by Steven Croft
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| Why climate ‘doomers’ are replacing climate ‘deniers’: How U.N. reports and confusing headlines created a generation of people who believe climate change can’t be stopped. —The Washington Post, March 24, 2023 |
"If I am mad, it is mercy!" —H.P. Lovecraft, The Temple
Boundary between our world and the speculatively doomed
one finally dissolved, we all just sing with AC/DC now
as the world burns, as we inherit the hurricane winds
A man in Kentucky carries a mattress on his head, wades
from his flooded house to dry ground, collapses on it
in despair, lights a cigarette and laughs at all his/our ruin
A few years ago, just the faraway Seychelles were disappearing
Now, shunning sedate natural laws, future ghosts enter our minds—
"Oh, our prophetic souls!"—telling us all is irreversibly rotten
It's not like we were never warned—but, now, the world
of Soylent Green—2022—a year ago, if all that's left is to fail,
we've got catchin' up to do!
Now, loud muffler-rumble pride of our gloriously gas-powered,
world-castrating civilization as it races us all to the fiery oblivion
of Satan's eternally beckoning ancient mouth—sons of perdition!
Now, Paris Accords ripped into victory lap confetti for those
who can make it first to this perverse ever after—What of
those who still cling to hope in the sweat-throes of our mania:
Soon, as Seychelles-erasure goes nuclear, our heads spinning
faster than the earth some already orbit—the lucky few—even
the hopeful will cling to their rockets like Afghans fleeing Taliban
Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. He is the author of New World Poems (Alien Buddha Press, 2020). His poems have appeared in Willawaw Journal, San Pedro River Review, The New Verse News, North of Oxford, Anti-Heroin Chic, Soul-Lit, and other places, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
