Let bulldozers rip,

Get spades in the ground,

Turn on the taps

In city and town.

Rules on the bonfire,

Planes in the air,

Bricked-up banality,

The fun of the fair.

And, all of a sudden,

The climate’s nowhere.

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do not be disheartened
from the powers that be

they shape our media,
close our borders,
delegitimise our freedom,
emasculate our men,
oppress our women,
suppress queer identity,
profile non-white skin.

they take our taxes,
pay their bankers bonuses,
privatise and pollute our water,
shape our education,
control our minds,
continue colonial wars.

they steal oil and gas from the ...

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It’s been the hottest ever year;

The one point five is broken.

But in society round here,

These words are never spoken.

There’s still time for a reset,

Through measures tough or token;

The greenhouse levels climb, and yet,

These words are never spoken.

The glaciers will melt away,

And fires taunt the ocean,

But in the workplace or at play,

These words are...

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The year drew on, a big wheel in the flow,
Marking the moments where change began to show.
Machines grew louder, their thoughts took flight,
Shaping a future both shadowed and bright.

On lunar plains, where footprints are few,
A woman stood, gazing at Earth’s vibrant hue.
The stars bore witness to progress and dreams,
While fusion ignited impossible schemes.

The skies roared ...

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Two dozen and four, a year to recall,
With laughter and dread, we weathered it all.
A leap and a bound in the calendar's stride,
Yet peril and promise walked side by side.

From skies of electric, green heavens were torn,
Auroras that danced where smog once was worn.
The planet still warming, though chatter grew fierce,
While glaciers wept tears no words could pierce.

Trump ro...

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Let’s ease up on the green crap,

The climate’s not too bad;

Some summer heat in winter

Should make us feel quite glad.

Ditch all the regulations

That pessimists adore;

Give people what they dream of:

More flights, more stuff, more, more.

Rev up your petrol guzzlers

And roar down country roads;

Let’s motorise the planet

Through trucks with monster loads.

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We don’t have much time; sooner or later

This planet of ours will hit the buffers.

By then weak excuses or fake facts won’t work,

Nor saying: ‘well, it’s always been like this.’

Hot air is no defence against the heat;

The war, unfought, starts to flex its muscles.

It seemed so different the last time round,

As smiling faces sauntered on the bridge,

Seeking the usual gl...

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The hottest March, now ten months in a row.

Women from Switzerland have won their case;

Climate safety is one more human right.

There’s progress, but at far too slow a pace.

The likes of Greta Thunberg talk good sense,

Reminding us that we don’t do enough,

Because we are addicted to our jaunts

And piling up excess, transported stuff.

Although the world revolves an...

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The hottest January ever;

We’ve passed the one point five degrees.

Climate change is on the march,

Frying the air and boiling the seas.

Do not say we didn’t warn you;

We have been banging on for years.

But the actions of our leaders

Are running decades in arrears.

And don’t pretend it’s all fake news

Or the facts are inconclusive;

Evidence for such opinions

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The oceans rise and temperatures rocket,

But we have the answer in our pocket.

A glossy document, signed and dated –

Oh, come on, you should be elated –

In which we promise to slightly reduce

The poisonous discharges we let loose.

Not straight away, of course, you understand;

There are more pressing urgencies at hand.

Nearby, a man sinks down beneath the waves;

His ...

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The hottest year ever, again;

We’re pigging out on greenhouse gases.

COP Twenty-Eight will be here soon,

That shamefest of chancers and asses.

The leaders set themselves targets,

Then contrive to miss them by miles,

Seasoning failure with blah-blah

And their well-practiced plastic smiles.

Meanwhile, siren voices tell us:

Get out there, get out there and score!

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I block the traffic in the road;

And chain my body to railings,

To illustrate the catalogue

Of governments’ climate failings.

I march in the demonstrations,

Sit down on the Minister’s lawn,

To give some hope to the children

And those who have not yet been born.

Last month I was twice arrested,

For challenging this dirty game.

Fines and days in court are...

