Ballad of the Lockdown Generation

by Josef Webster

Here we are, inside,

watching the vestige of our youth

Fade from behind a window.

Wearily, we rise every morning,

log on to the loathed Microsoft Teams,

we sit, we watch, we work

Whilst the recondite virus mocks us from just beyond our walls,

we keep calm and carry on,

despite the seemingly eternal lockdown.

Lockdown -

A previously obscure term, now a familiar pharmakon.

There are better days ahead, we remind ourselves,

all this phraseology like a broken record,

but we will return to normality

however far from reach that seems,

we will live, laugh, mix again

these old, once familiar themes.