#environmentalism
Let us begin with wonder.
What would the sky say if it saw
what was happening on earth?
What would the animals say,
being manufactured, packaged,
their homes deforested into dirt?
What would the wind say if it brushed
a mansion after brushing a hut?
Would it whisper laments, or
brag of the mansion's worth?
Many voices lay unspoken
though they have much to say.
The key is knowing it takes one spark
for this illusion to break.
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 26, 2025 at 12:57 PM UTC
In sleet and rain of Edinburgh
a cathedral rises from the deeps.
The salt of sea and old coal blur
veil her face in grey-cast sheets.
On her western pediment
within tympanum carved of stone
sits Christ triumphant and in judgement
where he calls us all to atone.
I stand before him, my head bowed
as I contemplate our shared guilt,
with mea culpas weighing on my brow
for the follies fallen man has built.
And so we’re burning Eden down
with flaming swords that we still wield
as once vast forests shrink and brown
and fallow lie once verdant fields.
Where trees once stood, smokestacks rear
their heads belching fumes up high
and in the deeps, the oceansphere’s
no more a garden for octopi.
For in this our earthly commonweal
that was a gift that’s given free
we prove that purgatory’s real
because we ourselves have made it be.
A whisper came from the carved face
to walk into this stony womb
where colored light and incense trace
a path to overcome the gloom:
Forgiveness for our many faults
comes when we change our ways.
There in this temple’s holy vault
I vow to fight Eden’s decay.
In Edinburgh I found Eden
in a vision of what can be.
For we are by no means beaten
and we can do it, you and me.
Nov 24, 2024
Nov 24, 2024 at 6:06 AM UTC
Asphalt, steaming screams swear words
The offensive smell of pavement post downpour
I think I’d like life better if it rhymed
The chatter and clatter mad hatters me
Sleepless and hopeless with Romans
And their online roads and aqueducts
They slither and snake but there is no more wild in the west
Automated scarecrows with AR-15’s stand guard
O’er amber waves of grain
Eyes open for outlaws and injuns
Cattle ranching of the future
Feeding the world one cubic meter of methane at a time
Dec 5, 2021
Dec 5, 2021 at 4:53 PM UTC
No picket fences. No hunting license. He has no culture
To his name. No children nor partner to carry; he’ll love
The forest floor just the same. Chickadees chattered as he muttered his marriage
Vows to the land between his toes. Rich in all but money,
He aims to accomplish what his forefathers could not: Forgive
Himself for human’s toll on nature. Their roads of death.
For hickory trees and zipping flies only understand death
As biological drivers of fear. He has seen the culture.
Slash and burn, Gnash and chop, mine and take, forgive
And forget the consequences. They manufacture love
On a rainy day to deceive people into funding destruction with the money
From the nature they claim to protect. A push-and-pull marriage.
He set aside his business coat as he set foot into the forest, divorcing the marriage
Of care and corporation. His only hope is that the rabbit cannot smell death
Still leaking from his pores like toxic radiation nor the stench of money
Recklessly thrown to culling the land mere miles away. More culture
Here than in thousands of skylines. More compassion among animals than any “love”
A vest-and-tie, bright-eyed smile grants in marketing. Corporate does not forgive.
He climbs atop the highest canopy and calms his quaking arms. If no one can forgive
His erratic exercise routine, the breeze can. All is still. The marriage
Has begun to provide. The priest above will join them in the morning; he’ll prove his love.
Tomorrow, the men with machines and sticks of death
Will come barreling through the sanctuary, claiming from destruction comes culture
And resources, but behind their faces of concern is always money, money, money.
From the first rabbit he slaughtered to the devastating loss of money
He incurred for not staying silent, the corruption he witnessed set a fire he would not forgive
His heart for feeding. The disillusionment he kept spread faster than a bacterial culture
Under perfect conditions. The merriment in progress was null, the marriage
Bands thrown into polluted rivers. He would slow the unnatural cycle of death,
One by one rooted tree. Though he does not believe it is enough, it is love.
His back aches. His eyes open with a start. His air tastes acrid. His love
Has died and fear wrests his heart. Trees around him scream for aid. All the money
In the world could not replace the thousands of years of peace they spoil with death.
He yells from his tower. A straggler rabbit screws its head to see him. Maybe it saw to forgive
Him after all this time. Rivers from his eyes and gold buried deep inside, the marriage
Between man and Mother Nature could exist. Human’s ruination isn’t nature. It is culture.
They ask him for the love of God, what is he doing up there. He smiles. I can forgive
The contractor for his need of money, but not those whose wants require a marriage
Between negligence and my planet’s death. He pleads. They stare. As is the culture.
