Forest Fire
smoke obscures the dawn
there is no…no early light
oh say, can you see
the root cause, the root causes
and does it, does it give pause.
Another one for Brendan’s ekphrastic challenge over at Earthweal. Taking part in open link weekend over at earthwealhttps://earthweal.com/, since I’m late for the original prompt,
Prompts sometimes send me in a completely different direction than the prompter intended. For example, this week Brendan over at Earthweal came up with the following prompt/challenge
Honor an element and invite it to our poetry commons
and although I knew he actually meant sun, wind, rain etc, I immediately thought of The Periodic Table of Elements , yes Brendan’s prompt got me into an elemental mood
Elementals
When I think of Antimony
I think of acrimony
alimony
timpani
symphony
and Scott McTominay
who plays for Manchester United
and Scotland
then I think of carbon and oxygen
and their troublesome offspring
carbon dioxide
and I think it’s hard to write about chemistry
and not sound like a geek
then I think of copper and lithium
and how we need these elements
to make the batteries to power our electric cars
and how we will have to drag these elements from the earth
by means both fair and foul,
but mostly foul.
Then I think of the time I spent
in a copper smelter in southern Peru
trying to start a system for extracting sulfur dioxide
from the smelter off gas
ahh sulfur dioxide the product of a back alley encounter
between sulfur and oxygen
what is it about oxygen
it just won’t leave those other elements alone
geek on, geek on.
The operators of the smelter
were the descendants of the Incas and the conquistadores
and sometimes both
one night I spent a whole shift
with an operator who had the features
and head of an Easter Island statue
he spoke no English
my Spanish was poor
it was a long night
I wasn’t in my element.
In the mornings
after these night shifts
I would drive back to the fishing village
where we were staying
in a house the locals called Casa Gringo
I would drive past the huge pipe
discharging effluent into the blue ocean
and always there were vultures circling the outflow
and perched on the pipe.
I would drive past a patch of waste ground
the size of two football fields
covered in waste metal and other debris from the smelter,
(hello, arsenic, my old friend)
and always there were scavengers
combing through this mess
and what did I learn from all this
I learnt that the devil is always in the details
the devil is always in the details
and the footprint must be managed.
The Morning After
a forest fire haze turns the morning sun orange,
down in the Village square
dazed coffee drinkers nurse their hangovers
too many stayed too late at the Dublin Gate
here and there perky couples with dogs
take photos for their blogs,
jpegs spiral upwards into the cloud
which is not a cloud
it’s a bank of a billion hard drives
humming hard in flat roofed, air-conditioned buildings
somewhere I will always think of as Texas
no snow on the mountains
the glaciers have retreated
as if they’re afraid of something
leaving behind bare granite
over on the islands
there is talk of low water tables
and no water for the table
we fiddle while forests burn
Nero….. Nero has nothing on us.
This is a response to Lindi’s excellent challenge over at earthweal
Juxtaposition (This is not a poem)
Flashback to 2021
Cop Out at Cop26
Coal will be phased down but not phased out
Down But Not Out
Semantic Antics
This late amendment was tabled by the USA, China and India but India took most of the flak.
India’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are far lower than USA or China.
Canada’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are higher than USA or China
But this is not a competition anyone wants to win.
Juxtaposition
This is not a poem.
November 12
Toxic air enveloped Delhi
making it the second most polluted city in the world.
According to 2020 average data
Hotan, China is the worst
Delhi is the 10th
so Delhi was having a bad day
50 percent of the pollution comes from vehicles.
If you go down the list
you have to get past the 200th most polluted city
to get out of India and China.
Juxtaposition
This is not a poem
The prosperity of the west was built on fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide emissions are a subset of pollution
Pollution covers a multitude.
Imagine the human experiment as a black box emitting carbon dioxide. Reducing those emissions requires a collective approach. Is the human experiment capable of a collective approach. So far not so much.
Juxtaposition
This is not a poem
four years after the Great Smog of London
the Clean Air Act of 1956
prohibited the burning of coal in homes
change can happen
juxtaposition
we are beside ourselves
we have been burning fossil fuel
to stay warm
since the cave
old habits die hard
we need speed bumps not fist bumps
we need idealism and pragmatism
we need strategy
juxtaposition
this is not a poem
Sherry over at earthweal asks:
For your challenge: Express your thoughts and feelings about how humankind has brought Mother Earth to this critical point in time, and what you think and feel about where we go from here
This is a kind of rambling response.