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I am a molten man;

My flabby, molten face

Is looking up at you

As you beam down from space.

I used to look quite nice

When common sense ruled here,

In times we did not trash

The assets of this sphere.

You visitors would see

A smart, contented Earth,

Which knew instinctively

How to respect its worth.

But sadly man has struck

And chopped and grou...

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summer brings slurries
wicked sticky sleet drops
puddling, pooling, icicles dripping
slush gushes from the frosted rooftops
winter heat fries the egg
cracked on rocky road
melting the cream
burning the orange cone
Melbourne Falls, darkness dawns
sixty days of night
madness in the streets
kingdom of crime
Tamura Springs, sky rains cancer
the sakura flower lost
our beautiful reminder
...

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ReMember the Night

How can you go meekly into the night 

When your world no longer gently goes around?

How can you go meekly into the night

When lives of who you cherish depend on you being wise?

Do you forget that in the beginning time started?

And yet this time has an end as so do you.

For if you have, forget not that all times have their moments besides one Holy one

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Faith begins on the edges of understanding 

Faith begins on the edges of understanding

Let me please then fall into this abyss of source where Faith is.

A surfacing, peace filled trove glimpsed first amidst a raging wind,  

its past buried deep by the residue of age old minds.

One personal confrontation, not new yet rediscovered,

Connected to the gentleness of a longed ...

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We’re all for fighting climate change,

Until the choice gets tough;

Don't try to meddle with our cars,

Our holidays, our stuff.

What beats the smell of petrol fumes,

The whiff of kerosene,

The closet full of unworn clothes,

The cinema-sized screen?

We'll stand behind the barricades

To fight off this green crap,

And watch the lifestyle we deserve

Fall stra...

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Judgement day comes for an apian hive
On the threshold, will it die or survive?
The Bee's priority is the unhoneyed comb
Unaware of the finality of her home,

What harms one bee, ruptures the greater whole,
Their shared destiny, the colony's goal.
The bee is the hive's cooling, beating heart.
Each tiny winged creature, a precious part,

What threatens the hive may destroy the bees
Confl...

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I’m baffled how world leaders find the nerve 

to sign a pledge, then right before our eyes

fail the people they pretend to serve.

They know the price of oil but never swerve

from drilling more while greenhouse gases rise.

I’m baffled how world leaders find that nerve!

They buy the myth of endless growth, the oeuvre 

of economic frauds who feed them lies,

and fail ...

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Flags and placards round Big Ben

say 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

Shouts and chants of Waddawewant?

a 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

We call a pause on oil and then

we all lie down. We stand up again.

We shout demands at Parliament 

to 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

No new gas! No new oil!

PAUSE! PAUSE!

One point five degrees soon gone.

PAUSE! PAUSE!

Arctic in meltdown, blood on the boil,

w...

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Rolling down to london on a train,

the taught and shining buds

of Spring are bursting on the trees.

Wharfedale’s misted in a bluish haze,

but heaps of plastic refuse in the woods

on the drab periphery of Leeds

descend my mood from buoyancy to pain.

Rolling forwards now, the rape fields blaze

and blackthorns bloom with pearls,

resplendent in the boundary hedges

we...

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There was a man lived down my street

who felt unease about pollution.

Ashamed to see his car excrete

bad air, he found an odd solution.

Others who had thought thus far 

used bicycles, or electric cars

but my neighbour’s mate was the man who sold

the fuel his thirsty motor drank.

He was fearful this friend’s business might fold 

if he stopped putting petrol in the ta...

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So when we shoot past two degrees

and all the land is toast

and skies are black from the burning trees

what will you miss the most?

Me, I’ll miss the song of birds

that welcomed in the day:

those heart-rending, incoherent words

that had so much to say.

And when the heating of the ocean

flays the coral reefs,

will you temper your emotion?

Modulate your gri...

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The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind  -  Bob Dylan

What force can power the years ahead?

Now the age of oil is dead

we wait for industry to heed 

the whisper of the wasted wind,

the whisper of the wasted wind.

A pivotal crisis is upon us

and ready or not we shoulder the onus. 

