“Global Harming” . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“This sweet virginal primitive land will metaphorically breathe a sigh of relief — like a whisper of wind–when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy, anxious, brooding consciousness of man.”
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abby

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BEFORE THE ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, A THANK YOU

Thanks for waiting patiently and courteously for this post to go up. I have returned to the world of the living after health complications and another protracted stay at Stanford Hospital (also know in my family as The Stanford B & B).  I am grateful for your understanding and for the concern, intelligence, and perseverance of my cadre of doctors and other professionals at Stanford. Though there has been a precipitous decline in my lung function and I am completely homebound now, there is some potential for improvement and certainly my quality of life is now much improved over what it has been since last April.  I pray everyone everywhere might have access to such extraordinary care. Universal access to state-of-the-art medicine is compassionate and humane, a must and a right. It’s something for which it is worth fighting.

“The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is debate on the interpretation and application of the right to health due to considerations such as how health is defined, what minimum entitlements are encompassed in a right to health, and which institutions are responsible for ensuring a right to health.” MORE [Wikipedia]

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You’ll be delighted with this passionate outpouring in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Monster’s Rose, January 16, 2019. This collection is courtesy of: Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do,  Irene Emanuel, Debbie Felio (Deb y Felio), Jen Goldie, Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Gayle Walters Rose, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Be inspired, motivated, angry, filled with awe ….

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suss stain

suss: perceive
stain: a blemish
rape: maliciously thieve
muck: a substance phlegmish

a nest befouled
unauked unowled
undodoed just a smidgen
unpassengered of pigeon

we suss the stain but soon make more
and drop the stools of detriment
and sculpt and knob the hellgate door
with manufactured excrement

© 2019, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay. Image and Text)

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A Mobile

is in the shape
of small graves
for children
who mine the precious
metal inside
that make it work
and I look
Into the screen
to stay connected
but do not see
their gritted lives
as they haul
the valuable
out of the hole
and the world
has never been
so connected
by the small grave
I carry in my pocket.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

This Brash and Burn

1. To Burn Brash

Sat back barked.
Small insects crawl
down tree stretched above
inhabit hair
worn gloves
bruised brashed branches

Breathe wet peat,
damp soil, leaf decay,
autumn dead leaf dance,
spring bluebell wend
summer sacred stainglass
canopy sunshaft play
winter heavesnow clear paths

Sat back barked
canopy leaf horizon
floats shimmers

Calm

2. Our Wombwell Boxed

Lift small boxes wooden lid smell
broadleaved woodland
before rail/road
Press plastic button hear
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Woodpeckers,
before rail/road.

Press plastic button watch
Videowalk ancient Beech, Oak, Birch
before rail/road.

Electronic ringtone.

We would like to advise all visitors
The museum is closing soon.
Please exit through main door.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Please come again.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Plastic

“Do you want a carrier bag, sir?”
“I friggin don’t. Clog up the seas

with plastic all over. Even in fishes,
birds and what not. It’s all our fault.

Even down to microscopic. Seeps
Into food we eat I bet. Plastic folk

poisoning friggin world we live in.
No, I’ve got my own bags thankyou.

I won’t be one that kills the friggin world.
Here can you put them in here, lad?”

From Paul’s new collection”Please Take Change”, Cyberwit.net, 2018

© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

• Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE
• Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE
• More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

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Prelude to Destruction

Bach’s Prelude in C Major is a well-known piano piece that is about two minutes long. Close your eyes while you listen to it and imagine a stream gently flowing over rocks as it meanders through green forest. Now imagine 130,000 barrels of oil being dumped in that stream. What will happen to the forest and the critters living there?

Now picture the wind whispering over a meadow blanketed with flowers still bright with color despite the new moon. And now a bulldozer comes to move 5000 tons of garbage onto the meadow including plastic that will take a millennia to decompose. How do the colors and aroma of landfill compete with that of wildflowers?

Or listen to the music and let your mind wander over the ocean, the warm sun highlighting the majesty of humpback whales breaching the surface. Now heat trapped by greenhouses causes 600,000 tons of ice to melt in Antarctica raising temperatures that could kill 400 plant and animal species in a year. Would seeing the dead carcasses of whales and other see creatures be as majestic?