Also taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
Hiram
Hiram likes to drink water
direct from the spigot
on the front wall of his house;
he hasn’t had to connect a hose
to that darn spigot
since he converted the lawn to artificial.
Good times.
In the evening,
he sits on his porch
staring out at the Christmas tree green of the lawn
drinking lite beer
and polishing his assault rifle,
this gives him comfort.
Not that he’s afraid,
he ain’t afraid of nuthin’,
he ain’t afraid of AOC
he ain’t afraid of Antifa
he ain’t afraid of that girl from Sweden
the one that never smiles
he’s vigilant, that’s all;
vigilance is of the essence.
He likes the sound of that,
maybe get a T shirt made
put that on the front,
‘G.I. – God Incarnate’ on the back.
No, he ain’t afraid of nuthin’,
but sometimes
in the early hours of the morning
he lies awake
his gut gurgling like a drain
as it processes
the Outback appetizer
of deep fried onion rings
that the waitress
piled high on his plate
like a jumble sale
of used Olympic symbols;
he lies awake
stalked by a fear
he will not name
the fear of being left behind,
left in the dust,
by the twenty first century.
This week I’m hosting the weekly challenge over at Earthweal (Title “Fiction? Don’t be a Stranger”). So head on over there and prepare to be challenged.
Also taking part in Open Link over at dverse
Last Tanka in Paradise (2021)
up on Dunbar Heights
a plether of snowflakes falls
new highs and new lows
heat domes and arctic outflows
the sound of Goretex wicking
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal.
1 (conversation overheard in a downtown bar)
he wants to retire
back where all the spires conspire
to show him the way.
2 (too much of a good thing)
summer evening
the red sunset bleeds regret
maturity lost.
3 (Why can’t I write like Rupi Kaur?)
my quinoa* quota
was far from quotidian
thanks! sunflower seeds!
*’keen-wah
4 (Climate Change is Opening Windows)
rumours dropping from the eaves
neighbours thick as thieves
singing off key at three
o’clock in the morning.
The challenge from Laura over at dverse is to write a poem consisting of fragments:
“Either:
a poem of several numbered stanzas. Each being complete in itself and having only a passing relationship to each other, if at all
OR
a poem of disjointed images (like listening to conversation in passing, repetitively switching between radio/tv station, random images across a screen, or paintings/photos seen in a gallery)
Rules:
Your poem should NOT conform to any rhyme scheme
Your poem MUST include Fragment(s) somewhere in the title”
An Atmospheric River Runs Through It
The moon is waning gibbous
the pollen count is low
and yet another atmospheric river
is on the way,
all that warm moist air
all that water vapour
looking for a place to condense;
based on anecdotal evidence
this is either normal for the time of year
or a signal that we should start building an ark
but one thing is starkly clear
the data with which the calculated risks are calculated
is no longer valid
is in need of an update
the paradigm has not shifted
but the perimeter has been breached
like a dike in need of repair.
Taking part in Open Link at earthweal….it’s raining again in British Columbia.
Gibson’s Landing (Summer 2021)
the bark of broken mufflers
pickup trucks idle
at the Starbuck’s drive through
air con running
a gang of bikers
middle-aged and leather clad
roar up the coastal highway
it’s been a long hot summer
fun fun fun
in the pandemic pause
(is this the real life
is this just fantasy?)
and yes, it’s hot
but it’s a guilty heat
and there’s the nagging feeling
that the future has arrived too early
that science fiction has become fact
smoke from forest fires
silts the lungs of the town
Daddy never did take the T Bird away.
(songs quoted and misquoted in the poem: “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Fun! Fun! Fun! by the Beach Boys)
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.
Also taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal.
Ingrid Wilson of Experiments in Fiction has put together a collection of poems called The Athropocene Hymnal (63 poems in all, from 34 poets). Publication date is July 24th. Many of the poets, including myself are regular contributors to the blog earthweal. I have 2 poems in the collection (thanks, Ingrid, for including me!). All profits from the sale of the book will go to the World Wild Life Fund. So be sure to check out Ingrid’s blog on July 24th!
