Category: Hashtag Poetry

It’s that time of year again. Due to literally not having had the time to prep for either this or World Mental Health Day on the 10th (for reasons that will soon be apparent) I’ve had to be a bit sneaky this time around, and I am hitting Social media at the two most busy times for me: 9am and 5pm, with these blogs filling the spaces in between. This is the second poem: ɛvəluːʃ(ə)n

Here it is for those of you who like your poems not in graphic form:

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ɛvəluːʃ(ə)n

consider this a fitting end
to each selfish       bastard

the code   which humanity
was never meant to cypher

humans once               lived here
extinct now                  no longer

a blip    the errant bug   this line
coldly remembered      as strata

---

I didn’t realize that strata was a plural form until I wrote this poem (a single layer of rock is called a stratum) and this then caused a bit of frantic, eleventh hour editing. If you can find people willing to look over your work, these are the friends you want to keep forever. As I also mentioned in the previous blog, this piece also echoes another piece of work written this year. We are only tourists on this planet, and it is very obvious that the holiday period is now coming to an end.

The more I write environmental work, the more I am drawn to doing the forms justice. I entered for the Gingo Prize but didn’t make it past the first stage: I’m hoping that in time there might be a longlist appearance. I think I’d take that as significant progress. Writing commercial work is very difficult for me, especially when it is about such important subjects. The more I practice, inevitably, the better I will get at the final result. I’m very proud of both these pieces.

If you enjoy this poem, please consider buying me a cuppa on Ko-fi.

It’s that time of year again. Due to literally not having had the time to prep for either this or World Mental Health Day on the 10th (for reasons that will soon be apparent) I’ve had to be a bit sneaky this time around, and I am hitting Social media at the two most busy times for me: 9am and 5pm, with these blogs filling the spaces in between. This is the first poem: The War on Trees.

Here it is for those of you who like your poems not in graphic form:

---

The War on Trees

 This summer was a killer
behind beauty, lingers terror;
I'm not strong enough 
to
survive another.

 You see
nothing, I'm constant, craving
for rain, respect, the hands
that once celebrated grain

 now instead are tempted
by a wheel, the coin, nothing
at all.

 Our roots are failing, the
landscape, burning

 my name, becomes my fate.

---

There’s an actual, interesting story for this poem, too: the first two lines occurred to me as I was driving in heavy, rush hour traffic on a dual carriageway and unable to stop. Panicking slightly, I phoned home, knowing nobody was there, before leaving myself an answering machine message. I invented the distance dictation device, and really have to hope that’s not the first time a writer has panicked and done the exact same thing.

This year’s been a significant one for me in terms of environmental work, having plucked up the courage to submit a science-fiction based concept to a major concept. There are echoes of it in the second poem: this one is the constant reminder to myself that we know so little about trees, and we are treating them, as we are all nature at present, with little or no real care. I think many of my favourite spaces are close to being decimated by the changes in climate. I really hope that I am wrong.

If you enjoy this poem, please consider buying me a cuppa on Ko-fi.