Category Global Warming

Blowout – Friday Fictioneers

freyathewriter 29 Comments

Here is my latest entry into the weekly challenge brought to us by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

Here are the rules: Use the photo as inspiration, write a hundred(ish) words – and share! Here goes my offering for this week – and I welcome your comments again!

hokusai4rwf

Copyright – Douglas M. MacIlroy

– Blowout –

You’ll damage your eyesight, watching TV in the dark.

That’s what Mum used to say. She would turn the living room light on and destroy my fantasy hideaway.

Mum’s gone now, they all are. I am forced to make a choice. Should I use what little power I have managed to conserve on light, or on connecting with the outside world?

Candles it is.

I shiver, pulling my blanket close, cold fingers rasping against the harsh fibres. The gales are nearing hurricane force again tonight, the wind turbines have been shut down for weeks.

So much for a cozy hideaway.

—-

Click on the blue froggy below to read others’ offerings!

Mercury

freyathewriter 42 Comments

They say that we worshipped the sun once –

bared our skin and lay for hours, motionless

except to turn and baste, baste, baste

like hog-roasts rotating on spits,

English rose complexions transformed to copper.

 

They say that we feared the winter then –

covered our bodies in chemically engineered layers,

refusing to let the crisp air penetrate,

wishing the dark days away,

as if time was ours to discard

with no consequences.

 

They say all this.

The world must have been different then.

———

Inspiration

‘Snow can lift my heart in a way that sunshine never could.‘

I have waited, and you have come
Martine McDonagh

———-

This week, on dVerse Poetics, Mary asks us to write poetry inspired by quotations – or by a photo, or by a headline in a newspaper, or, or, or… let’s get inspired!

I have used a quotation from one of my favourite dystopian novels, ‘I have waited, and you have come’ by Martine McDonagh. I highly recommend it! My poem is set in a future where the sun is to be feared, not welcomed…

Please pop over to dVerse to see how others have risen to the challenge!

 

 

Heartwood

freyathewriter 40 Comments

What have we, trees seen?

Guardians and life-givers all,

we have watched in silent protest, grief-stricken

as you have pillaged Mother Earth.

 

What have we, trees seen?

Slate, iron, stone, brick and – oh! – wood,

hewed and nailed and screwed to the ground

in a parody of permanence.

 

What have we, trees seen?

Hazel and oak and larch and ash, weep

in mute despair whilst you burn, baby, burn,

stealing the essence of life.

 

What have we, trees seen?

Your demands for more overwhelm us,

we mourn as silent sentinels, watching

death dog your footsteps.

 

What do we, trees see?

We see that you are gone.

DSC_0023

———-

This week, on dVerse Poetics, Abhra has asked to write poetry on trees – not just about trees, but maybe as a tree. What do trees, think and feel, how do they talk? In my dystopian-diverted mind, I think they’re pretty hacked off with us right now, as we squander all that we have, as if we can just pop across to the next planet once we’ve finished with this one.

Today, I’ve been on quite a long road-trip from mid-Wales to the southern end of the country, and then back again. The journey encompassed villages called Bethlehem and Salem within a few miles of each other (not a joke!), and Port Talbot which is shrouded in steam and from its huge steel plant and smells very industrial (but has a strange beauty that a city-born girl like me can appreciate). I have seen much that is wonderful and worrying about our use of the land in just one day, so I imagine that trees, who can live for hundreds of years, are shaking their heads and wondering when we will learn.

I hope you enjoy my piece – please do visit dVerse to read more wonderful imaginings!