Category Archives: medicine

The World is Way Too Much

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Silhouette trees close ranks to shield

The now-departed sun,

The chill advances by degrees

Then breaks into a run.

Incandescent suns on poles

Shed cold mid-winter light,

Holding back, at least for now,

A brash mid-winter night.

Here in the fortress nation,

Largely, we can feel secure –

Just keep those borders welded shut

Until there is a cure.

Yet in the throes of vaccine woes

We choose to close our eyes,

Pretending COVID’s gone away,

Denial justifies.

While in the mall, behind the wall,

The spending knows no peer,

As long as over there remains

Away from over here.

Stephen Tomkins
24 May 2021
Sydney

Life Diminished

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Where commuters once would surge,
Driven by a common urge,
Uneasy silence reigns instead,
Bound by an unspoken dread.

Deep within their fortress homes,
Guarded by their garden gnomes,
The people sit in disbelief,
United in a sudden grief.

All the plans and all the goals,
Shipwrecked on unbidden shoals,
And as the next wave hits the shore,
They’re broken up a little more.

In an outer ring of Hell,
The people, mostly, are all well,
And though he wishes no one ill,
It seems Death’s not yet had his fill.

So, they remain in limbo yet,
A vaccine not an even bet.
Authorities are clueless still
With re-election to fulfil.

Stephen Tomkins
28 October 2020
Sydney

Viral

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Not that long ago,

Going viral was good;

If something was clever

Or funny, you could.

 

Now going viral

Means you have the bug –

A milestone that will not

Be met with a hug.

 

So please keep your distance,

A mile will do fine,

I’d just rather not

Make your malady mine.

 

Stephen Tomkins
20 March 20
Socially distant in Sydney

The Miracle Factory

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Open all hours and open each day,
The Miracle Factory beavers away.
The Miracle Workers all wear special clothes
And speak their own language that no one else knows
With monitors, pumps and needles and tubes
And other cool gizmos that only they use,
Conduct arcane rituals from far distant lands
Attended by quizzing and laying-on of hands.

The Miracle Seekers, reluctant, attend
The Miracle Factory and hope they can mend
All kinds of ailments and injuries too,
In full expectation that they’ll all pull through.
But sadly, though, sometimes this isn’t the case,
And this is a thing that we’ll all have to face.
Still, in denial, we’d much rather stay –
In awe of the Factory that beavers away.

Stephen Tomkins
19 March 2017
Sydney