HEAT WAVE

by Richard Schiffman

Heat Wave painting by Ralph White

If sweat were gold, I’ve lost millions. 

If hell were cold, I’d be in heaven.

If heat were meat, I’d feed the world.

If hot were smart, this day’s a bloody genius.

Robin redbreasts with lolling tongues 

are begging for the spare change of rain. 

Today even the fire ants are panting like puppies. 

The dog days of summer, they whimper, they drool.

Pigeons in heat spontaneously combusting,

bridges diving like ducks into rivers, 

green leaves boiling and bubbling from trees, 

trees hawking their shade to the highest bidder.

Still, there is something in me that loves a flame. 

That burns baby burns complacency’s ghetto.

Whose body is grease for its very own pyre.

Whose soul is on fire like a summer in Georgia.

Some seasons are mild, some seasons are fiery

If June kissed the moon, the moon would go loony.

If July were a stud, every mare would come screaming.

When mid-August simmers, the whole world is soup. 

Today only mad dogs and Englishmen are strolling.

And possibly some poets and wandering monks.

Fervid souls, assorted fools. We know who we are.

We know what we’re up to.

Richard Schiffman, based in New York City, is an environmental reporter, poet, and author of two biographies. His poems have appeared on the BBC and on NPR as well as in the Alaska Quarterly, the New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.

VLAD THE BAD

by Richard Schiffman

His most execrable excellency,

Czar Vlad the Bad, 

a pint-sized Napoleon wannabe in a Gucci suit

decreed ten thousand widows,

and so they were before the cock crowed twice, 

on the morning he deemed cancelled

in the city he called dust.

Just your standard issue human madness.

Of course, of course. A monomaniacal error.

A payback for fanciful slights.

The psycho-historians will have a field day

while the citizenry sleep in the subway,

or pack the next train out.

But how to get away from that feverish brain,

that heart of burning petrol?

There isn’t a bunker deep enough to hide in.

Bankers on six continents dole out the pain.

No SWIFT Code for the codeless.

Oligarchs go yachtless. The ruble is rubble.

Meanwhile, the nuclear finger twitches.

A shudder ripples down nine billion spines.

The spineless despot preens for the cameras,

shows off his cadaverous abs. 

It’s flesh and blood 

below the tailored shirt, for sure, for sure,

fresh meat for a million gurneys.

Dead man walking pale as a crematorium

holds court in a palace of white marble. 

One nation huddles in the basement.

Another weeps and hides its face.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist, poet and author of two biographies. His poems have been published in The New Verse News, Alaska Quarterly, Rattle, The New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry. 

PERVERSE URGES

by Richard Schiffman

Last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate
the Right Reverend Senator Bugger Mugger
called me and my green-bellied ilk
               “tree huggers”
Has that cracker ever got my number!
He said, “Buddy, keep those muddy
mitts of yours on your own kind.”
“Amen sir,” I replied, “only I’m wondering what kind
of kind that is.” Granted I’m a bit confused
               (asexually speaking)
something to do with being raised by a missing planet,
abandoned by an ecosystem at a tender age.
Seems I’ve conceived a perverse urge to mate
with a star, or if that’s too cosmic, with a right whale,
a snail darter, a spotted owl—
any species that’s as endangered
as I’m feeling right now.
But I can’t seem to find an other
that’s other enough to satisfy
               my kinky appetites.
My eco-therapist is trying to suss it out.
Right Reverend says it’s unbiblical,
calls my fondness for nature unnatural,
says marriage is between opposite genders,
not genus, has drafted legislation
to make tree-hugging in public a federal crime.
The measure has broad support from speciests
on both sides of the evolutionary aisle.
Hell, if it passes, I’ll diddle with a river.
Hear that’s still legal in California.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist, poet and author of two biographies. His poems have been published in Southern Poetry Review, Alaska Quarterly, New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, and many other publications. His poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published by Salmon Poetry in February.