Brendan over at earthweal has published an interview with Ingrid and also more details about the publication, so check out Brendan’s post here.
The collage on the cover was contributed by the very talented Kerfe Roig.
In his earthweal prompt this week, Brendan says :
For this week’s challenge, let’s take up her (Ingrid’s) call and write a poem of the Anthropocene which does not compromise.
This is a poem I wrote a while back (it appeared before on earthweal) and previously published on this blog, but think it fits the challenge.
Fracking Song
You’re standing on the corner
Watching the trucks go rolling past
Pumping out their diesel fumes
Pumping out that carbon gas
It’s the middle of winter
And it’s twenty below
And that gas just sits there
With nowhere to go.
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
That rock’s been down forever
With its hydrocarbon payload
When they blow it all apart
They can’t control where it goes
And that water that’s left standing
Evaporating in the sun
The residue will be with us
Long after they are gone
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
You can blame the politicians
The special interests groups
Blame the fracking company
They all don’t give a fuck
There’s only one thing they understand
One thing that they know
Keep riding that fossil fool train
As far as it will go.
There’s something wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Placentas like ribbons
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town
Ted’s less than Excellent Adventure
thousands of turtles
are stunned by the cold
off the Texas Coast,
the lights go out,
the lone star flickers,
Republicans tilt at windmills.
Ted Cruz flees to Mexico
but returns prematurely
after a less than excellent adventure
chastened, but still oilier than thou.
The challenge over at dverse is to write a 44 word poem (quadrille) incorporating the word “go”.
Storms
If it’s getting stormier
and it surely is
then we have to put a bit more work
into naming those storms
I mean to say, c’mon now,
Storm Dennis?
Dennis is a guy who wears cardigans
and washes his car every Sunday.
Margaret Thatcher’s husband
was called Dennis –
Storm Margaret
now there’s a storm,
a storm full of righteous certainty
levelling working class towns
circumnavigating domiciles of the rich.
How about Storm Boris
a tropical storm perhaps
full of hot air and bluster
a flatulent tail wind
or to switch professions and countries
Storm Janis
now there’s a storm to rip the roofs of houses
flatten whole trailer parks
transport cows to far off fields
or Storm Aretha
a storm that demands respect
sock it to me
anything but Dennis
side-parted, brilliantined, undershot Dennis.
The subject over at earthweal is “storms”.
It’s Open Link Weekend over at earthweal and editor in chief , Brendan, is feeling a little down in an eloquent, acerbic and humorous way, so head on over there, check out his post and link one of your poems.
Here’s one from 2018, which is surprisingly current and is either cheerful or depressing depending on your politics.
The Toddler King
1
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
a five hundred pound ball
of carbohydrate and grease
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
assault rifles take stock
the second amendment
thinks about making amends
the founding fathers
find themselves wanting.
2
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
in the empty parking lot
of a big box store
a plastic bag pirouettes
on the halitotic breeze
national monuments
fear for their lives
the adjectives – good, bad, great-
drop in value again
the toddler king
picks a fight with himself.
3
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
an empty shopping cart
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
and wishes it was
a metaphor for something
rivers say goodbye
to their banks
the ocean
eyes the shore
the toddler king pardons
those great American dioxides
sulphur, nitric, carbon
they are quickly released.
Greta Thunberg at Davos
Pharisees, temples
the young lecturing the old
wilderness, a voice.
Taking part in open link weekend over at earthweal.
Down and Out in Idabel
How Myron found himself in the parking lot
of the Holiday Inn in Idabel, Oklahoma
looking out at the road
on a Saturday morning in April
– after a breakfast of brittle bacon,
sausages slick with grease,
dry fluorescent scrambled eggs –
is not important.
The road pauses, a skittish dog roams.
Myron’s eyes are drawn to a dead armadillo
upside down on the hard shoulder
an empty beer can in its claws:
Old Milwaukee, prehistoric drunk,
someone’s joke.
A pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
over the fence a cow chews grass
and makes a meal of it.
Dogwoods bloom.
The cow moos like a reluctant foghorn.
