Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

OH, MALCONTENT CHANGING CLIMATE

by Earl J. Wilcox




All the great ones say something about it.
Poets speak of climate because it’s nearby
While they write or sleep or laugh, weep.
Snow, rain, sunshine, hail—even blustery
Tornadoes may flourish in dramatic lines.
In thrall of climate change—like poems—
our weather evolves not just by seasons
but by an hour or day, from lovely, cum
placid, toward splendid feverish havoc.
Myopic romantic writers—like climate
Naysayers-- still focus on sunshine
And blue skies, cloudless balmy days,
Like times we cherish in spring or summer.
It seems fair and realistic to believe
our climate hunches, predictions, history,
great climate-driven works of art and literature
will forever evolve as human cycles change
perhaps subdue even poets, the last and most
Changeless chroniclers of life on this planet
Await nature’s next course, whither we go.


Earl Wilcox awaits nature's next course in South Carolina.