I
That twitch in the schoolgirl’s eye
Isn’t caused by snowy mountains.
There’s Guildhall in her twisted lip.
II
I was of three minds.
Greta Thunberg took all of them
And cloaked them in a yellow hood.
III
A small part of the pantomime was never Greta’s style.
She has miles to go before she lets us sleep.
IV
Of the things schoolgirls hate
The sun is not among them.
The blackbird’s wings and the oil fields of Manitoba
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The thought that they might one day bring out
Greta Thunberg bobbleheads
Or the fact that bobbleheads exist at all,
The fact that we’re ******
Or the fact that we’re enjoying it.
VI
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O pigtailed teens of Stockholm,
Please remember
What Wallace Stevens said
About birds of golden feathers
And of black.
VIII
What is involved in what I know?
Like Socrates, I don’t know.
But it’s more than 99.9 per cent
Of climate scientists could ever dream
And less than a signpost
To the wrong city in the snow.
IX
When Greta sailed two weeks to New York
She was in a circle of close friends.
I bet they ate tinned kippers
And had those sweets the Swedish love.
X
To cry out sharply is what we do
If we are lucky enough to cry.
And so I have more compassion
For Greta than you know.
Some women have no time.
Their children dying
Takes up the best portion of the day.
XI
I can’t remember the part of the campaign trail
He rode over to tell a waiting crowd
How the size of his equipage
Compared to his small hands.
There are good reasons why Greta hates his guts.
This is not the best of them.
XII
The river is full of plastic.
The thermometer must be rising.
XIII
It is snowing
And it is going to snow.
Oct 19, 2019
Oct 19, 2019 at 11:25 PM UTC
I
That twitch in the schoolgirl’s eye
Isn’t caused by snowy mountains.
There’s Guildhall in her twisted lip.
II
I was of three minds.
Greta Thunberg took all of them
And cloaked them in a yellow hood.
III
A small part of the pantomime was never Greta’s style.
She has miles to go before she lets us sleep.
IV
Of the things schoolgirls hate
The sun is not among them.
The blackbird’s wings and the oil fields of Manitoba
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The thought that they might one day bring out
Greta Thunberg bobbleheads
Or the fact that bobbleheads exist at all,
The fact that we’re ******
Or the fact that we’re enjoying it.
VI
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O pigtailed teens of Stockholm,
Please remember
What Wallace Stevens said
About birds of golden feathers
And of black.
VIII
What is involved in what I know?
Like Socrates, I don’t know.
But it’s more than 99.9 per cent
Of climate scientists could ever dream
And less than a signpost
To the wrong city in the snow.
IX
When Greta sailed two weeks to New York
She was in a circle of close friends.
I bet they ate tinned kippers
And had those sweets the Swedish love.
X
To cry out sharply is what we do
If we are lucky enough to cry.
And so I have more compassion
For Greta than you know.
Some women have no time.
Their children dying
Takes up the best portion of the day.
XI
I can’t remember the part of the campaign trail
He rode over to tell a waiting crowd
How the size of his equipage
Compared to his small hands.
There are good reasons why Greta hates his guts.
This is not the best of them.
XII
The river is full of plastic.
The thermometer must be rising.
XIII
It is snowing
And it is going to snow.
B.T. Joy is a British poet and short fiction writer living in Glasgow. He has also lived in London, Aberdeen and Heilongjiang, Northern China. His poetry and short fiction has appeared in magazines, journals, anthologies and podcasts worldwide including poetry in Yuan Yang, The Meadow, Toasted Cheese, Numinous: Spiritual Poetry, Presence, Paper Wasp, Bottle Rockets, Mu, Frogpond and The Newtowner, among many others. His debut collection of poetry, Teaching Neruda, was released in 2015 by Popcorn Press and his 2016 collection Body of Poetry is also available through Amazon. He can be reached through his website: http://btj0005uk.wix.com/btjoypoet