A GOREY MOMENT

by Lynn White

An agreement by countries to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity,” according to Al Gore, amid wrangling by governments at Cop28. “If there were a decision here to surprise the world to say ‘OK we get it now, we’ve made enough money, we will get on with what needs to be done to give young people a sense of hope again and stop as much as suffering as possible and start the phase-out of fossil fuels,’ it would be one of the most significant events in the history of humanity,” the former US vice-president said. —The Guardian, December 4, 2023

I sometimes have a Gorey moment

wondering what could have been

if the hanging chads

hadn’t hung,

or if Gore had hung up

his gentleman’s suit

and cried “Fraud”

as loudly as Trump was to do.

No hate to fuel 9/11,

no war in Iraq, 

perhaps

the end

of history 

would be nigh

as Fukuyama predicated,

existing divisions becoming

historic

and no new ones

created.

With more Gore less blood

would be spilled.

There would be no Bushfires burning

the sun would be shining 

but without its intensity,

the storms would be still

and the world would be stable.

It was hanging by a thread

and we missed it

missed the chance

to grasp those chads

hanging.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes. Find Lynn on Facebook.

RAPTURE: A SORT OF SONNET

by Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Oregon wildfire, September 6, 2017. Photo source: NBC4i

I often think of immolation when the wind
gets up to no good as is does here
in the mountains and reminds me how wildfires
take California, the gulf rains take Houston,

how puffery takes over Washington with
no particular purpose. I have a gracious
plenty of canned goods set by in case
Al Gore is right when he shows me pictures

of what can only be the End of Days—
fires and drought enough to raise a hallelujah.
I’m glad for the heads up and good on Al.
It’s eschatology no matter what you suppose.

The end will come, if you pick science or religion—
either the Rapture or the god dammed secular flame.

Wendy Taylor Carlisle live in the Ozarks where she #Resists Arkansas politics and politicians. She is the author of two books and five chapbooks.

THE VICTRESS

by James Reiss   

Hillary Clinton by DonkeyHotey

    From Ronald
    to Donald
    politics
    sticks
    to people
    who sweep all                              
away with their tricks.

     The voters
     gun toters
     scope out Reeps
     not Bo-Peeps
     while the Dems
     with ahems                      
eye Al Gore–like veeps.

     But the winner
     a grinner
     more clever
     than ever
     won’t say Trump
     on the stump                                                        
is a dirtbag—never.

     As our prez
     she says  
     she’ll drink in                              
     Abe Lincoln
     standing straight
     while we state                  
Here’s to Hillary Clinton!

Spuyten Duyvil will release James Reiss’s debut novel, When Yellow Leaves, in September, and it will publish his second novel, Façade for a Penny Arcade, in 2017. He is the author of six full-length poetry books, including The Breathers, Ten Thousand Good Mornings, and Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems. His work has appeared in such places as The Atlantic, Esquire, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, Slate, and Virginia Quarterly Review. As Professor Emeritus of English at Miami University, he is Founding Editor of Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio. His surname rhymes with “peace.”

OH, MOTHER EARTH

by Gil Hoy

Boston, MA. Photo by Sarah Levy via National Weather Service, January 28, 2015.

Oh, mother earth,
Is this global warming
or climate change?

Atop this particular Goldilocks
planet, on this particular 22nd
day of February, in this city
this particular hour

: "Frankly, my dear, I don’t
give a damn." I’m freezing
My toes are cold. Where

the hell is the Congress
Did it think the Tennessee
senator's words an inconvenient
truth?  I’ve got ice dams in

my living room  Snow statues
surround my home. Oh, mother
earth,  To lie down on one
of your sizzling beaches.  With no

Headless Coptic Christians
in orange death masks,
Where the hot orange sun

never glistens on freshly

red-tainted steel. My gutters
are filled with frozen things
Sixteen minutes exposure to
life-giving air causes corporeal

damage  Eight feet of God’s
cold stuff already on the ground,
But    Boston

is a tough nut to
crack.

Oh, mother earth,
Americans have hardy souls.
Terrorists, beheadings, cruel wars
Snow cannot stop Us.  Frozen crystals

of atmospheric vapor have their
redeeming qualities, although to this
particular poet, in this particular state

of mind, on this particular Sunday,

they seem few and far between
in the New England tundra.


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction a year ago.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in Third Wednesday, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Potomac and The Zodiac Review.

THANK GOD, IT'S OVER

by Bill Backstrom





Global Warming
now officially over
according to Fox News
See the cold weather
Make fun of Al Gore and
those scientists who
can’t realize it is cold outside

Whew, what a relief to us all
No more problems with glacier melt
Ice caps will be fine,
no more sea-level increases
All over

I was so mistaken to believe
this was just a colder than normal
blast of cold air during a season
called Winter

But Fox is clear, this cold disproves
Global Warming
So I am glad it is over

It is over, right?


Bill Backstrom is a part-time writer in rural Minnesota. He balances a day job and family with some evening writing of poems and short stories.

LAST DAYS: A RANT

by George Held

Between November 9–11, 2013, a large iceberg finally separated from the calving front of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. Scientists first detected a rift in the glacier in October 2011 during flights for NASA’s Operation IceBridge. By July 2013, infrared and radar images indicated that the crack had cut completely across the ice shelf to the southwestern edge. New images now show that Iceberg B-31 is finally moving away from the coast, with open water between the iceberg and the edge of Pine Island Glacier. --NASA

                          The watchword to my remarks [on halting global warming] is urgency.
                                                      –Bill McKibben, Brown Alumni Monthly


How few dare face the fatality we face:
Our electrified, motorized civilization
Pollutes the planet; mammoth enterprises
Fight for scarce resources, including water,
“The new oil.”

Will your grandchildren have a pure drop
To drink unless your children
Can afford to pay hundreds of dollars
Per gallon? Will the poor, driven mad
By thirst, revolt with Kalashnikovs,

IED’s, machetes to seize water supplies
for their families? All that storm water flooding
and drowning Kansas and the Philippines,
Bangladesh and the Jersey Shore
And not a drop to drink.

Scientists report time is short, even Al Gore’s
100 years sound far too optimistic,
Yet what are you doing right now to stem
Our reliance on fossil fuels and advance
Our shift to renewable, sun and wind, power?

Right now what are you doing to save Mother
Earth from the ravages of global warming,
to keep air breathable, water drinkable,
Life livable? Do it, right now, for the last days
Are near. Tomorrow is too late.


An occasional contributor to The New Verse News, George Held occasionally blogs at www.georgeheld.blogspot.com