“Heat Wave II” by Jane Robinson
scorched by the devil
faces melt beneath their beards
strangers unto God
(originally posted June 2013)
Climate
All posts tagged Climate
NOAA Climate Data
inside the sound and the fury
the deafening voice of the storm
mocks the hubris of humans
convinced of their power
to instigate change in
formidable habits of history
driven by forces of nature
inside the sound and the fury
the deafening voice of the storm
drowns the whimpering yelps
of a barely significant species
“Winter Landscape with Skaters” by Hendrick Avercamp
(Regarding Hendrick Avercamp)
bird’s eye view
a winter milieu
little ice age
in freeze-frame
of frolic and
low country
leisure adapted
to landscapes
persistent with ice
winter gray
shortened days
along frozen canals
bustling lively with
ruddy-cheeked
skaters abroad
horsedrawn sleighs
cutting paths
between dreams
and desires
each canvas a
cherished memento
of Nederland
pride and vitality
“Antarctic Painting 23” by Dafila Scott
majestic angularities
jagged clean and pristine
antiseptic whiteness
paints prominent peaks
blue virginal shadows
infer ancient clefts
undercutting high glacial
primordial ridges
no man ever climbed
aurora australis
spectacular spectra
electrified ethers
in pulsating waves
emblazon the heavens
sharp thunder cracks stab
sheer vertical slabs
calve loose with a roar
mammoth slices of ice
plunging into the sea
giving shuddering echoes
resurfacing masses
emerge hissing groans
unsteadily heaving
chaotic collisions
debriding deformities
scraping and knocking
until they attain
a transient settle
finding odd fluid plumb
gargantuan monoliths
now floating reborn
timelessness seeps
from crystalline crags
its dominance speaks
with cold condescension
man’s prowess too lean
to succeed ambivalence
motives too mean
and powers pathetic
to reckon with nature
beyond his inconsequence
From my book Range of Motion
Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert
Photo from wallpaperseek.com
rain shadow
basin and range
dryly edged
by the joshua
sunken dead
valley aflame
with conquistador
ghosts miners
burned by
their fevers
rude settlements
brief in their
life left to ruin
abandoned amid
yellow creosote
tendrils of cholla
forbidding globes
barrel-barbed
stab at the heat
for the least
trace of moisture
this climate
extreme with
geography scorched
sparse and hostile
yet somehow
possessed of a
terrible beauty that
captivates spirits
who worship a
searing adventure
“Mist Over Black Rocks”
Photo from pinterest.com
fog has a sound
if you listen
droplets burst
low to ground
on atomized air
the small noise
of conflict
encounters of cold
vying warmth
for supremacy
settling their hash
moistly wrestling
swirled in their
clinches the tails
of their veils
smudge the moon
till agreement
finds voice in
thin whispering
vapors of truce
just in time for the
yawning of dawn
before boulders
borrow the sun
Moroccan Brazier
Photo from hollywoodbollywood.co.in
inhospitable tropics
melt the good blood
into watery wine
wilting spirit that
sweltering victim of
obstinate suns
heat unhinges men
limbs fall from torsos
in puddles of
purposeless flesh
where ideas find
no provident purchase
the mind wants for
briskly chilled chambers
where building and
tending a careful laid
firewood brazier
will introduce warmth
with distinction
that radiates rather
than absorbing
definitions of self
a most personal shape
filling spaces that
all the world ever and
always will recognize
take to its memory
name it uniquely
appreciate all its
thoughts gelid with
rational lucid assertions
cool climate conducive
to reason instead
of deformative
uncontrolled
free-burn of
fire-pit passions
(I am no environmentalist, but I’m reblogging this older item in acknowledgment of Earth Day. It’s the closest I come to environmentalist sentiments.)
majestic angularities
jagged clean and pristine
antiseptic whiteness
paints prominent peaks
blue virginal shadows
infer ancient clefts
undercutting high glacial
primordial ridges
no man ever climbed
aurora australis
spectacular spectra
electrified ethers
in pulsating waves
emblazon the heavens
sharp thunder cracks stab
sheer vertical slabs
calve loose with a roar
mammoth slices of ice
plunging into the sea
giving shuddering echoes
resurfacing masses
emerge hissing groans
unsteadily heaving
chaotic collisions
debriding deformities
scraping and knocking
until they attain
a transient settle
finding odd fluid plumb
gargantuan monoliths
now floating reborn
timelessness seeps
from crystalline crags
its dominance speaks
with cold condescension
man’s prowess too lean
to succeed ambivalence
motives too mean
and powers pathetic
to reckon with nature
beyond his inconsequence
From my book Range of Motion
My conscience can no longer stand
The guilt that accrues to my hand
For the harm I am doing the land
On a scale detrimentally grand
It seems greenhouse gases I make
With each breath that I can’t help but take
So, it’s me causing climate to bake
Careless, even, of my children’s sake
Every exhale spews out CO2
Every belch and burp shoots it out, too
I confess I don’t know what to do
Short of holding my breath till I’m blue
There’s methane in each of my farts
Upon dying my rank rotten parts
Will earn me more daggers and darts
Mean activists shoot from green hearts
And then, more than once, I’ve been told
When I speak I am, rather than cold,
Full of hot air that’s pungently bold
And it worsens the more I grow old
My conscience can no longer stand
The guilt that accrues to my hand
For the harm I am doing the land
So, I wonder if I should be banned
elemental forces
release aeons of tension
in the wheel of a storm
Poesy plus Polemics 