Thereunto Sky Filled with Scars
O’er our beheld Ocean of Teeth
Seldomly Throwing Up Clouds and Stars
In sets of three for three sets of Crying Trees
Up and upon each Screaming Mountainside
Till moons pass half past a Quarter to Live
Or they shan’t view their Island in my Eye
Instead betwixt a Desert and Crude Sieve
Alas, nary a River Through our Sun
Nor a Volcano up the Arctic
Dost commit to Minds Overrun
Or coups for Governments Oligarchic

For years, the voices have risen—
from parched fields, from coastlines swallowed by the sea,
from homes turned to ruins by winds too fierce to be natural.

They ask not for mercy,
but for what is owed—
a recognition, a reckoning.

In glass towers and conference halls,
the wealthy nations turn away,
their signatures missing from promises long made,
their hands gripping wealth built on a burning planet.

Storms rage louder now,
waves crash higher,
droughts stretch longer,
but still, they hesitate.

The ones who suffer know the weight of inaction,
measured in lost harvests, displaced families,
children breathing in the dust of what once was home.

And yet, there is hope—
a whisper in the winds,
a trembling in the roots,
a gathering of voices that refuse to be silenced.

This is not charity.
It is justice.
It is the past catching up with the present,
demanding to be acknowledged.

There is no more time for debate.
No room for delay.
The debt must be paid.
Before the earth takes it in blood.

Evening is on the take
The sun herself senses it
Her heat is slipping away
Eclipsed by cold, arctic tendrils
Rilling through the fragile geography
Earth is a strong fighter though
Able to restore itself in serene defiance
Light she brings to keep night in its place

We were given a lovely world
but we trampled it and mashed it
beat it up and trashed it,
nobody else to blame
we did it to ourselves
and it's such a ****** shame,
we can't walk away,
we can't say I quit
we made this awful mess
now we have to live in it

A mendacious murmuration
  of black pixels dance a fractal fandango
  against the pale pink sky
telling you that all is well with the world.
A susurration of complacency–
  above the exhaust-scented streets
  of Birmingham’s melting asphalt–
whispers, “Don’t worry,
ignore the heatstroke starlings
dropping from the sky
onto viscous pitch dark bitumen”.

Miley and I walk down the street
      ignoring the cannabis scented clouds:
      she stops – sniffing every urinated message,
      occasionally leaving a reply.

My dog passes the laughing gas canisters,
    polystyrene boxes and broken glass
    searching for discarded bones, bread and tissue paper
      to eat, rip or claw.

We stroll through the park
      once yellow smiling daffodils grin brown and withered.
Squirrels multiply – fecund rats in the trees,
      Miley too slow to control the rodent population.

Despite urban desolation
      look harder:
        see the green canopy
            grass, birds,
              sometimes even a butterfly.

The world isn’t dead –
      we still have time.