Lagoons of sadness
Cracked mud. Black trees. Dead grasslands.
Vast lagoons reduced to puddles.
Jungle Babblers scuff beside the pathways.
A few ducks dabble.
But I remember Bharatpur before,
in ‘89 - the wetlands shimmering.
A haunt of Sarus Crane and Painted Stork
where duck counts peaked in millions,
and how a young man stood here once, bedazzled
by dancing cranes and divin...
Thursday 17th December 2015 8:51 pm
Tom's last poem
I’m sheltering in the hole made by a tree
which must have been knocked down sometime today.
Its torn-up roots are angled over me,
keeping off the force-ten gale’s melee.
It’s sixteen weeks now since my gruesome sighting
-a de-horned unicorn with pecked-out eyes
beside a road. The poems I was writing
I printed off and posted for a prize,
and now I rove and doss down in the dark
be...
Wednesday 16th December 2015 12:45 pm
Rhino swansong
Stuff yourselves you rakish apes, carousing,
smashed on greenhouse gases, with your gross
physiques ensconced on barstools turned from trees
that we’d depended on for shade and browsing.
You looked on us as merchandise. A horn.
Mindless hulks. You gunned us down, despising
I rhinos for existing whilst espousing
reverence for the fabled unicorn.
Mince us up! We’d make your quart...
Tuesday 15th December 2015 3:29 pm
Access weekend
iPod plugged, young Victor’s
muttered not a word since my divorce.
Grace is up front. She carps,
“Dad, why d’you drive this Chelsea Tractor?”
Thinks she’s going to save the world of course
since reading a bit of ecology for GCSE.
I hang a left and bark,
“You think I never cared? You’ll see!”
My big Land Cruiser cruises
country lanes through blizzards of thistle-down.
The car-...
Sunday 13th December 2015 10:35 pm
Noah was a modern man
When oceans rose and ice-caps ran
like rain, Old Noah made a plan.
-a cunning plan you’d marvel at
which could’ve saved the world, save that
Noah was a modern man.
His ark’s small size compelled a ban
on lions and tigers. Of that clan
he rescued just his pussy-cat,
when oceans rose.
And when the global flush began,
Old Noah was nature’s daftest fan.
He gave deck-space to ...
Friday 11th December 2015 9:00 pm
Bigfoot
I’ve left my clomping prints on every shore
since Africa was Eden in my youth.
The sand will bear my dent for evermore.
I chewed-up gum-trees with my baby jaw
and bit the dry red heart with my first tooth.
I’ve left my clomping prints on every shore.
Europe roused my growing thirst for war.
Her spirit fired me up, one hundred proof.
The sand will bear my dent for evermore.
...
Thursday 10th December 2015 10:17 am
The frog maker
There’s gift-stalls galore outside the wild and hilly
Monteverde Forest. I buy a saffron
amphibian, sculpted in glass, from the guy that crafts them.
“What species is it?” I ask. His smile goes chilly.
“Is Golden Toad. He no more around.”
He knew them as a boy and recounts the thrilling
jackpot glitter of frogs in the fern-leaf frilly
puddles of April that made their spawning ...
Tuesday 8th December 2015 1:00 pm
END OF HISTORY SALE!
FINAL DAYS! TOTAL CLEARANCE!!
The END OF HISTORY SALE is Now On!!!
Buy this planet! *slightly damaged
When it’s gone it’s gone.
It’s a massive, one-off sale sensation.
Conservation? Don’t be conned!
We’ve got the whole world for exploitation!
When it’s gone it’s gone.
Buy this beautiful hardwood foot-rest!
Timber sourced from the Amazon:
the world’s grea...
Saturday 5th December 2015 8:27 pm
One hundred reasons to plant a tree
Add them up and there must be
one hundred reasons to plant a tree:
The buds of May inlaid with dew. 1
The verdure of the summer leaves. 2
Winter twigs -a filigree 3
against the sky’s gunmetal hue.
Refreshing shade when days are hot, 4
and autumn colours -red and gold. 5
Rot down leaves to make leafmould 6
and mulch it rou...
Wednesday 2nd December 2015 8:57 pm
This bird
Look at this thing, this gruesome thing, this shake-off from the slick.
A car mechanic’s rag, a bag of bile, a doodling hand that drags
a biro clot of crudeness up the beach.
This foul-up. This bird. This broken component of our world.
Then look at that: a flesh gorged kite, circling
while cluster bombs slake a starving nation’s soil.
America’s pin puckered vein, the fight for th...
Tuesday 1st December 2015 12:55 pm
C-R-A-P World Holidays
I’m looking for a holiday.
I’m surfing on the internet.
I want a little getaway,
a place I haven’t been yet.
I hit on this site
-‘s got lovely colour photos,
the prices are all right,
there’s lotsa countries you can go.
It’s called: Culturerelaxationandadventurepackageworld.com. Culturerelaxationandadventurepackageworld.com
That’s C-R-A-P-World dot com.
C-R-A-P
CRAP WORLD! CR...
Tuesday 24th November 2015 12:56 pm
No Warning
Chipper people, old and young,
making the most of the evening sun,
sucking death into their lungs
beneath a high street awning:
Formerly sociable, carousers and clubbers
but outcast now, they croon one another
with raucous gurgles of bronchial slobber
and carcinomas forming.
A message made to catch the eye
is emblazoned on the packet’s side:
“Cigarettes gonna make you die!”
but t...
Saturday 21st November 2015 10:49 am
Fracking Hell!
North Yorkshire was a green and pleasant county
with rolling hills and cricket on the green,
and tourists by the score
would come to see the moors,
historic sites and charming rural scenes.
And when they'd had their fill of nature's bounty
they'd spend their cash at tearooms and hotels.
But then some gas was found
two miles beneath the ground;
now Yorkshire has become a
Frack...
Thursday 19th November 2015 12:58 pm
Speak The Unspeakable
Speak The Unspeakable
Hi, I'm called Tim.
I’m writing this today
to make you all uncomfortable,
to rock your peace of mind.
I'm here to shock you,
here to mock your carbon hungry ways.
Expect no civil platitudes,
no reassuring lies.
I'm here to whack your attitudes,
dynamite your lassitude.
At times I'll be a little rude
- it's all for your own good!
...Monday 16th November 2015 9:56 pm
How To Be A Denier
Claim yourself to be a fount of knowledge.
Claim that every scientist's a liar.
If you've done a course at any college
you can be a certified denier.
Gather up those inconvenient facts
and twist them like they're bendy bits of wire.
Disseminating data needs great tact
but any fool can thrive as a denier.
Lobby for a mega corporation
to push emission targets ever higher.
Easy work, ...
Tuesday 20th October 2015 3:59 pm
Six Degrees
At one degree the western plains
of the US will be starved of rain,
Bankrupted farmers will pack up and flee
as desert restakes its claim.
There'll be no ice cap on the Arctic,
we'll lose the rivers of Kilimanjaro,
and frost that keeps the Alps secure
won't do it any more.
The Barrier Reef will bleach and die,
mountain animals will reach the sky
chasing the cool, and those that can't f...
Saturday 17th October 2015 1:30 pm
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