Feb 19, 2021
Feb 19, 2021 at 9:00 PM UTC
I listened to an Eagle
speak through a body
that personified the land
he hunted over;
a body stressed, defensive—
fragile.
In his eyes I saw Reorder,
the burning furnaces
of Universal energy,
the power of stars,
and a coming heat.
Nov 11, 2020
Nov 11, 2020 at 9:46 AM UTC
Once, the wild forest
Treaded beneath,
Its vestigial remains laid under my feet,
In pockets of youth that grew out of the ashes.
Once, the wild forest –
I dreamt of it, sleepwalking, moontalking,
I dreamt of walking down that forest floor,
down mountain slopes and crowded ravines,
and curving around the canopy as the birds do.
Oh, the wild forest,
How you sleep and slumber,
How you call to me with all your moss and your green.
Your spiders spinning webs, the old sequoia tree
Who has seen more than I will in a thousand lives.
Once, the wild forest,
Treaded beneath my feet.
How that ancient spirit slumbers,
How the forest sleeps.
Oct 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020 at 1:27 PM UTC
The tide rises up the sand
And it falls back
It seems as if it's unmanned
Counterattack
The tide is inching up now
Then slides away
It climbs up the sand somehow
Never at stay
You see just the constant motion
Never at a rest
The clock of the open ocean
The pull then the crest
It looks the same, yet different
The push the the pull
The flat line of the gradient
A part of the whole
Years later, the water's now higher
Near the steps of your house
Yet you think the sand must be drier
Nothing is under dowse
You a small wall up infront the place
So the tide never hits
Right now, everything's at little haste
Danger, it's at a quits
Later you notice the house is flooding
The tide rolls up and down there
Because the wall could stop only nothing
The house is just sea and air
You think it is smart to move up the hill
"Though the tide climbs, it will fall"
"The tide will not stay up, but the house will"
"When it rises, it will crawl"
Later you here the spinning of the cycle
The water is always around
Now you know it ill never be idle
It goes up, but does it come down?
You think it can be fixed, something you can do
But two homes are there down under
So you blame society, partially true
But it was also your blunder
Finally, at last, you say you can fix it all
But you took too long, it is too late
Because the ocean is rising with little fall
That’s why you hate the one who is late
Because only the mountain is left standing dry
All life is certainly out of whack
You must recede to the only place that is high
The tide rises up the sand and doesn't fall back
Jul 16, 2020
Jul 16, 2020 at 3:01 PM UTC
imagine the trees lined up long and kissing the sky from their big tree families
there in the trees sits a baby bird while he waits for his worm when his father arrives
and the worm wiggles while he remembers gracing the palm of a girl who pulled him out of a watery demise and the rain clouds above kissed the sweet girl’s head
the clouds carried mighty and strong strength to the living and remembrance of the dead
as it poured into rivers and streams and oceans and lakes, the people danced around their source of joyous bounty before they ate
the people loved their bountiful land and learned the language of the trees
so they could share each other’s needs and meet each other in harmony
the people tugged, and their land pulled, a balancing act perfected out of love and serenity
the animals they nurtured and protected with great care so that their circle of peace would exist without need for repair
because the people loved the animals and the animals loved them so they built a great big kingdom for them all to live
May 31, 2020
May 31, 2020 at 10:45 PM UTC
Environmental advice
from a re-purposed hag:
Stop driving cars.
Use a re-usable bag.
Cook dinner at home.
Adopt children, not pets.
Don't use plastic cups.
Don't eat tuna caught with nets.
Don't toss out food--
it becomes methane gas.
Stop shopping for clothes;
give consumerism a pass.
Wear natural fabrics.
Turn off extra lights.
Use solar cells.
Live the days and sleep the nights.
Apr 22, 2020
Apr 22, 2020 at 11:14 AM UTC
We live in troubled times.
The Amazon is burning and yet
no one will answer for these crimes.
Such is the twenty-first century
when the polar ice caps are melting
and there's no one to answer their plea.
Aug 22, 2019
Aug 22, 2019 at 4:41 AM UTC
To one, a noxious **** but to her the building block of civilization.
Her children would starve before trying another.
Eradicated by heedless consumption.
Their future is uncertain, but we can help them along.
One patch at a time.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 6:34 PM UTC
Through a torn visage, I see the flame
One torch, by day, reflects ages hence
That spark, they say, can't be to blame
But many, still, keeps shoulders tense.
Man, sincerely, calls for homeland
But flame to mirror rends reflection bent
When man, in jest, sets sparks to woodland
The forest, torn, its visage now rent.
Oct 8, 2018
Oct 8, 2018 at 7:11 PM UTC
Black is too much light
On a starry night.
He’s the one who lurks
Just on top of the street lamp’s light,
Above gazes that look up at cloudless skies and crescent moons.