Myron’s mood turns
he thinks about the cow,
Manifest Destiny,
the plight of the bison
our lust for red meat
while greenhouse gas
shimmies upwards
ice caps melt
glaciers retreat
and looking down
the road to Shreveport
buoyed by the prospect
of seeing Idabel
in his rear-view mirror
he quietly resolves
to recover what he was
before sadness lodged
like a wet sack
in the back
of his head.
This poem originally appeared in issue 38 of The SHOp poetry magazine (print) which was a fine magazine, unfortunately they closed up shop a few years ago.
Taking part in earthweal open link weekend, head over there and read Brendan’s very eloquent and comprehensive post on climate change.
This is my third in a series of climate change related posts, it wasn’t planned that way, but I guess that’s the way the wind is blowing this week!
Water (off a duck’s back)
What’s that?…….no, no, it’s all rubbish,
climate change is a Deep State hoax.
By the way, forgot to mention
I have some ocean front for sale in Florida,
are you interested?
I hear you’re a good swimmer.
Ha, that’s just a joke,
God controls the climate
the rivers, lakes and seas.
Look what he did for Moses.
Our local preacher has a direct line,
just send a donation
before he gets arrested.
Joking again! Those rumours
are just not true.
Besides, our supreme leader, Donald, says
we are going to have a great climate
the best climate ever.
Do you know any Dutch people?
They’re good at handling all this water stuff.
Another thing, does anyone else
really miss the dinosaurs?
I had this rubber brontosaurus
when I was kid, I kind of liked it,
a velociraptor too…where was I?
Yes, this oceanfront property in Florida
it comes with a row boat.
The word of the week over at earthweal is water. Got the idea for this poem while reading Sarahsouthwest’s poem “Water Again”.
Also participating in open link night over at dverse.
In this issue:
Our film critic reviews the latest summer blockbuster, “Planet of the Buffoons” , starring Boris (Bozo Bear) Johnson and Donald (Agent Orange) Trump and featuring Vladimir Putin as The Wily Sidekick.
In our Business Section:
The value of intelligence, logic and compassion continues to drop on the HTSE ( Human Traits Stock Exchange), while greed and self- interest continue their meteoric rise. Regular readers of this magazine will be happy to hear that vapidity continues to be a solid earner and an essential component of any balanced portfolio.
Speaking of the Environment:
We examine a theory popular among members of the Republican Party, and anyone connected to the oil industry, that when the polar ice caps melt, polar bears will be able to survive on an almost infinite supply of the polar berries that will thrive on the newly exposed land. This new diet will actually be healthier than their previous protein based diet.
*******
Vapid Magazine – where shallow runs deep.
Issue #10 of Vapid Magazine will be out next week.
In this issue, Ivanka Trump and Gwyneth Paltrow discuss what it is like to be rich, vapid and blonde and we ask the question: can an influencer be influenced by an influencer who is under the influence?
Also…How to protect your skin against climate change! 10 Easy Tips!
Vapid Magazine…..Home of All Things Vapid!
The Toddler King
1
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
a five hundred pound ball
of carbohydrate and grease
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
assault rifles take stock
the second amendment
thinks about making amends
the founding fathers
find themselves wanting.
2
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
in the empty parking lot
of a big box store
a plastic bag pirouettes
on the halitotic breeze
national monuments
fear for their lives
the adjectives – good, bad, great-
drop in value again
the toddler king
picks a fight with himself.
3
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
an empty shopping cart
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
and wishes it was
a metaphor for something
rivers say goodbye
to their banks
the ocean
eyes the shore
the toddler king pardons
those great American dioxides
sulphur, nitric, carbon
they are quickly released.
Parts 1&2 appeared previously on this blog, participating in dverse Open Link Night
Down and Out in Idabel
How Myron found himself in the parking lot
of the Holiday Inn in Idabel, Oklahoma
looking out at the road
on a Saturday morning in April
– after a breakfast of brittle bacon,
sausages slick with grease,
dry fluorescent scrambled eggs –
is not important.
The road pauses, a skittish dog roams.
Myron’s eyes are drawn to a dead armadillo
upside down on the hard shoulder
an empty beer can in its claws:
Old Milwaukee, prehistoric drunk,
someone’s joke.
A pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
over the fence a cow chews grass
and makes a meal of it.
Dogwoods bloom.
