Buoyancy
Swims along, floats along.
There’s bubbles from below.
Is this lake or ocean?
Oh-me-oh-my! Oh, No!
Dietarian Contrarian
Don’t want jumping whales
or poetic snails,
or those dolphin’s tails
set at my table.
And shark fin soup? I’ll pass.
Such ladled gloop—don’t ask!
Our Dietitian's task:
making life a larder.
I don’t want any lizards,
or eggs from fishy gizzards,
or mammoths lost in blizzards.
(I don’t even own a net!)
And no, I won’t eat Old Yeller,
or babies fresh from the cellar,
alien cuisine that’s stellar.
I’ll eat bread and water. So there!
For, animals from A to Zed,
from toe-tips to ones with two heads,
have the right to sleep in their beds,
and not be poached in the morning.
Breakfast
Nooked
The spoon rattled
in your bowl, just as
the shock wave
hit.
Song
Words,
buzzing in my head
like bees dancing along
sun-warmed petals.
They leave behind, for me,
their most private song.
Modernity #8:
Rooms for Debate
Hup-two-three-four,
Hup-two-three-four.
Two by four and eight by ten.
Hup-two-three-four.
We don’t know what time is when.
Hup-two-three-four.
We’re on call to build them all.
Hup-two-three-four.
In the spring and in the fall.
Hup-two-three-four.
We build ‘em high, we build ‘em low.
Hup-two-three-four.
To save you from the wind and snow.
Hup-two-three-four.
We clear the ground; let’s clear the air:
Hup-two-three-four.
To get up top you need a stair.
Hup-two-three-four.
In the end, it’s saw and bone.
Hup-two-three-four.
We build the house you call a home.
Hup-two-three-four,
Hup-two-three-four.
NEWS OF THE WORLD #24
What’s left behind now and what stays ahead,
Where no one is saved, save those who are led?
What will come next now, ‘twixt root and the roof?
Where will your feet land while still on the hoof?
Who’ll be the judge to take stock of our world?
Who stays the armies, with bright flags unfurled?
Who orders their gods like cheesy bread pies?
Who’ll toast the living ‘neath darkened, red skies?
Such questions are lost now; others are found
Aloft on hot winds that still circle round:
The fires that came have burned all away—
In dreams that we had or once the next day.
…..
Announcements pronounced now: all will be saved!
LIFEBOATS PROVIDED. From shorelines we waved.
Our hearty best wishes! Cracking good cheer!
As hardly we’ll miss them, sad sack and seer.
When a dotards’ last farts still make THE NEWS,
While behind his back they'll whisper pee-yews!
In Times of Silly its worth noting well:
The king of the masque is the king of hell.
Those germs our way wend, no matter what end;
They’ve neither neighbours nor fences to mend.
Drops from some petri or coughs on the wind—
In breathing our last, what matters who sinned?
So, who’s in the attic? Who’s left to tell?
Where is dear Granny and what is that smell?
Do corpses have ghosts? Whose shade then am I,
That smells your decay and sees with your eye?
…..
Cities are smart now, much smarter than us.
It was so easy, with so little fuss.
When from his chambers, our mayor pulled the switch:
Our dumbest mistake, yet. Son of a bitch!
Now robots parade—such a gay affair!
Moving in lockstep through suburb and square.
Silent and stainless they make their point clear:
Aiming for godhead, it’s losers come near.
In cities at night strange beasts prowl the dark,
Their metal battalions soon set the spark.
Blazes of glory now sunder the air!
From basement to nurs’ry, then up the stair.
…..
A lion roars in a cage by the sea.
(Some circus stranded with more miles to be.)
It’s a flooded road or an axle broke,
A servant’s rebuke or a wild god’s joke.
In woods after dark mute wolves pace around.
In seasons of storm, they’ll soon go to ground.
And the nightbirds, too, grow silent at perch,
As winds stir the bells of the nearby church.
The winds came one day and never have left.
They ravel the warp and devil the weft.
If on a Tuesday, when asked the next day,
Was it on Wednesday it all flew away?
…..
The attack was breeched; their machines had fell.