We must make good or else be goners,

be dust dispersed by the wasted wind,

...

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What hope remains while politicians skirt

around the crisis, pledging they will shut

a few polluting plants but token cuts

in fossil fuel extraction fall so short?

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Back when I was young I didn’t fear:

I knew the world could solve this situation.

We understood the cause, so the way out was clear:

a comprehensive pact between all nations 

to stop emitting CO2 

into the atmosphere.

Back then there seemed no need to march and shout,

to sit down in the road and press for truth.

We could not conceive of a climate up the spout.

In th...

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Every gob of oil we suck today,

every turd of coal we flame resplendent,

every age-old species we erase 

is assault against our own descendants.

I stoop before the few that reach tomorrow:

striving to live, I understand how they

must curse us, dodging lethal hails of arrows   

we senselessly let fly today.

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We know the climate is changing;

We know that the atmosphere roasts.

We know too soon many places

Will be fit for no one but ghosts.

Yet we demand our holidays

And haggle for more and more stuff;

With regard to our consumption,

Excesses are never enough.

We all profess to love nature

And take the environment’s slant,

But we are pursuing lifestyles

Wh...

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Climate Change and us

The planet turns, the planet turns;

The adults fiddle while Rome burns.

And children yet to be conceived

Have every right to feel aggrieved.

And us? We plunder wealth from mines

And join the back of frantic lines

In shirtsleeved January sales,

Pursued by ever-warming gales.

Exhausts and power stations spout

Unheeded warnings all ab...

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The blue sky yawned

And out they came

As the mortal hoard 

Looked for blame

It's us! It's them!

It's God's fair hand

His silence broken

To make a stand!

Some cowered. Some ran

Some stood in awe

As tears of seeds

Filled Earth's floor

For exactly 6 hours

The seeds were sown

For the 7th

Time stood alone

Leaves stopped in flutter

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in this empty stadium I'm being chased

pursued by something I struggle to see,

I smell a hunter's breath alien and rank

if there was one nearby I'd climb a tree

its dusk now and the circuits are endless

he surmounts hurdles with an easy glee

his dark vest sports no national colours

night falls, I need the floodlights to see

its been like this now for several years

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a cough as dead leaves drop

detached with soft faint sigh

last breath of lonely martyrs

murmur of breeze in the sky

gravity's heavier as we age

ancient oaks sad blue eyes

saplings thrust like a lance

a loving that knows no lies

do remember me, I'm here,

did you forget I found you?

like a lost fawn, dappled in

shadowed glades and dew

scoured every ...

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Do we do nothing

But stare at the sky?

Do we do nothing

But avert our eyes?

Do we do nothing

But stifle our cries?

Do we do nothing

But conform to lies?

Or, could we become

All we can be?

And settle the wake 

Of this turbulent sea?

And rise above waves

And rise above fear

And shout at the sun:

"Look! we are here!"

A...

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I used to range unchallenged on this hill

keeping mankind under my surveillance.

I watched as you discovered

the wonder of the wheel

and ways to traffic goods along the rivers.

You harnessed blameless power from water mills

but we became estranged.

My name is Silence.

Once I was your day-to-day companion:

the backing to your birdsong at the daybreak

and as t...

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Like angels pinhead dancing,
we have truly lost our way,
to live the fat anointed life
for fossils, we will pay,
radiation will not go away,
as oceans flood the bay.

Thus, the Machiavellians
enjoy their little rants,
and the paid-off scientists
are bribed with oil grants,
pretending they cannot decide
if CO 2 will raise the tide,
boost the climate worldwide.

For political advantag...

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 APOCALYPTIC SKY

Yesterday

Had proven science fact

Much stranger than fiction:

Vivid orange night

Replaced

Bright turquoise morning.

Sunlight was postponed.

Normalcy took a holiday.

My neighbour's

Barnyard animals,

Five chickens, two goats,

Didn't know what was going on

With their immediate surroundings.

Neither did that lone bird in flight.

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Heatwaves radiating across the country,

common occurrences every summer

now occurring every season.