The cow moos like a reluctant foghorn.
Myron’s mood turns
he thinks about the cow,
Manifest Destiny,
the plight of the bison
our lust for red meat
while greenhouse gas
shimmies upwards
ice caps melt
glaciers retreat
and looking down
the road to Shreveport
buoyed by the prospect
of seeing Idabel
in his rear-view mirror
he quietly resolves
to recover what he was
before sadness lodged
like a wet sack
in the back
of his head.
This poem originally appeared in issue 38 of The SHOp poetry magazine (print) which was a fine magazine, unfortunately they closed up shop a few years ago.
Haiku (conversation overheard in a downtown bar)
he wants to retire
back where all the spires conspire
to show him the way.
Too much of a good thing
summer evening
the red sunset bleeds regret
maturity lost.
Why can’t I write like Rupi Kaur? (1)
my quinoa* quota
was far from quotidian
thanks! sunflower seeds!
*’keen-wah
Climate Change is Opening Windows
rumours dropping from the eaves
neighbours thick as thieves
singing off key at three
o’clock in the morning.
The ship of the world sails on
while America founders on the sand bank
of an old fool’s dreams.
“Danish Oil and Natural Gas…….has transformed itself into the world’s largest offshore wind farm company spurred on my Denmark’s aggressive efforts to decarbonize its economy.”
“BMW prepares to mass produce electric cars by 2020”
“China plans to spend $360 billion on renewable energy capacity by 2020”
“in May, India cancelled 14 gigawatts of proposed coal-fired plants, while seeing a steep dropoff in coal imports…”
Quotes from Corporate Knights Magazine , Fall 2017
In a recent interview in the New York Times Book Review, Jeffrey Toobin (author of ‘American Heiress’), when asked the question “How do you organize your books,” replied that ‘he was romantic about reading not about carbon byproducts’. He apparently does most of his reading for pleasure on an iPad.
This statement bothered me for a couple of reasons. A byproduct is “an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”, a book is not a byproduct of anything, it is produced using paper which contains carbon, but it is a product in itself unlike carbon which is an element and not a product.
But more than the semantics, there was something else. There was a sanctimonious whiff to the statement, a hint of greener than thou, a suggestion of the moral high ground, an implication that Jeffrey is a greater friend of the environment than all you Luddite book lovers out there (myself included). So, I set out to try and determine whether reading a book on an Ipad is greener than reading an actual book.
Strike one against the IPad is that it consumes energy every time a page is read, whereas a book once it is produced consumes no further energy (for the purpose of this discussion let’s assume that the energy or power required is generated by the combustion of fossil fuel and therefore energy consumption or the need for energy results in the generation of carbon dioxide). How much energy does it consume? To find out I used my iPad to google the question, which proves that I am not adverse to using technology (I just like books). It turns out, it can all be explained using light bulbs. It takes 1 kWh to power an iPhone for a year, that’s the equivalent of powering a 100 watt incandescent light bulb for 10 hours. The iPad consumes about 11 times that or the equivalent of the energy consumed by a 100 watt incandescent light bulb in 110 hours. Of course, not all that iPad time is spent reading a book, so in the end, relatively speaking, it is not a lot of energy; but for the purpose of establishing greenness , a small amount is still too much. In the end, using an iPad to read indirectly results in a finite amount of carbon dioxide being released to the atmosphere; whereas the act of reading a book results in zero carbon dioxide emissions.
When it comes to recyclability, the moral high ground gets more slippery. Martin LaMonica of CNET’s Green Tech says only about 10% of US electronics get recycled and, according to Greenpeace not always properly, whereas paper is more likely to be recycled. Plus you can loan that book to a friend or donate it to your public library.
There are additional energy implications, all that data has to be stored. According to Greenpeace, data storage centers are the single largest driver of new electricity demand worldwide.
This is all, of course, just to make the point that it’s called the “moral high ground” because it is difficult to attain and to say to all you book lovers out there keep on reading those paper books with a clear conscience.
By the way, by all accounts Jeffrey Toobin is one hell of a writer.
To end, a slimverse:
What Can I Say
to leave no
footprint we
must fly but
never land.
Note: The following articles were used in the making of this post – http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/01/is-apples-recyclable-chemical-free-ipad-really-green-/1
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