(On hearing the speech by Dame Sarah Gilbert explaining the history of vaccine development by Oxford team of scientists – link below)
I trudged the TV news machine
all the way and back
enticed by YouTube fingerposts
pointing each cul-de-sac
twisted a DuckDuckGo-go dance
jumped the Google stiles
scratched on a Facebook kissing-gate
that denser men beguiles
I forged a path in the undergrowth
where hikers fear to tread
tweet-bound trails where mountain bikes
will pass you by for dead
all the while in a clearing bright
distracting Tikking and Tokking
pulled at youths with tinfoil heads
electro-magnetic shocking
wending obfuscation trees
copses with chattering classes
skirting pillock hillocks
and chance-entrancing masses
there in a hidden cutting
a railroad line of travail
built by those with a perfect aim
and a plan to align each rail
scrabbling for bolts and nails
vital toward a grail
on a route beset by political snails
with communication fails
Al Barz 