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Tom McCone Dec 2012
it took that walk home (the same three hours as usual) one last time, or at least the promise of, to realize, maybe admit that there's no good reason any longer to pretend to know what idle thoughts (those ones that had been left to mull for the last three months, at a minimum) had or have to do with reality, if they've even stayed remotely consistent or if it's the predictable chaos of daisy petals, tiny and pure clean as they are, dropping sequences of murmurs through wound car windows or heartfelt sunrises or collapsing into the mess of sorrow in the library for the fourth time that week, the flash of peripheral reflections across the ceiling and slowly forgetting someone else- she'd said "don't ******* off, this time...", but all these stories blur to blue clouds in these porcelain hands, wondering why the same circumstances pass with all those skewlined angles on the surface of this world, distinction-drained lovers, and it all culminates with that **** centre point: the human, half in covers, could god have built him so wrong? (or does all will lead to the same end, am I fated in freedom to such fallacy?) I could forget everything, you know. guess I'm just waiting for a reason to.
What is this enigma up ahead?
A chasm of clear blue in a mountain of black?
White streamlines fragment the space,
A complex gold seeps around its edges,
Creeping out in tendrils.
A rock-pool amidst a lava-flow.
A beginning, life
Rising from bed and gradually nudging
Its blanket past wriggling toes.

