UNMASKED

UNMASKED

And so from June 15th we’re land drones.

And thus, it is written. Faceless in the crowd

And on tube trains, THEY will reduce us

To a suspicious look or blank stare.

How many instant romances will blunt,

Or, for that matter be sparked by eye dazzle

When the commuter hum beneath chaos

Douses and blurs true words’ care?

With the unknowing looks we’ll exchange

And the prospective conversations part stifled,

How much information about our hidden hearts

Will be shared? For face coverings will soon

Shroud as something dies between people.

Just what will we bury, as we recede above

Still untested ground, undeclared? Certainly,

The particular beauty and form of a face.

But then I must ask, do we only ever really hunger

For bodies? As society sees our faces as extras,

Speaking as they do, or, did of the soul. So clearly,

It’s the body they want, as we fuse and form now

Together, by using these uniforms on our faces,

The long idle surplus will be that much easier

To quantify and control. And yet lurking under

These plans will be the secret schemes of such

Workers, sitting on the trains, marred,

Near mindless and dreaming no doubt

Of the closeness of her cool, curved breast,

His hard hold. Conjectural carriages then,

Sped on their phallic run towards cities,

As the masked Oompah Lumpah’s shuttle

Forwards to woman and man the machine.

And we or rather, ‘they’ are reduced beneath

The disguise of protection. We will just be

The clothes we are wearing, as they become

Carelessly unstitched at the seams. Walk down

The road, though, this week and you’ll see no

Masks, just abandon. Cummings in his goings,

Made sceptics and conspiracists of us all. 

Occasionally there’s a mask, usually seen

At a bus stop. No doubt, the stance of some

Older rebel, still keen to avoid their sad fall.

And this is where the mask makes its mark:

It becomes both a shield and an emblem.

Not against unknown virus, but against

Everyone else. Manmade fools. And yet

Everywhere else, standards slide, and we risk

A form of extravagance through precaution,

What with the choreographed Supermarkets,

And the confused distant children dancing

In separate domes of their shaping inside

The bewilderingly empty schools. By dividing

Us up into zones, the government masks

The message. They are making it up,

Improvising, children at play, as they yank

The strings someone’s puling and dangle us

All near the front. They do this sort of thing

In all wars. As they did to my Hungarian

Grandfather. Forced to the battle front

As war fodder, he became a faceless form

Whose soul sunk beneath the waters of blame

Usually assigned to all those primed for murder.

The oxygen they inhale needs no filter. They have

A secret source that tastes sharp. Walk down

The street. The police aren’t wearing masks.

Now, it’s fashion; a form of personal statement,

Or, status, in which those who do need it

Have their mask strap flicked, like a bra.

It is a susceptibility test as the Dystopian Play

Casts its chorus and we are forced

Within wrappers to fatefully seal

Our own scars.

David Erdos, June 6th 2020

For more poems from David Erdos visit The Corona Diaries collection 

David Erdos is an actor, writer, director with over 300 professional credits. He is a published poet, playwright, essayist and illustrator. He has lectured on all disciplines in theatre and film for leading performing arts colleges, schools and universities around the world. His books include EASY VERSES FOR DIFFICULT TIMES, THE SCAR ON THE CLOUD, OIL ON SILVER, NEWS FROM MARS, CHANGING PLACES WITH LIGHT (penniless press) and BYZANTIUM with the photographer Max Reeves. He is a contributing editor for The International Times and maker of documentaries all over the world. David’s work has been acclaimed by many leading figures including Harold Pinter, Heathcote Williams, Alan Moore, Andrew Kotting, Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair in whose recent book THE LAST LONDON, David features. He can be reached at David.erdos@sky.com.

David Erdos

©    David Erdos has asserted his moral rights as author of his work and has full copyright.