by Frank Joussen
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| Tweet via “Thousands hit German streets to protest coal mine expansion” in TRTWorld, January 14, 2022 |
keep it in the ground a famous activist from Sweden
says about Luetzerath’s now world infamous coal
while this monster of a word this monster of a machine
the gigantic bucket wheel excavator
is rearing its dragon head
over the edge of its devilishly long and deep pit
the monster’s casting a lasting shadow
over the children of the end game for the climate
who are risking life and limb
not to mention imminent law enforcement
in a useless attempt to stop the co2 madness
of a so-called green government
of course, they could leave
the coal in the ground
but the bucket wheel excavator
would have to go to another place
and can you imagine the costs
of turning this beast of a vehicle around?
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| In a matter of days this past week, more than 1,000 police officers cleared out the hundreds of climate activists who had sworn to protect the small village, once home to 90 people but no church, which was scheduled to be razed as part of a sprawling open-pit coal mine in western Germany. —The New York Times, January 15, 2023. Photo: A bucket-wheel excavator mines for coal at the Garzweiler coal mine near Luetzerath on November 2, 2022. CREDIT: Michael Probst / AP via The Atlantic. |
Editor’s Note: The New Verse News published Frank Joussen’s “No Last Homely House in Luetzerath” on November 4, 2021.
Frank Joussen is a German teacher and writer, peace and one world activist. His publications include two selections of his poetry. He has co-edited two international anthologies of poetry/fiction in India and one of short stories in Germany. His poems and short stories have also been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies in India, Australia, G.B., the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the U.S.A., Canada, China, Thailand and Japan; some of them have been translated into German, Romanian, Hindi and Chinese.