they’ve built the biggest hospital
on the planet
and they’re calling it intervention
the guy was grinning
as he showed us round
on the 6pm national news
somehow immune from
the terror
and they’ve sent planes to collect
stranded Brits abroad
with a £75 million tab
to bring them back to
dystopia
i take a drive
masked & gloved
no-one around
just an addict scurrying through
Queen’s gardens
looking for scraps
not a face in the windows
or a voice
in the breeze
am i shutting down with the streets?
………..
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician, lecturer, radio presenter, traveller and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has three published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), 35 (2018) and disintegration (2020) He has been widely published in magazines worldwide. Paul also enjoys paperbacks with broken spines, and all things minimalist. LINK: Twitter: @mushyprm35 PUB LICATIONS: Magazines/E-zines/Journals/Anthologies published in: 3 Moon Inde pendent Publishing, Acclamation Point, After The Pause, Allegro, Animal Hea rt Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Bees Are Dead, Bending Genres, Black Bough Poetry, Blossom In Winter, Bonnie’s Crew, Borderlines, Burning House Press, Cabinet Of Heed, Cephalo Press, Cleaning Up Glitter, Constell ate, Concrescence, Coyote Creek Books, Crossways, Culture Word, Dear Reader , Decanto, Dodging The Rain, Dreamcatcher, Dream Noir, Elephants Never, Eun oia Review, Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, Fire, Four X Four, Ghos t City Press, Heron Clan, Iceberg Tales, Last Exit, Light Through The Mist, Marias at Sampaguitas (REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR), Mojave Heart, Ogham Stone,Out sider Zine, Poetry Pacific, Panning For Poems, Pendora, Reality Brake Press , Recenter, Re-Side, Selcouth Station, Silk & Smoke, Silver Pinion, Streetc ake, Sub-Rosa, Teen Belle Magazine, Theata Wave, The Broken Spine Artist Co llective, The Canon’s Mouth, The Curly Mind, The Fictional Café, The F iction Pool, The Foxglove Journal, The Interpreter’s House, The Journal, Th e Mark Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Three Drops From A Cauldron, T urnpike Magazine, Vamp Cat, Words For The Wild, Wellington Street Review