Extinction’s Shadow

…these are rewrites of prior drafts, edited fresh for the June 21st prompt at Big Tent Poetry
and strongly influenced by prompt #7 at We Write Poems


Extinction’s Shadow

•

smothered by big oil
our blue planet is dying
greed’s shadow falls hard

•

future is mortgaged
to petrochemical lust
fatal addiction

•

mankind is drowning
in a flood of fossil fuel
black tide of folly

• • •

rob kistner © 2010

• 3D color rendering at top entitled: “Too Long in the Shadow”
by: rob kistner © 2008

26 thoughts on “Extinction’s Shadow”

  1. i like “tide of folly” — it’s the first time i’ve seen that word connected with the spill, but it’s certainly appropriate!

  2. wow – the last senryu is perfect. Really well done. I have reflected on the oil spill graphic/ map you posted earlier this week — all week — and like Stan muses above, I am most worried that we will forget long before the damage is done.

    1. Nan – we humans seem bent on continually pushing the limits, perhaps beyond the breaking point — we apparently never learn. Mother nature will teach the final lesson, and I am not certain she cares if we pass — she has the power to expel…

  3. Endangered sea turtles being killed in the controlled burns, oil globbing up on white beaches, plans being put in place to evacuate Tampa Bay for a burn, reports of “oil rain” in Louisiana, fishing and shrimping industries wiped out — if anything, “extinction’s shadow” is an understatement.

    1. Louder and louder the environmental alarms sound and the ecosystem warning lights flash brighter and brighter, but with 100’s of billions of dollars in ongoing annual profit glutting the pockets of the pompous fools at the top of big oil, with the huge-money economic infrastructure that benefits from big oil, and with the world’s political elite sucking the big oil teat — those who really are the only ones capable of effecting timely change, don’t give a shit… the wealth and power is too damned intoxicating, and they figure they will be dead before the piper demands repayment.

      It is us, the oil-addicted masses, who must break the cycle of our petrochemical dependence, and by doing so, grind the destructive big oil machine to a halt. Stop buying the repulsive gas-guzzlers. Learn to use our automobiles more responsibly. Act locally to establish truly efficient mass transit, and enact restrictions that will genuinely force the auto makers to reconsider their consumptive product offerings. Vote in political leaders who will hold the big oil offenders liable for their careless greed — not political leaders who are in bed with big oil, or who are themselves, part of the big oil cartel.

      For those who say that clamping down on big oil might cause a collapse of our economic system, I contend that is better than a complete collapse of our ecosystem. While neither is desirable — the former is likely survivable as a species, the later almost certainly is not. Glynn, if we don’t step up, speak up, and act up — then we are as guilty as the executives and boards of these exploitive companies, if the destruction of our beautiful planet is the result.

  4. Rob, both the art and the poetry are so well done. “Petrochemical lust” – the “gift” that keeps on giving. I hope you are in touch with the Poets For Living Waters project, because this would be ripe for submission.

    Your prompting buddy, Amy Barlow Liberatore

  5. Indeed, Rob, everything around us is sounding the alarm. “What have they done to the Earth?” Right now, part of our seas choke on and drown in black oil. Your last stanza really nails it for me. Well done.

    -Nicole

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