Molly Bloom 23
  • MOLLY BLOOM 23
  • Alasdair Paterson
  • Claire Crowther
  • Robert Vas Dias
  • Daragh Breen
  • Cordelia Hanemann
  • Paul Rossiter
  • David Rushmer
  • Joanna Nissel
  • Tess Jolly
  • Mark Russell
  • David Berridge
  • Howie Good
  • Robert Hampson
  • Steve Spence
  • Tony Beyer
  • ----------
  • Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Live readings
  • Editor
  • MOLLY BLOOM 23
  • Alasdair Paterson
  • Claire Crowther
  • Robert Vas Dias
  • Daragh Breen
  • Cordelia Hanemann
  • Paul Rossiter
  • David Rushmer
  • Joanna Nissel
  • Tess Jolly
  • Mark Russell
  • David Berridge
  • Howie Good
  • Robert Hampson
  • Steve Spence
  • Tony Beyer
  • ----------
  • Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Live readings
  • Editor
  Molly Bloom 23

Robert Hampson

LOCKDOWN ODE 3: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

 
I.
we have bleached all the surfaces
in the apartment

it’s what we used to call
documentation

self-portraits on the way to school

taking shifts / in a makeshift bed

cowboy hats in Berlin bars

now hygiene rules

& we wash our hands / in medical alcohol



II.
we cut magazines / to confront the virus
we swap our accessible life
for a cheap & creative / melancholia
 
 
​

III.
his collaborators are all suits
lockdown celebrities

their words come out slurred

we try not to read / the opinion pieces

there’s a spectre / in the transmission

unnerving to think /this could be the end



IV.
she came back home
from lockdown at the factory
hot & sweaty
in the new merchandise

hair shaved close to the scalp




V.
we hadn’t been out for days

we were banned from Instagram
for inciting panic
 
we removed our masks / to talk on the phone
 
there were tears in the fabric
& the music went quieter
 
we live by the thermometer
& go to bed in the afternoons
© Copyright Robert Hampson​ 2020

Robert Hampson’s most recent publications include reworked disasters (Knives, Forks and Spoons, 2013) and Liverpool (Hugs &) Kisses with Robert Sheppard (Pushtika / Ship of Fools, 2015). He also contributed to Sheppard’s Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors (Shearsman, 2017). Other recent publications include Clasp: late modernist poetry in London in the 1970s (Shearsman, 2016) co-edited with Ken Edwards and The Allen Fisher Companion (Shearsman, 2020), co-edited with cris cheek.
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