Plague Songs - The Things I Choose To Prophesy / by Rich Hobbs

It vexes like an itching eye: what’s next,

What  future is foretold in teacups’ dregs?

But prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    A second wave, harbingered by dark stars;

    Boris Johnson loses all his hair;

    Howls all night, as if nailed to a cross;

Matt Hancock’s in a care home in a pool of his own piss.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    A third wave comes, and then a solar flare;

    It fries the Internet, and yet before

    Self-righteousness pours forth by telegram

At twelve dollars a word the mob gives up and all is calm.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    Zuckerberg’s convicted in The Hague;

    Putin, Xi and Trump, all in a cage;

    Without the crooks and nuts The State’s all done;

(After the Crass yet brief Dictatorship of Owen Jones).

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    Fourth and fifth waves; unharvested crops;

    Debts stay unpaid and soon the banks collapse;

    Worldwide Debt Jubilees follow thereafter

With the new Crofting Economy and Universal Barter.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    Six, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh waves;

    A Peace Conference with the Virus is convened;

    Our reparations? We must now behave

And, as in Narnia, statues of good people come alive.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy:

    The present locks our hopes in sequestration;

    The future muffles all echo-location;

    Yet still the past compels our souls to hanker

So push on blindly into Time: it’s there for us to conquer.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These are the things I choose to prophesy.

All prophets simply second guess the scythe;

These things can be woven in; they’ll happen by and by.