Two minutes, the length of a prelude whose repetitious melody can remind us of the repeated wastefulness and mindless consumption we daily engage in that will lead to the destruction of this planet we call home.

Two minutes to kill

The only world that we know

Time to change the song

This (very loosely defined) Haibun was written for Jamie’s first Wednesday Writing Prompt of 2019 focused on the theme of the environment. I also included the last Tuesday Writing Prompt from Devereaux and Beth Amanda at the Go Dog Go Cafe. Their request was to include the words new moon, minutes and prelude in a poem. It definitely took me more than 10-15 minutes to write this Haibun!

The facts embedded in this poem come from this article about things that happen around the world in a minute. I doubled the numbers to match the two minutes of the prelude (I hope I did the math correct!). Conservation and protection of our environment is a cause my family and I are passionate about. We recycle and are trying to compost. We limit our plastic use – the kids have even given up straws! Just two minutes of a small change to your daily habits can make a difference! You can save the world with reusable bags as your cape!

©️2019, words and photo, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

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Tell the World

Let it be known

that the Rhinoceros is a magnificent beast;

a relic from an age of legends.

Let it be known

that this does not make them magical

but rather makes them precious.

Let it be known

that their horns are not medicinal

but a property that belongs only to the Rhino.

Let it be known

that horn powder is just powder

and does not provide a solution to the ills of man.

Let it be known

that horn contents do not hold the answers

to Mans’ immortality.

Let it be known

that some people are too stupid and vain

to know that their ignorance is wiping out a species.

Let it be known

that the horn is merely an adornment

of one of the most iconic animals in Africa,

PLEASE, LET IT BE.

© 2018, Irene Emanuel

Earth Walk

Earth walk to

hear Earth talk.

Listen to the birds

listen to the trees

listen to the fish

listen to the seas.

Listen to the hills

listen to the stones

listen to the grass

listen to the groans

of dying species

crying lands

hungry people

with bony hands

powered money

buying shame

removing nature

just for gain.

listen to the whispers

listen to the pain

listen to the wise ones

and don’t destroy again.

This Earth is all,

there is no more,

don’t kill its gifts

with blood and gore,

When Earth is dead,

so are we.

© 2019, Irene Emanuel

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Global Harming

we’re crossing the desert in sandals
across new Antarctica
camels follow with our packs
it feels like southern Florida

before the ocean rose and drowned
the people near the shore
and then receded sixty miles
creating quite a lore

to be recited by old timers
beginning with remember when
there was water in these here parts
now there’s sand up to our shins

we’d swim and fish—those were the days
they’d tell the children listening
to magical times when people were wet
coming from deep water glistening

It’s just a fairy tale, we know
the children refuse to believe it
like so many of us long ago
hearing the global warning bit

slow but sure the changes came
spring slush replaced the snow
low temps in seventies everywhere
and gale winds would always blow

but we were brave and kept our cars
kept digging for petroleum
concern belonged to the next generation
never mind the panic symposium

so here we are just like they said
dry and hot as old Florida
in our sandals with our camels
crossing the new Antarctica.

© 2019, Deb y Felio (The Journey Begins)

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A Lullaby of Fear

Oh, Mother Earth,
The children cried,
Please stay to hear
our lullaby.

Oh, Mother Earth
Think not
that they
decry your hopes,
Your loves
and dreams,
For they are
But a pawn
And die from
Greater things,

“like why the sea
Is boiling hot
And whether pigs
have wings”

The sky
is fraught with
other things,
guns are bought
And red would bring,
The joyless sound
Of endless things
To end our days
Of everything.

Oh My dear
It is quite clear,
Why you should hear
The child’s cry,

“a lullaby of fear”.

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie – Poetry and Short Stories)

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False Light

The moon scatters the light it has stolen
out of vanity, cycling round us in
its futile effulgence. Earthworms harvest
the autumn’s leaves, enriching the crust, thin
below the dwindling branches where we sit
and watch the axes hew the trunk and slash.

