m not a fucking fairy
on a Christmas tree

So, fuck you, razor
Fuck you!

©2020 Sarah Drury

Between the Wars

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Indigo blue
Inky canvas
One eye open
The other protesting
The estate slumbers
Another day of lockdown
A neighbourhood painted
In shades of apathy
As the world mourns
Its sorry dead

Beryl wakes at the crow
Of the cockerel
Says hello to her husband
Enjoying a pint in Heaven
For the last twenty years
Says a prayer to the virgin Mary
And asks Jesus to save her soul
From the coronavirus
God is her insurance policy
As she ain’t finished yet
In this heathen world

It reminds her of the war
But the bombs don’t fall
And the men aren’t swallowed
Into certain suicide
She would cower inside the
Air raid shelter
As the Luftwaffe played
Russian roulette
Missiles raining down
Picking off saints and sinners alike
And she prayed to Jesus
And he did good

Now the bombs are silent
Yet the killer is stealth-like
Stealing souls
Like a pandemic shoplifter
Light fingered Kelly
Is in good company
Though I’m sure the virus
Ain’t interested in Maybelline
Or L’oreal

Churchill led the nation
Now we have the Tories
No let up from fear mongering
As the media perform
In their catastrophic circus
And the BBC peddle tragedy
Like Boris Johnson is MacBeth
Whilst the government deny
Their role
In digging mass graves
To herd the old
And vulnerable in

She tucks into her egg
And Tetley’s
Another day of inane daytime TV
She heard that people Facetime
But she has no tribe
Jesus is her saviour
And God is her father
And the Virgin Mary
Sheds a tear
For the children
She lost

©2020 Sarah Drury

Night Nurse

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

WARNING: EXPLICIT THEMES AND LANGUAGE. 18+

I used to live in an area frequented by prostitutes. It was quite tragic as many of them were doing it to feed a drugs habit. It got me thinking about how hard hit they must’ve been, and also risking their lives. Please don’t take offence at the keyworker bit, it is tongue in cheek. i am not demoting of the role of keyworkers!!

I stand on the
Quarantined corner
Have been doing for
Quite some time
Flogging my nether-nethers
Fucking Coronavirus!
Knocking my business
Out of line

You try having a screw
Two metres apart
Social fucking distancing
And don’t even start
On the hygiene
When has this game
Been about keeping
Fucking clean

You can’t
Wash your hands
After every sordid punter
Loitering around
On a dirty street corner
Hand sanitiser
Doesn’t work on dicks
Risking my life
For a handful of
Dirty pricks

Try giving a blow job
In a surgical mask
Most of these men
Want it
Hard and fast
They look for an
Adrenaline pumped up
Danger screw
And I’m one of
The only few

Have to keep working
Can’t claim the
Coronavirus benefits
Don’t have any tax returns
Government can screw it
If they think I’m
Paying tax
On a few
And far between
Fuck
In these testing times
Finding a punter’s
A matter not of business
But suicidal luck

Call me a maverick
Boris
I bet you’ve had
Your share
Screwing in hotel rooms
With blue rosettes
In your Tory hair

And on Thursday nights
I can stand with pride
And revel in the applause
For I am a keyworker
Boris
Not just one
Of your filthy
Whores

©2020 Sarah Drury

GLASS CAGE

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Anyone else feel like this?

GLASS CAGE

Another day
Of endless shit
Staring out at futility
Trapped inside my glass cage
Eyes wide open
Yet the world is shut
And I just want to see folk
So that I can engage
I feel like I’m speaking
A monologue
Like the only character
On a storybook page
Treading the boards
In a sick horror drama
Acting out my existence
On the pandemic stage

My glass heart is pure
Yet my blood runs tainted
My shiny glass cage
Has crystal bars
They’re fragile
Yet my soul can’t break them
There’s a transparent ceiling
So I can gaze at the stars
I’m lost and lonely
In my Swarovski world
But does anyone give a fuck
Does anyone care
Where does love go
When it is quarantined?
I fantasise at night
When I fall up the stairs
That they who explode
To pieces the loudest
Are the only ones
Who really dare
To admit to wearing
The crazy straight jacket
Drinking in the madness
From this bitter, fucked up air.

I can’t get out of
This black headspace
I’m trapped in a nightmare
Locked windows and doors
I’m slipping around
In a trifle of sorrow
And pacing around
On unstable floors
The TV is blaring
Its mind numbed rhetoric
The government machine
Relentlessly pours
Propaganda, propaganda
Unending propaganda
Seeping Covid statistics
Onto gaping, raw sores
And I’m fighting an enemy
Without ammunition
In this no man’s land
Of invisible wars.

© 2020 Sarah Drury

Iceland

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I wrote this poem as a spoken word piece, in response to this coronavirus pandemic, through the eyes of an elderly person who has lived through world war two.

Five hundred quid
Worked all my life for five hundred quid
Ooo, these Tena ladies are on offer
Worked my hands to the bone and my back to the knackers yard, I did
Funny times we live in, funny times
Corona-whatsit rampant, country in lockdown
Just like the war
Our big grown prime minister falling to the floor
Sick people in and out the revolving doors
Crying and dying on hospital floors
People telling me to stay indoors
Only so much of Piers Morgan I can take
And I’m bleeding sick of doing chores
Ooo look, choccy digestives, two for one fifty
Just like the war
But not living on a lump of cheese, a tin of spam and a packet of dried egg
Bring back rationing, it should be the law
All these feckin crazy people
Strippin shelves bare
Hoarding the toilet roll like they don’t care
About how others fare
Oh, I’ll have some of those
Rice pudding, fifty pence a tin
Its strange times, its mad times we’re in
Can’t even go down the bingo
Can’t remember the last time I had a win
Hair like a Brillo pad, legs like scourers
Can’t remember the last time I plucked the hairs on my chin
It does this to you
All this social isolation
Wrapping clingfilm around a rebellious nation
And the government have this mental expectation
That we will be sheep
Clothed in the wool of allegation
Don’t go out
Wash your hands
Keep two metres between you
Do as we say, or we’ll impose a curfew
It’s just like the war
Except you don’t have to don your guns
And kill a visible enemy
We’re fighting something global we can’t even see
All we have to do is stay inside and watch the death tolls on TV
And I pray every day that one of those intensive care beds won’t be me.
Ooo loo roll
I’ll need that
Back in the war I’d wipe my bum with newspaper
The stories of the day plastered over my derriere
My neighbour popping by to see if I had some spare
And the air raid sirens would scream
And we’d be woken from our dreams
Of victory
Playing hide and seek with the bombs that rained down
Dot to dot on the roofs of the houses of our little town
Taking refuge in the shelters
Taking refuge in the neighbours
Taking refuge in the strangers
And though we were fighting for freedom
We were still free
Oh, tinned fruit cocktail
Will do for my trifle
Put it in my cupboard full
Of empty shelves
In my kitchen of a lonely life.
Better go home now
Better go home.

©2020 Sarah Drury