Poem: The Variant

The jagged edge of the knife

Pierced the puffed face of resilience

Now, humanity is at his wits’ end

Unable to wake up from this nightmare

That torched his house (comfort zone)

Blowing apart his cubicle of happiness

Scattering his hopes

It is not victory yet for the variant

As it combs inside our human weaknesses

Vexed by our foolhardiness

The variant has blown a hole

Inside the hard shell of our biopsychosocial defences

Penetrating deep into our psyche

Where it has manufactured a nasty concoction of fear

Now, we are outstretched inside our hopelessness

Not knowing what tomorrow holds

We are baffled by the ferocity and the cunningness of this beast

The variant has injected its venomous spell inside the vessel of our lives

Shattering our mental apparatus and our bodily defences

Now, we are deflated and punctured by the multiple stab wounds

We are bleeding from every orifice and our hearts are swollen with sorrow

We are struggling to find our breath and we are unable to care for our wounded compatriots

In this state of chaos and anarchy, we can only draw from the abundance of our spiritual resources

And recite from the manuscript of faith, hope and love

We can only pray and pray for this unholy war to be nullified

And for the variant to retreat to its horrendous kingdom

This battle is not worthy of all the bloodshed and carnage

Enough is enough, let’s stop all the foolishness

And let’s get vaccinated, wear our face masks, sanitize, social distance…

Let’s do all we can to put a stop to this pandemic

It begins with you

©Kenneth Maswabi