*The rain begins to lighten.
Julian Jul 2022
he Evergreen Deal (A Solution to Climate Change)
Parlor Talk: The Evergreen Deal
so how do we REALISTICALLY  tackle the behemoths of careworn luxuries inoculated by degrees of wavy insouciant myopia that is too heavily invested in insuperable aristocratic prerogative rather than far-sighted eleemosynary altruism carved indelibly into the priorities of a growing desperation among world powers to heal our society with pragmatism rather than quixotic charades of intensive mobilization beyond the snatches of rigorous logic that they often neglect poorly conserved energy? We do it by taking steps to limit our consumption of materials that contribute to pollution, incentivize recycling for all appliances and in many cases plan biodegradable packaging rather than the dross of the antiquated strategies of disposal but this is obviously a phased rather than immediate solution. Absolutely central to this bipartisan proposal is that we should facilitate the adoption of more aggressive enlistment of the smart prerogative of adopting electric vehicles and relying more heavily on Hybrid Cars and what better way to do this than be ensuring that the limited range of pure galvanized altruism can be met with an infrastructure that ensures that a vast majority of gas stations punctuated in urban necessity, rural rarity and suburban commonplace greatly sanctions the prerogative of an environmental conscience to swim in the luxury of fully-enabled cross-continent travel with a considerable marginal decrease of fossil fuel footprints. We should not also stoop to the economics of purebred Fossil Fuel cartels that have a vested interest in forestalling advanced leaps in Hydrogen Fuel and the enlarged traction of electric power that discounts the environmental hinderbaggle rather than enthuses the already fickle demand which thrives in undeveloped nations that America, Canada and Europe can find quicker ways to expedite the adoption of revolutionary technologies forestalled by venality.  We should also lean on renewable energy with moderate economic sanctions that deregulate the arena of clean energy with tax incentives and shift the burden away from fossil fuel consumption by using complex econometric contingency analysis and deft marketing strategies that provide advantage to communities that rely on clean energy with free market emphasis. We should also hold fair and equitable talks about the proportional distribution of pollution and provide recourse and almsgiving for countries because of economic laxities rely on fossil fuels too heavily that need international assistance. We should also limit our showers to 5-7 minutes a day to conserve water and avoid baths whenever possible. It should be no surprise to anyone that people like Elon Musk (an Andrew Yang Democrat) are indebted to the powerful barnstorm of the ‘Kanye West’ visionaries that recognize the integral need for a bipartisan stroke of compromise that streamlines a heavily subsidized industrial rampage that proselytizes the advances in electric vehicles to find more universal pragmatic application. The wiredrawn quixotic prerogatives of the benumbed aboriginal Green New Deal which became a walking Nielsen test to field the discernment of the people that jump without conscientious refrains or the rigmarole of a growing environmental congress is telling in its original reception among the United States Senate. “In the 116th United States Congress, it is a pair of resolutions, House Resolution 109[8] and S. Res. 59, sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA). On March 25, 2019, Markey's resolution failed to advance in the U.S. Senate in a margin of 0–57, with most Senate Democrats voting "present" in protest of an early vote called by Republicans It is clear that the environmental scourge that is the watershed of such decisive age in an epoch of demassified balkanization deserves a worthy emulation of the bipartisan ideals that harmonize the exigent efforts of reform without plastering the pretense of excessively gouged ******* that is a faltering malice of rudimentary extremism rejected by the vast majority of the discerning.
Greta Thunberg is admirable but the quixotic “Green New Deal” is too drastic for our economy to bear and it will create duress and potentially tank the economy because it is drastically overweight and an encumbrance on relatively free properly micromanaged and macromanaged economies that fuel speculative booms and provide bonanzas for inventive ingenuity in the arena of conservation science. We need geotechnic optimization on a global scale that asks of the people but does not mandate them to use providence and husbandry without asseverating ridiculous ploys to curb necessities like air travel and agricultural waste from cows like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggests. We should create infrastructure projects but ensure that they mobilize proliferative on a moderate scale (that doesn’t ruin the private sector or indebt our nation too much with a debt burden growth) rather than boondoggles of stagnation that provide decent wages but only marginal gains in our strategic leverage to mobilize our resources with celerity tact and central command. We should consider multilateral agreements with the world that address these issues with dedicated science at the forefront of the vanguard propagating renewable energy and, in some cases providing means for nuclear power in areas that are not seismically vulnerable and well-contained. Nevertheless my heavy suspicion is that Donald Trump (in a widely jeered move misunderstood by many but obvious to the delegated diplomats more privy to the tertiary aims and secondary burdens lopsided against United States commitment despite the fact that the majority of the rambunctious ramshackle pollution is propitiated in a benumbed negligence among countries that should find more reasons to be obligated to a fairer agreement that doesn’t shortchange the United States) I firmly believe Trump withdrew because he realized a global problem was being levied with intolerable onerous burdens of an extremely lopsided bureaucratic mismanagement of a problem that needs to be shifted to many countries with a greater fairness in shared moral duty to carve a prosperous environmentally-centered priority.
The future starts here with us right now recognizing that we need to be smart but not hasty in development of deliberatively expedient by gradually phased geotechnically sound architecture and greenhouse farming in urban regions that can create urban forests for both verdure and pulchritude. Nevertheless because of corporate demands there should be zero impetuous mandates placed on any major corporations, but minor subsidies should be provided to encourage global outcomes. We will be greatly enhanced if to the Amazon and Africa (which needs some leveraged aid) to provide the leverage necessary to combat the aleatory vagaries of conflagration by creating fleets of airplanes armed with powerful agents of extinguishing chemicals that don’t endanger the topsoil even though most are proven innocuous.
