We are meddling recklessly
With social cohesion,
As we ever more desperately
Try to halt the contagion,
Preventing the unclean from
Public admissions,
How long before they are seen
As inauthentic citizens?
Cuckoos in our nests,
Who we must shoo
If they refuse what is best
In our opinion,
Autonomy is now reserved
For vaccinated citizenry,
Freedom for the deserved;
Those not, dismissed as unsanitary.
Since when is the triumvirate
Of equality, fraternity and liberty
Become contingently predicate
Upon submission of bodily integrity?
Rights are somewhat hollow
If their exercise is only permitted
When the citizen agrees to follow
A single line already delimited.
Freedom must surely entail
The right to be wrong
And democracy has failed
If you can only choose to follow along,
“You’re free to be excommunicated
Or take the pill.”
Is a catch-22 which has vitiated
Our freedom of will.
It’s coercive to prevent
Access to the public sphere,
Unless you consent to an
Elixir once a year
The paramountcy of public health
Means autonomy has been
Left on the shelf.
A dictate to comply
In order to be free
Makes a fat lie
Of personal sovereignty,
Already, ethical merit is
Determined by mask wearing,
Can a system of social credit
Be far from where we’re heading?
The choking miscellany
Of minor inconvenience
Caused by overreaching bureaucracy
Is a malign influence.
A child wearing a mask
Is now a condition for education,
Will they be forbidden from class
Unless they’ve had their vaccination?
Already you are only able to
Go inside and get warmer,
To eat within four walls at a table
If your papers are in order.
What measures are next?
Some sort of crest or tab
You have to wear on your chest
To attest you’ve had your jab?
But perhaps what is worse
Is the perspective of the vaccinated,
As in frustration we curse
With invective the contaminated;
Will it take very long
Before we regard as a pestilence
Those infected with headstrong
Vaccine hesitance?
Will we start to dehumanize
Those who refuse the needle,
And in part categorize
Them as more vermin than people?
And I doing these uncivil acts,
With our pristine superiority,
We make a ruin of the
Social contract and
Demean our own humanity.