© 2019, Frank McMahan

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.this arid land.

water flows down this valley. wind blows

round our houses.i have said it before.yet

seems that those who should know better,

talk of gods, may judge the people .

live in remote places.

between mountain, sea. the land becomes

dry.

this arid land.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher 

.seeds for the future.

have you collected seeds of many years packed labelled dated

do you have them now in boxes

a gift from those who love

they will bring work joy an independent air

profound gifts

for those who care

have you
leaned by the window cold

thought that if snow falls it may land

if trees grow it may be up

if we all plant seeds they may be food

kindness

deserves praise yet should come as natural

there may be too many additives these day

not enough honesty grown

she said i should have something new in the greenhouse.

i have

i said, and thought of you

who

planted the seeds

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.Earth 8211.

he asked me what i missed, i told him.

he suggests we look after the environment.

eat carefully, mind our ways.

i will.

these are the falling days.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
• Sonja on Twitter
• sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
• Sonja’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.

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Seaward

I hear your voices
calling from your home
in the aquatic depths,
where seas undulate
in constant motion
steered by the moon.

My soul dives and
spins within your
hearts. I merge
in your silence
and rejoice in
the gift
that is the ocean.

O Wise Whale
your tears mix
with countless
others as you
survey the
destruction of
your briny birthplace.

O Great Reef
dwelling place
and protector
for so many,
your quiet
decline has not
gone unnoticed.

Stars gaze with
compassion and
patience hoping
that something
will shift and turn
the tides.

Gales whip along
the waves, pick up
the disquiet and
carry it to shore.

The Trees shudder
and the news
ricochets off the
mountains and
circles the globe.

© 2019, Gayle Walters Rose (Bodhirose)

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Come Create Anew

  Banni Gala   Islamabad.                         Photo Courtesy CER (Regd 2004)  © 2019

Thin grown ever green
lusciously fully nutritious
dancing away to soundless
sacred sweet symphonies،
swaying sideways in
obedience to invisible
conducting synchronized
companies,
offering soft cool
overtures to burning soles
of injured souls,enriching
meadows to the core,
resistingly  accepting, nibbling
advances of loving mammal
herbivores;

deserted desert dunes,
dream to possess, as
slithering snakes
undulatingly weave
their colors in the sand,
dreading the deadly, Peregrine.

Wave  of green expanses,
sight asking for journeys,as
pearly high peaks call – and
silvery streams flow to touch
the seas, on way caress
to nourish plants and trees.

Oh Gaea’ Listen Look’
Chaos has returned with
dark confusing void
gripping tearing ruining,
rivers  mountains and seas,
forests metamorphosed to
plains, painful is the spirit’

Changes in the Planet are
changing mosquito genes
malaria fills fear, Oh Gaea’
Hear Gaea can you again,

Come to Create anew  ?

یہ  کس   نے   

جھومتا   گیت   گاتا  لہلہاتا   ناچتا  ھوا  سبزا
پکرا   پکار  کر  سسک     کر فریاد  کرتا ھے

یہ سر سبز  لہلہاتے کھیت  روند  ڈالے   کس نے
یہ   چاندی  جیسے جھرنے  میلے کیے کس نے

   ان سنی دھنوں، ان  دیکھے موسیقاروں کے
اشاروں   پہ بجتے سروں کو خاموش کیا کس 

کون   بتاےؑ   گا اب  یہ  تباہی  مچایؑ   کس  نے
 آج      تک     سچی    گواہی   دی کس  نے

تپتی  ریت  مین   سانپ  رنگ   بدلتے چھپتے
چوٹیوں  پہ  شاہیں   کا بسیرا دیکھا  کس نے

یہ زمین  ہی پہاڑ ہی جھومتے کھیت ہی سمندر
ٓاؑواز  دیتے ھیں  چلو  سفر  پے دیکھو  پیاری قدرت

مگر   بدلتے    نظارے    یہ  کٹتے پہاڑ  خشک دریا
جلتے جنگل ، روح  کو  تکلیف    دی  ھے  کس نے  

ملیرےؑ کے مچھر   لوگون کہ ڈراتے پھر رھے ھیں
ملیریا اور مچھر   ملک  سے اب تک بھگاےؑ  کس نے

        اے قدرت نیؑ  زمین بنے  سنورے   گی  کیا پھر سے
تباہ ھو چکی ھے ،پھر سے بنانے کا وعدہ  کیا ، کس نے؟

© 2019, poem in English and Urdu, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

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The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton