The Variant Poem by Kenneth Maswabi

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