Once, black was the comforting underside of a child’s blanket,
The closed-eyed darkness before dreams,
The glorious shadow of the day’s new moon.
Now, he spreads out of his bounds
Pulled out by the sprawl of the eternal lamp light.
And in the place of starlight,
Only darkness rules the night.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 12:42 PM UTC
Six times life has trembled,
At the passing of apocalypse.
Each time,
Three causes were possible:
Heaven,
Hell,
And Earth.
From heaven, asteroids could fall,
And throw up curtains on the world,
Or passing waves of cosmic fire
Would strip away the clouds.
From hell, the waters of Styx
Might slip through terrestrial cracks,
Then rise as gas,
To heat the world as sheets of floating glass.
Between the two:
Animals themselves
Could mediate the flow
Of Earthly poisons.
Of the three apocalypses
Born on Earth,
Their horsemen are:
The progenitors of atmosphere:
Primordial Cyanophyta,
Then Archeopteris, first of the trees,
And inventor of the root,
And last:
Humanity ourselves,
The apes who play with fire.
Apocalypse number one was caused
When Cyanophyta -
Named for the blue-green colour
Possessed by these bacterial worms -
Learned to inhale the Sun.
They breathed in photons,
Filtered through a heavy atmosphere,
And exhaled an ocean of oxygen,
That filled the skies with ******
Then the world was a canvas painted
With a single simple transformation:
The land – which then was only iron –
Was touched, naked
By the breath of blue snakes
And so the wide metallic continent of Ur,
Was racked from coast to coast
With rust.
The world’s iron skin absorbed oxygen like cream;
So that, when the global epithelium
Could take no more,
The new air rose,
And thinned the heights,
And all the gathered warmth of centuries
Escaped into the stars.
Then – an interlude of flame –
Comets fell on reddened ice,
And the planet’s molten core restored
The stratospheric glass,
And the world was hot once more.
Next, Archeopteris:
First of the trees,
As plant life rose to giants,
The primal soil of Gondwana
Was infiltrated
By the evolution of the root.
As vascular limbs drilled down to earth,
They plundered minerals,
From which these new goliaths
Grew fronds,
And then, upon the giants’ deaths,
Their carcasses were ill received
By little lives
Who could not hold their salt.
Then came the chaos of holy war:
Heaven rained and hell spilled up,
And so passed end times three and four,
Up to the kaleidoscope of teeth and claws
That was the age of dinosaurs.
Now the fifth apocalypse
Was Chicxulub:
A worldstorm in a meteor,
So named for baby birds
And the sound of Armageddon:
Xulub!
A knight in igneous armour,
Who killed the dragons of Pangaea.
Now, to the sixth.
As yet far less fatal than the rest,
But the first apocalypse
With eyes and ears,
Who sees the fire its engines breath,
And to its own destructiveness attests.
We began in the trees,
And once the planes were cleared of predators
By mighty Chicxulub,
We moved out onto the grass,
Stood up and freed our hands,
And learned to play with fire.
With it we loosed the energy
In roasted meat,
And poured the new-found resource
Into intellect,
Then wielding sapience,
We humans spread:
The first global superpredator,
We preyed on adults of apex species,
Tamed the world,
Then dreamt of gods
Who placed us at its helm.
We noticed then,
The manifold atomic dots
On the cosmic dice that cast us;
And stuttered in shock.
Our dreams of stewardship
Were dashed on revelations,
That we are the chaos
In the inherent synchrony of dust.
Refusing all potentials
That mirror the errors of our youth,
We let the title ‘sentinel’
Drift from loosened fingertips,
Any now by morbid self-assertion,
We mark ourselves:
The selfish sixth apocalypse.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 8:20 AM UTC
clear as the empty sky
and deeper than the soul of mankind
all
the.
way..
down...
fathoming further than soundwaves
reach their molecular-minuscule hands
into the bluest abyss
below
so far below
but nothing grows
not in holy-bleached waters
baptized in plasma extracted
from our darkest hearts
invisible ink
leaving writing in the sand
walls between
underwater things and we
kings of the continent
shattered like
so much broken glass
ground and tumbled into
beads for our children to
choke on
drowning in empty seas
reaching, never believing
it could happen to us
burning acid dreams
diluted to seem
clear as can be
but we still can't see
the water we drink stinks...
_rotten fish/rotten flesh
polluted streams/polluted seas
waste/wasted_
__death death death
drown drown
down__
going.
going...
g (d) o n e --
_undone by recycled demon-dreams
money for destroying everything
profit on the apocolypse
prophetically pathetic_
(we deserve to drink these sins 'til we drop into the nothing we created)
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 6:15 PM UTC