Welcome to the Poet’s Paradise, a series of poems that I’ve written over the past 10 years or so, along with my current works.
First up is one of my favorites, “Colony Collapse Disorder,” a narrative about the devastating impacts of climate change.
Colony Collapse Disorder
Smog stalks the ocean of daisies,
holding hostage their dreams and
a knife to the neck, blackmailing them
to drop to their knees. Absent from
the cosmos was the hum of the
hero. The day he vanished, sweet
honey rays had coated the meadow
and the humans were still on speaking
terms with Mother. He assumed his
position, ecstasy-laden wings reverberating
amongst the divine bloom. As the treasure took
refuge in the saddlebags, a piercing mist
descended from the cyan sky, shocking
him into an everlasting state of agony.
Sorrow ascended from root to petal as
he plummeted to an unfamiliar world.
It was not supposed to rain.
The azure tide strolled onto the silky sand,
hurdling over the Gatorade bottles, Bud Light
cans and 2-litre Pepsi jugs from a party
so insane that the humans couldn’t be bothered
to leave with what they came with. Just down
the shore, a sea turtle donned the latest
fashion of the submarine macrocosm: a
necklace made from the most exquisite
polyethylene. Fishing nets from a bum
catch incubated the eggs who would
be born to a dead mother that suffocated
on ignorance. When the moon says goodbye
and the irreversible casualties are exposed,
maybe then will the humans throw Mother
a going-away party.
Hypnotizing ribbons of fuchsia and emerald
snaked across the cobalt sky, reflecting
into the arctic waters below. Alone,
he floats. Day by day his home diminishes.
When darkness encroaches, his grasp
leaves splintered claws that will fail to
hook the next meal, hopelessness slips its way between every
white fur; he roars, praying for something
other than the sea to reply. When he no
longer has anything to cling to, he does not
resist. As the four seasons dwindle down to one,
the humans drown too.