This is not not a rondine

Poem for the week, 23 January 2023

 

 

 

 

This is not not a rondine

Earth is burning. Choked by smoke, torn by storms,
deniers clog the web and airwaves saying
this is normal, this is fine; lies we're paying
through the nose and throat for.  Truth transforms
from fact to Wonderland on news platforms.
Moguls make bank; it's us they're betraying.
Earth is burning.

Outside our media studios, future forms
itself as cyclones, wildfires, locust swarms:
rough beasts from fiction intent on staying
here, the real and now, and they're not playing.
Earth is burning.

from The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid (buy here)

 

A roundelay delaying extinction

Poem for the week, 11 December 2022

 

 

A roundelay delaying extinction

They said: we don’t cause the weather, don’t buy it;
fossil fuels are forever, don’t be a reformer.
After they lied, the truth started a riot
against worldwide environment trauma,
but they filled their oil drums and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

After they lied, the truth started a riot
against worldwide environment trauma.
Fish, fowl, and insects die off in this climate
but when we said so we were told that’s just drama,
as they twiddled their thumbs and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

Fish, fowl, and insects die off in this climate
but when we said so we were told that’s just drama.
The heat will decimate most of our diet
leaving nothing but mosquito korma,
but they fiddled their sums and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

The heat will decimate most of our diet
leaving nothing but mosquito korma,
all the hot summer facts cannot belie it:
our present lives soon will be former.
Still, they loaded their guns and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

from The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid (buy here)

The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid

 

My latest poetry pamphlet is available now.

 

Get some words and ideas for a climate protest or a climate rally!  

The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid is about climate change. The oblate spheroid is, of course, the Planet Earth. 

 

 

The movement through the various forms in this sequence of poems can be interpreted to echo the disruption caused by catastrophic climate events, as the shape changes from the formal and lyrical, to free verse, concrete poetry, and ultimately a parody of all that has been lost.

Click here for details.

The cuckoo's gone

Teasing a new poetry project on the theme of climate change....

The cuckoo's gone

after Anon.

Warming is icumen in,

We have gone cuckoo!

    Blow hurricane

    And fire in rain

And blow tornado, too.

Gone cuckoo!

Glaciers are a-calving ice

And with them rise the seas.

    Tidal waves slam

    And dams burst, damn!

They kill the birds and bees.

Gone cuckoo!  We've gone cuckoo!

Gone cuckoo!  Farewell cuckoo!

 

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Quarantining: poems in the time of Corona
Magnetic Resonance Imaging: lyrics of love and loss
Those Footsteps Behind: around the world in 50 poems