Three Poems: Chasing the Future

Some mornings when I awaken
I seem to forget the world’s on fire.
I open my eyes and just pause.
Stretch my legs. Feet. Ankles. Toes.
Think about coffee. And then I start to remember.
And my ulcers burn. My head aches. My mind begins to race.
And I look for somewhere to hide.
I don’t know who to talk to. To call, to text.
The pieces of the world don’t fit together anymore.

I don’t want to fight. With anyone.
Especially myself.
The climate people are crazy.
Dancing to different music, in too many different rhythms.
Dilution and diffusion
Delaying progress but not time.

The Greeks believed the future chased us from behind
(The Greeks don’t actually say chase.
But, they believed the future came upon us from behind.)

I say chase
Because I’m beginning to think the best plan
is to sprint into the future as fast as possible,
to give our children the longest lead possible
more of a chance
more time before the future catches them
and the world sees
and no longer denies
the end is near.

Talking to people who don’t get that we’re in a climate emergency is unbearable. And that is nearly everyone.

You probably thought I meant climate deniers
but I don’t
I didn’t
I don’t mean climate deniers.
I meant you.
I mean people like you and people you like.
People you love.
People I like and love.

Nearly every conversation has become insufferable
Like an endless corporate Christmas party
or High School reunion.
But with catastrophe right outside the ballroom doors.

I am alone
More and more

madness
and joy!

Every day I pretend that everything is ok.
Otherwise, no one would want to speak to me.
Even my most beloved.

And so I bargain with the truth
Short burst by short burst
I release
the explosion
while my insides burn

i open the news each day
like the idiot crew member in a sci-fi Hollywood space movie
who unlocks the hatch before the cabin has been
depressurized and is sucked out into deep space
ashamed, drifting,
useless

the light, blindingly bright
blindingly bright
like exiting a matinee into mid-afternoon sun bright
when at once your eyes close, your head turns away
and your hands raise themselves to shield your eyes
vulnerable, as you wait for your dilated pupils to constrict

before Jim Hansen, Al Gore, Bill McKibben
or carbon parts per million
back when the nuclear holocaust was still the rage
just decades
after the actual holocaust
blinded the world
blinded the world

we never forget
until we can
until we do
until we forgot
if we acted
or didn’t

are
or aren’t
were
weren’t
blind
deaf
silent

as if it wasn’t happening
as if it hadn’t happened
as if it hadn’t come.

i saw on facebook that bruce willis is dead
he isn’t(sound the trumpets
issue a decree
the slaves of stupidity
have been set free)just wanted to let you know
that while the World cup is being played
the slaves of stupidity
have been set free and
the World population passed 8 billion and
the House quietly passed the new $858 billion dollar defense budget(8% more war than the year before
$42 billion more War than POTUS even asked for!)

i guess that’s about $858 of protection
for every person
from every person (sound the trumpets
issue a decree
$858 for you
$858 for me)i saw a bit of their shopping list.
i mean how do you choose?
864,000 XM1128, XM1113, M107, and M795 (155mm rounds)
12,000 AGM–179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM)
700 M142 HIMARS
1,700 ATACMS
2,600 Harpoons
1,250 Naval Strike Missiles
106,000 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS)
3,850 PAC–3 Missile Segment Enhancement weapons
5,600 FIM–92 Stinger
28,300 FGM–148 Javelin
5,100 AIM–120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles
2.2 million Modular Artillery Charge Systems
12,050 M982A1 Excalibur
950 LRASM
3,100 JASSM
1,500 Standard Missile–6 (SM–6)
5,100 Sidewinder Missiles (AIM–9X)I thought I’d check more into Excalibur
King Arthur’s old sword
What might you need 12,050 (at ~$68,000 each)
of them for (I’ve provided some links
let me know what you think…

,,,and here you can watch what will be in store
for the 12,050 we end up aiming them towards)