Dominic Cummings is never wrong

When you see a nurse run, 
you know something’s up. 
The Audiology department, even mid-pandemic, hums:
Hearing aid batteries by return of post,
An appointment in a couple of days
To fix your brittle tubes and then they do
that clever thing with the little pliers
While asking about your weekend. 
Five minutes later you’re on your way.
When you see a nurse run, then point outside to a colleague, 
You know there’s something up.
On his blog, Dom goes on and on
About how right he is.
If not for The Blob, his pet crazies
Could sort it all out. If only 
The people who follow orders
The people who follow procedures 
The people who don’t really matter 
Would just drop everything,
Read the right books
Then Civil Service, local government,
NHS could all be dismantled 
And run by about 50 people, he reckons,
If only they were His Sort Of People.
On this enlightened morning,
Crisp as a white linen shirt,
A sprinting nurse arrives at a blob
Of people round a man, collapsed:
Arms out, walking stick dropped.
One nurse giving CPR,
One comforting the wife,
Others sorting out stretchers
Following orders
Following procedures 
The people who don’t write the books 
Dom is never wrong about,
Dropped everything. 
Sprinted out
As taxis slowed to rubberneck;
Following procedures 
Following protocols
Following training 
Trying all they knew. 
When Dom got Covid, he’d headed for the hills
As fast as a Range Rover full of alibis
could carry him and his family of lies,
And when his son got ill
he didn’t take him to a maverick genius
or a statistician
or a mathematician
who predicted something in Singapore.
When you see a bunch of nurses run,
You know that quantum supremacy theory
Is less use than teamwork and CPR.
The fresh linen of the morning
Crumples but trudges on,
The bloke selling veg at the entrance
Cracks a cauliflower smile in a bid to attract
The blob of smokers in pyjamas,
relieved visitors,
new grandmothers,
Or people with hearing aids fixed
As the best efforts of the mixed
Bag of people who’d always drop everything
Rather than smash it to see what happens
Keep on doing what they do:
Follow procedures
Follow training
Follow pathways
Follow protocols.
See Dom.
See Dom write.
See Dom write a blog.
See Dom write about being right.