Sonic disruptors had given them hell.
Techno-enthusiasts had saved the day.
Now which one was it? Or was it last May?
When war was declared, how we sang and prayed!
Our puzzle to finish. Our gods, dismayed:
From mud shapes to gargoyles, formless to formed,
There in the making, we came by and stormed.
…..
When monsters first came, we welcomed them in.
They’d rut on our rooftops, root in our bins.
They seemed so harmless, though oft did annoy.
It wasn’t till one day…they’d taken our joy.
In dropping The Bomb, precautions were taken:
China brought down in case shelves were shaken.
And ear plugs were given, goggles were worn.
Except, not just matter, but time was torn.
Proud missiles in silos, no longer bound;
Their distance pinging a mad, radar sound.
The rockets’ red glare gave all A GREAT HUSH!
As winds from the past came in with a rush.
…..
There’re rules of the road, son—practice your preach!
It’s not for sailors to land on your beach.
Yes, pray to heaven; there, God must be good.
It’s just that he'll never act like we would.
…..
Still,
Sands on the shoreline, waves upon the sea.
There, in a moment, is eternity.
Gather up your love. Fold away your hate.
Carry in your arms a blanket called Fate.
Child’s Pray
Holy Shit!
Holy shit!
It’s a prayer.
Isn’t it?
I have my own air supply, and food and water for months. In one corner, I have a periscope I can use to survey the damage after the rubble stops bouncing. My bunker is well-appointed with a BR, LR, kitchen, bath, and storage room. Lots of room! I have a generator to run the water pump and electrical gadgets, topped up fuel tanks, and my supply cupboards and storage lockers are chock-full of goodies and sundry items. Don’t even ask about my fire power; I’m loaded for bear! As for the poems? I’ll leave them upstairs with you in the landscapes they describe. Good luck!
Like all the other summits, last week's circus in Glasgow was two steps forward and one and three-quarter steps back.
The breathless rhetoric of the summary statements on how well things went echoes similar ones of the past: stating the obvious and doing as little as possible to address the problem. One of the biggest “gets” of COP26 was to have the words “fossil fuels” included in the final draft of the agreement, for the first time:
“And for the first time, heeding calls from civil society and countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, the COP agreed action on phasing down fossil fuels.”
The press release goes on to say:
“COP26 has today concluded in Glasgow with nearly 200 countries agreeing the Glasgow Climate Pact to keep 1.5C alive and finalize the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement.”
A COUPLE OF THINGS: The Pact was nearly scuttled by India’s last-minute demand that the wording “phase down” [Italics mine] be used, rather than “phase out” of coal power in the final "agreement" (aka "arm-twist"). Nice touch, that. And since the UN body requires consensus for the agreement’s ratification, the entire conference may have been for naught if the revision wasn't made.
The second
point is the presence at the conference of over five hundred lobbyists for the
fossil fuel industry, including from Canada, who were
“...affiliated
with some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, [and] granted access to
Cop26 – a larger number than any single country delegation. Meanwhile, indigenous people were mostly excluded, and their
traditional knowledge on sustainable land and water management sidelined.” (The Guardian)
WTF?! Sigh...Dante should have a special circle in hell for such creatures.
The Guardian newspaper does a reasonable job highlighting the pros and cons of the two-week extravaganza that saw forty thousand delegates, politicians, lobbyists, activists and media luminaries descend upon the Scottish capital. (Next year: Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt. Get out my pith helmet, Jeeves!)
And I’ll stop here because I could go on and on, but there’s a short vid of a speech given by a young climate activist (not Gretta who, if I’m being honest, I find annoying) named Vanessa Nakate from Uganda. She makes the case for future generations in a simple plea and a call for action. Her words say more than 99% of the gabble made by all the organ-grinders and barkers at Glasgow.
Cheers, Jake.
_________________________________________________
*Would it have been tattooed on the foreheads of each and every world leader and delegate attending these things over the years! Maybe then some real action might have taken place. Just sayin’.
And for a fun vid, watch Russell Brand’s take on the latest trend in billionaire buffoonery.
No comments:
Post a Comment