The best way to secure a clinched future is to prevent unwieldy economic factures that obvolute the problem by departing too drastically from a free market model that emphasizes designing non-ergonomic structural models for architecture and infrastructure and to ensure that the process of recycling is a net decrease in emissions by streamlining the recycling process over the course of the next four to eight years. Heavy polluters and chemical factories need stricter oversight especially in their reckless pollution of the worlds oceans and rivers and the sanitation system needs a decades-long gradate overhaul so that waste matter doesn’t contaminate the biosphere to the ultimate tragedy of degradation and rancid squalor. Ultimately CFCs are a big menace and certain chemicals contribute more heavily to ozone depletion which fuels the iterative cycles of deglaciation. Another necessity is that we mandate all major geographically distributed gas stations provide electric recharging stations so that electric cross-country car travel is more feasible incentivizing electric cars to reduce emissions. We should also create infrastructure projects in California to create high-speed rail by 2030 so that there is less car-bound cabotage on the west coast which is heavily overpopulated and profligate in their ostentation of rugged individualistic twinges that celebrate bulk and garnish the varnish of luxury but falter in their commitment to a beatific world. This will create needed jobs for the growing population of California and benefit everyone by reducing the air travel burden for local flights. We also must be wary of solvents and aerosols which damage the integrity of atmospheric conditions that could aggravate the greenhouse effect disproportionately for even small-time polluters and this problem is easier to tackle than the global imperative for expedited solutions to mobilize the economy in an efficient way without being too quixotic. Remember, however, some countries in Asia like India need more incentives to stop using fossil fuels because 14 out of the top 15 most polluted cities in the world are in India and their population boom could spell a disaster unless we provide diplomatic synergistic agreements to stem the tide or reckless over-pollution in urban mega cities in developing nations. Once we realize that the United States is not the only problematic nation in the climate change frenzy, we will realize that we need a global quorum to advise synergistic solutions without resorting to excessive taxation. Ultimately one of the best ways to address this problem is to provide incentives for India which is already a nuclear nation to start building nuclear power plants in a phased solution that can be abetted by reducing tariffs and macroeconomic incentives for a quick solution rather than a protracted endangerment of the climate. China is already working diligently to solve this problem, but more attention is needed in some megapolises in China to work for climate solutions with the rest of the world. Some suggest a Carbon Tax, but I am somewhat opposed to the idea unless it is managed carefully and not greedily by tumescent governments looking for a quick bonanza. Ultimately the easiest way to fix the climate crisis is to be very careful about chemical disposal and ensure that aerosols are widely contained with proper ventilation systems that are occluded from affecting atmospheric conditions. This can be done in a stepwise and methodical manner that does not put a burden on the chemical industry but rewards them for slightly stricter standards gradually evolving into sustainable solutions. We don’t need to mandate every gas station to have electric charging but at intermittent geographical intervals there is a necessity to have electric charging stations because they become redundant in urban areas while incentivizing electric and hybrid cars. The United States is not the main contributor to climate change and we can’t eliminate all emissions especially when they are vital to economic security, but these other measures will ensure a better future. Obviously the fossil fuel juggernaut is opposed to many of these reforms but because we exist in a world of sad conveniences that exasperate the mercurial conditions of a world endangered by the potential 22nd century mass migration of those from Bangladesh and the American South we must view some statistics with skepticism while becoming fully invested to prevent a Wall-E world because pollution is not merely a predicate of environmental debauchery but a needed imperative of biodegradable solutions and streamlined recycling that doesn’t incur such heavy energy costs in the rigmaroles of its process. Obviously partisan Republicans worry about Coal Power but such a marginal plucky insistence upon West Virginia in the need to pander shouldn’t outweigh a more global mission to educate the global populations that need to become more conscientious with an expansive conscience that many developing world mistakes require subsidized (potentially to safer degrees that aren’t an excessive drainage) solutions so that bipartisan sheen of a syncretic reform achieves a mobilized objective to restrain the scourge of pollution and inculcate (to the extent that exasperated sophistries designed to instill imperative lies of looming immediacy) the world to become more respectful of their Carbon Footprints. The easiest solutions to heal lie in chemical waste because over time these elements do not degrade and they infiltrate the Ozone Layer and are easier to phase out. The Evergreen Deal tackles many exigent problems and is not riddled by insufficient extremism but moderate bipartisan appeal. In addition we should mobilize fire brigades in every Western European country yet inured to sweltering heat that they might be better outfitted. We should abandon plastic bags and make the world geotechnic in biodegradable solutions
Holly Parker Apr 2018
The words collect
Slithering over my face
Making a mask to fall behind, to hide
Creating a wall of lies and secrets as my disguise.
Red. Black. Silver. Streamlines down my body
Embracing me into an unknown.
I'm throbbing faster. And quicker.
Words slip out of my mouth like ghosts.
Hands move and twist
Contort the darkness to come.
Holler. Yell, stamp. Scream.
Vision mists and motions rise.
Ghosts of the past!
Ghosts of the future!
Cover me with the truth.
I am not your friend.
Eat my words and rise.
I am your king.
I am the native ghost!
Kristen Hain Feb 2017
My head has become a very hard place to survive in
It is not a wasteland, no,
It does often grow these flowers
But acidic waste does sometimes
Drip in the rivers and streamlines
Of thoughts, floating carelessness
Down canals and connecting neurons
Under bridges that young couples walk over
And the older ones stop to peer to
It oozes bright yellow
Staining the rocks and sand
And bird’s winged-tips
Dying the world a mess of
Fluorescent greens and blues
Illuminating the cloudiest of days
The characters of my brain
Enjoy the toxicity
Jump in the pools formed from acid rain
Raise their faces to the red burned sky
And let each drop absorb into their skin
I do not know why my head has become
An expert on chemical excesses
It is survivable if you let it all
Soak in
Tom Atkins Dec 2020
You sip your coffee.
You take a bite of the sausage gravy, thick and salty.

The music playing in the diner is strange.
If music could be danish modern, this would be it,
streamlines and bleached, oddly pure,
in a language you cannot understand and yet somehow, do.

In a flash you are young and old,
moments of the journey like a roller coaster,
a madman’s collage with tunes.

And the words. Like a bad flashback scene, they come,
a B movie, or worse, lurid and darkly humorous,
other people’s words, each one a memory and a trigger,
leading to another and yet another.

Were I not so vibrant, it would be an end of life montage,
and you sit sipping, taking it all in, aware that no matter what happens
from here on out, you have survived the wreckages,
landing like a cat thrown out the window
so often you almost laugh when you fly,
knowing somehow, your feet are awaiting you below.

— The End —