Singing in Lockdown

I am locked down, but my brain is in hyperdrive, 

extended reems unfold beyond me, forgotten schemes 

rediscovered in the tight confines of my apartment, 

my mind sings, finds so many things to work itself on,

music I’d intended to listen to years ago,

books of poems abandoned ages back,

movies recommended by friends at parties,

now devoured from a hastily written list.

It is as though physical inactivity makes a brain

crave the undiscovered, as one yearns for new lands

when the present one feels spent, so old thoughts

become redundant, run across themselves,

find nothing extraordinary, a lack of sensory stimuli,

force my eyes to find new fixations, to look up

as the world goes down, which was imitated in art,

then physically destroyed incrementally over time.

As the polar ice caps melt, speedily bringing a conclusion,

with methane and a whole kaleidoscope of chemicals,

we have succeeded in fucking the planet, which now,

in lockdown we hold dear, repenting sin in the cells 

we crafted for ourselves, and now, in hiding from friends,

fearing infection from closest allies, we realise life’s fragility

almost too late, but not too late for us to see the fools we’ve

made of ourselves, all that complex brain matter, wasted.