POEM: NEWS OF THE WORLD #21

MORE GLACIAL THEFTS LEAVE PARK RANGERS BEREFT.

“It’s like they just melted before our eyes!”

“They’re gone. Whisked away!” “I’ve just this to say:

It’s the Ice Man that’s struck again.”

"What’s with pining?  It’s mountaintop mine-ing—

Paradise doesn’t live here anymore."

"We’ve dug up our bed. Now listen up, Fred:

You'll always get wet in the rain."

Will there be war, now I’ve opened the door?

Have I drawn a line in that sign through peace?

“Oooo! Shiny ‘copters! Man! They just got her!

Your place has a view for to die!”

That "Demon Core"?  Now, I don’t mean to bore

You, friend, repeating my tiresome scree,

But see, I do see, and it’s time we flee,

Because big fish and small will fry.

Was Soloman right, that we shouldn’t fight

Over something we can just split in two?

Then two becomes four, with room for still more!

(My math is much gooder than yours.)

Atomic missiles: mushroom epistles.

Our best preaching is done to the choirs.

Alamogordo? No, no. No. No. No.

Don’t answer that knock at the door.

“We don’t need peace talk when we can squawk balk.“

“Siri, will we die if they bomb our patch?”

“Sir, "we" is a word, a biddy-sniffed turd,

Whose meaning is less fair than foul.”

We new in the streets don’t dress so neat;

We line alleyways when we go clubbing.

Oh, will you make some change? It helps me range

Through these wilds where the beast-men howl.

When children are led through halls of the dead,

Where bones rattle with the lightest of steps,

By then we all know. But how can we show

That lightning strikes them all the more?

So, should I stand and teach? Give a speech?

Though, if it’s mind over matter we’re doomed!

Some here will listen. To what omission?

(The one where we’ll leave by the door.)

ANTARCTIC MELTDOWN:

A BOSS-MATCH SMACKDOWN!

But with a winner that’s mostly baked-in.

And of that footage—it’s for our dotage,

When Big Chef steps up to the stage.

NO MORE PLASTIC?  “That's so atavistic!”

“Please tell us how will we wrap up our shit?”

But that’s the point! It’s a smelly old joint.

(Just what will they make of this age?)

The course is still green, but with snow-caps seen

Melting, like ice cubes in my frying pan.

Will we make the last putt? Bogey like Tut?

Wear hats that are made out of foil?

When watching the news, it’s easy to muse.

(Yes, pontificating is my best style.)

But back to the moon!?! Sky-duels at high noon?

Just pray they don’t find any oil.

 By crowns we did pound, till all came around.

Concertina-wire sang her steel song.

But now we just wait—even hesitate.

“There is love in the stag’s last dance.”

 “Hey, waddup, Yemen?” NEWS AT ELEVEN!

(Like a salad, you’d go better with oil.)

“They need a good dressing!” “No more messing;

You know every boil needs it’s lance.”

A-hunting we will go! Knee deep in snow.

And we’ll make snowmen see things with their eyes.

Wet marbles, some blue, some are brown, like you.

For statues that melt in the rain.

AND DOES IT RAIN IN SPAIN? It’s far from plain;

We’ll take vacation, next year, in the isles.

Hola, Español! Stop digging that hole! 

What’s baking your land bakes your brain.

Sorry, little feller! Good old Yeller.

What say you, boy, shall we foam at the mouth?

CHINA—STILL RISING. That’s not surprising,

When this half has run out of gas.

ALIENS HAVE LANDED!  Are they stranded?

Did they crash-land between the T’s and I’s?

"We went for the moon, yet we get High Noon."

“That’s check out time,” says the wee lass.

Water seeks its level; so do devils.

We’ve learned to sup with those long-handled spoons.

We will run from each shake; we'll turn to bake.

But, where are the rest of our rules?

When rich rakes parade—we'll spray them with Raid.

"It’s just that cartoons kill better than bugs."

So, let’s make a new list, add a new twist,

One that keeps the family jewels.

………………..

We’re in this big rush to keep it all hush,

About the prize that’s inside every box.

We should ask, these days, about our new craze—

The one where we roll all ‘dem bones.

Now, I’ll end on this note and with a quote:

“We close one door and take the one come near.”

So at the end of day, what’s left to say

Can be said without all ‘dem groans.

I REALLY HATED WRITING THIS ONE, trying to get the right words in the right darn order. It took forever! And I still hate it! Or more temperately-minded perhaps, I find it a bit too doomy and gloomy.  The rhyme scheme is abcd, with the first and third lines having double internal rhymes; 4-line stanzas with a “tens” length, with the last lines of each paired stanza rhyming (hopefully).  At times, writing this was like passing kidney stones. And it seems vague to me—like a greasy windshield, smeared and hard to see through.  Where the heck am I going?

But there were some boffo! news items that influenced me: melting icebergs, wildfires in Spain, plastic pollution (I’m reading a book about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch), nuclear weapons, a ‘Star Wars’ reboot, various conflicts and hot spots in the world (Yemen/Syria/Iran/Sudan/Libya/Russia/China/India/Kashmir/Burma, etc. etc; take your pick! There’s always something going on, somewhere. There were news stories about wars, civil unrest, personal violence, generational betrayal, poverty, globalization, immigration, UFOS, Jeffry Epstein. (Yep! He’s from another planet!)

Though there were a few newsworthy items, they don’t seem as ‘crisp’ to me, reading them over. Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the planet. Was I kidnapped by aliens? Transported to another dimension? I don’t know.  I just didn’t enjoy poking the bear with a stick as much, this time. Maybe it was because the bear just sat there looking at me like I was some kind of dum-fuk who didn’t realize the cage door was open, and that he could come out any time he wanted and rip my stupid head off. (So why don’t you go away, little man. Yawn, Ursus, at your peril! Take that!)

So, I’d pick up NoW #21 and work on it for a while, then put it down and ignore it, pick it up again later on and scribble a line or two. Scribblescribblescribble. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I was depressed! Then, I realized—of course! I’m suffering from Generalized Anxiety Order (GAO). No wonder!

And I know I don’t have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) that was so prevalent in the past, where there were things in our world that were crazy out of whack!—kooky stuff like a guy with a funny mustache wanting to take over everything, or earlier, when fellows from our village used long pointy sticks to fight those other fellows out behind the cornfield, or when that girl named One Time nicked Old Mam’s favourite cup, or when ghosts came by and took so many of our children last winter, or when the young couple one street over got into a royal screaming match that time and something bad happened, or when the trees didn’t fruit six years ago, or way, way back when that guy killed his brother—crazy, how-did-all-that-shit-happen! sort of stuff. In other words, the disorders found among we humans. 

Now, all the violence, sorrows, pains--all those things that, yes, are there, but don’t have to be, or they don’t have to always be there, or else they may stay for a time, and then go away for very long time, perhaps for a lifetime--all those things in today's daily news are no longer so strange or aberrant anymore (not even Trump!) They may actually belong here. And that’s kind of a sad way of looking at things. I’m not bummed out because of the disorders in our world, but that fact that such disorders seem to be the order of the day--GAO! Thank god I found a diagnosis! Now all I need is a cure!
.....

We humans are kind of like dung beetles. We roll up our sticky shit into great balls of poo, picking up bits of this and that along the way, the debris and detritus from our modern times, and then we lay our eggs inside the mess, and wait around for whatever hatches to come out. On the upside, the newborns may sprout wings and fly away from all our crap. Just sayin’.

Cheers, Jake.

"I don't like that! I just don't!"