Summer stretches long into Fall,

makes a cameo during Winter

And begins earlier every Spring.

It’s a heatwave, they say.

No, it’s global warming.

No, it’s now called climate change, haven’t you heard?

No, that’s all fake news.

It’s only a heatwave, you see.

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As originally published with Clay Literary's Raven: https://www.clayliterary.com/post/design-a-stunning-blog

‘Neath the blistering heat, California poppies cast

themselves to the hillside sun as wayward children

start to lose their breath, as you now fight for yours,

running to chase the summer blues away.

The young and old all begin to fail; heatwaves

take the lun...

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Is it the job of a poet to comment on current affairs? Are we political? Are some issues facing us beyond the political? Just some of the issues facing poets in a world which is bufftted by crises and facing immense challenges. 

Simon Armitage laid down the gauntlet on the climate emergency, effectively saying that it imbued everything we see or do, and MVP responded by dedicating our 2020 anth...

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The Climate is changing, affecting the whole world,

affecting every living thing on the Earth,

with very many losers, most of whom will be

unrealised, unrecognised and uncounted.

Climate stats start with the number of people who

are impacted – nations displaced, islands gone, plains

flooded, livelihoods destroyed and peoples distraught

and we hear of folk’s plight weekly,...

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Autumn arrives at last, unseasonably late.

Frustrated at being forced to wait,

she makes her displeasure known

in a sudden, howling rainstorm that threatens more

than the dying leaves that are her due.

But she finds herself part-thwarted in her mission.

Others have shown their anger before:

the best plum tree felled by the surprise late snow of April;

the elderberries ...

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Earth as our landlord

A notice was given

Broken agreements

Eviction is imminent

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How sadly it's come to this:

the apotheosis

of our egos' mad desires.

Now all this nightmare requires

of us to finalise

matters is to analyse

our crude methodology

and, sans apology

give the Earth one last, good kick -

yes, that ought to do the trick -

then drink to its poor health.

We've raped it of all its wealth,

we've torn it and tortured...

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Epidemiologists and public health ethicists have been grappling for some time with the near certainly of widespread disease pandemics resulting from climate change. Changes in non-human animal migration and human migration will bring extant pathogens to new populations as warming releases long dormant pathogens on the world once again. Large swaths of the population could be wiped out in an incred...

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Before the reckoning,
The water was like glass.
We would glide
Across the surface,
Staring into the deep
As naïve as a recently
Birthed Godzilla,
Never knowing what
Destruction our
Mutation might bring.

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Building a civilization
is a lot like baking a loaf of bread:
All you need are the right ingredients,
a little know-how,
and an oven.

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Every single day I get a torrent in my inbox:

online communities that crave my support

with a signature, a letter, a donation to unlock

a Saudi prison cell; save turtles; alert

a smug politician to the suffering of the needy;

grant safe asylum to desperate refugees;

liberate wealth from the clutches of the greedy;

or restrict global warming to one point five degrees.

I wann...

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https://youtu.be/r6O9OOiqHnw

Goodbye to the common land.

Goodbye to our pensions.

Goodbye to free school milk,

and goodbye to fair rent.

Goodbye to a job for life.

Don’t expect a contract.

Farewell to the greengrocer,

selling fruit in paper bags.

Farewell to the council house.

They’re selling off allotments.

The end of days for the bursary.

No more pow...

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Wake me up when the storm has passed
And the ravens have left the tower
Wake me up when the war machine
Has finally run out of power
Wake me up when the bigots
Have finally opened their eyes
And all of the presidents have given up telling lies
Wake me up when the tables have turned
And lessons have been learned

Wake me up when the big game hunters
Have finally paid for their crime
...

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Last night was more than anyone could bear.
Last night they plunged a dagger into Yorkshire,
approving plans to poison land, to fracture 
the ground beneath our feet, to choke the air.

Four thousand people sent in their objections.
A hundred speakers warned what could occur.
But seven County Councillors didn't care
and kicked North Yorkshire in the wrong direction:

a course that leads ...

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