PROTEST CONTEST

by The Bangkok Bards
Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

 

Dizzy dysfunctional globe rotating counterclockwise

Unnatural disasters undermining climate change

Iffy topsy-turvy meteor illogical forecast

Gyroscopic spin out of control

 

Gay marriage scared straight mirage

Supreme Court deliberations wrongly rightist

Bribe & groom inequitable morals corruption

Legitimate answers out ovda question

 

Anti-social network disconnected jobless youth

Uncivil war wages out-profiting peace

Uncommon cause mass insanity slaughter

Mindfully hidden out of sight

 

Fracking has changed game-plan favoring

Wind generation solar sun power

Unnatural NRG policies oily motives

Running-on-running out of gas

 

Incorporated stealthy wealthy unlimited greed

Wall Street versus Main Street

Marching to different drummer percussion

Dissonant voices out of tune

 

Outlandish aliens second class non-citizens

Wheeler-dealer Americano roulette losing gambit

Lesser humanimals lowly snake eyes

Tarot misfortune out of luck

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .  

NOTES ON AN APRIL DAY

by David Chorlton

We returned a pigeon to the sky
where he belongs this morning.
Otherwise, it’s a quiet day

if we ignore the news
of the nuclear mouthed supreme
leader watching oriental snow
fall through his binoculars.
There’s fresh snow too

in the country we left behind
where spring comes in disguise.
Is it caused by climate change

or was the past like this
and we simply forgot?
It’s ninety degrees today
in Arizona, where the legislature
wants to take away civil unions
and give schoolteachers guns.

The mailman delivered only
the usual requests for money
while the same message keeps landing
in the electronic inbox
from a friend whose mind

we hear is becoming like snow
and melting away. What use
is information to her, from radio
or the press? Why bother
telling her the world she tried to improve
is refusing assistance? It’s better to reply

with a few words to say
how gently the afternoon has passed
and hold on to whatever peace
is ours to share.

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection, "The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.

FRAGILE COSMOS - HANDLE WITH CARE

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote 

Sustainable development meets present-day needs
Without compromising future generations’ legacy
Haunted by past demonic plagues
Climate change radical progressive transformation

Essentials food water sanitation shelter
Legitimate jobs ensuring equitable opportunities
Indeed greed poverty becomes endemic
Living beyond perceived ecological means

Endangered humanimals surviving minerals extraction
Diversion of watercourses heat emission
Noxious gases leaked into atmosphere
Commercial forests genetic life-support manipulation

Growth has no set limits
Beyond which lies ecological disaster
Rising costs diminishing causal returns
Taking into account systematic exploitation

Villains and victims joining forces
Unchained reactions missing vital links
Behavioral modification attitudes procedures approaches
Unification of economic ecological factors

Mega-cities deforestation materialism over-fishing commercialism
Inextricably related Common Cause challenges
Combined positive energy people power
We’ll succeed or fail together.

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 . 

HAIKU IN THE MODERN ERA

by Sandra Eisdorfer

(Photo: NASA Goddard)

    initiatives:
    immigration  gun control
    onto mindfulness

    choice: Roe at 40
    diplomacy  not bullets
    meditation soon

    Arab spring winters
    climate  changes coastlines now
    await inner peace


Sandra Eisdorfer was a university press editor (Duke, University of North Carolina Press, Oxford), now teaches writing classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University.

DECK CHAIRS

by Joseph Dorazio

Image source: Telegraph.co.uk via ArtsOnEarth

'Amid the cocktail parties and lavish luncheons at Davos, there was sometimes a "mood of complacency," said Axel Weber, the chairman of Swiss bank UBS and former head of Germany's Bundesbank.' --the Telegraph (Australia)


The Titanic was said to be
unsinkable.

While many dismiss
the link between
greenhouse gases
and climate change,

the planet grows hotter.
We squabble,   
rearrange
politics.

As for icebergs?—
unthinkable.   


Joseph Dorazio's poems have appeared widely in print and online literary magazines.  Mr. Dorazio lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

CLIMATE CHANGE

by David Chorlton

 

Image source: The Climate Reality Project

 

After the recorded message

came a living voice

asking for help in stopping the president

weeks before his inauguration.

Which of these issues do you think

is most important?

I said Climate change,

she spoke right over me, beginning with

Voter fraud, and I repeated myself.

Then she suggested the assault

on second amendment rights.

Climate change.

She pretended not to hear, and went on

to repealing Obamacare.

I told her nothing else would matter

when the planet gasps for breath.

She named the candidate

who would lead the way

and asked if I’d help.

Why did you call this number?

She told me I must have supported the cause

in the past. I told her

What matters is Climate change.

She assured me it isn’t too early

to begin sending money.

Let me get this right; we’re heading

into the future fully armed

with God’s love to guide us,

the stars and stripes flying, marching to Souza

and glory bound. She paused a few seconds

before saying

Yes, and I could tell right then

that in politics, the climate

will never change.

 

 

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection, "The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.

DIRE WARNINGS

by Linda Lerner

Image source: Linda Lerner

we were warned to keep away from strangers
to be suspicious of anyone not like us

people of other races and of different religions from ours
atheists and all free spirits especially artists

we were warned about sleeping in other people’s homes
eating food we weren’t familiar with

getting overexcited and too emotional about things
of danger lurking in sleep away camp and open road clubs

discouraged from swimming, bike riding getting too much sun
we were warned about touching ourselves and

of men who only wanted one thing
about drugs and sex and how “the more you get the more you want”

we were warned about many things
but nobody warned us about the trees

we played ring around the rosy under
that kept the sun from burning us

trees whose leaves dazzled us with color every autumn
infested with fungus or mold and dying of root rot

environmentalists sent out alarms with  predictions
we dismissed along with climate change as nonsense

nobody warned us that the trees would become killers
and uproot lifting up slabs of concrete from under us

break thru iron gates into homes flattening cars 
killing anyone in their way

nobody warned us…


Linda Lerner's Takes Guts and Years Sometimes (New & Selected Poems) is published by New York Quarterly Press.

ARE YOU BEING SERFED?

by James Cronin

Image source: Occupy Sandy Relief

Power lines await the squall.
Climate, hotter and wetter,
plays its part. Which is better,
trim the trees or let them fall?

The boss, moneyed, payday sees,
(too many workers will rile
the market) and so with guile
says trim the costs not the trees.

Oil barons who led BP,
joining moguls making mints,
put profits first then repent,
cutting corners kills at sea.

Shadow bankers weave and bob,
sales of swindles yet unpriced
making millions, what a heist!
Who’d suspect an inside job?

One party’s solons, knowing
nothing, pitch to rustic fools:
lower taxes, skewer rules,
keep the fracking oil flowing.

Damn teachers and their unions,
cops, firemen too; who needs them?
Workers should find their bottom,
picking grapes or green onions.

Health care lies can work once more.
Use some fibs and bull feces,
let the old die in pieces.
Stuck with vouchers? Don’t get sore.

Who knows best? The top percent.
Laid off workers need not frown,
Swiss bank wealth will trickle down.
The homeless can save on rent.

Pledge all to that man Grover;
backed by billions, he can grin.
Gut the country? It’s no sin,
“starve the beast” ‘til it’s over.

Like lemmings attempting flight,
or dogs in sad distemper,
folks fall free, not a whimper.
The day’s sold, who’ll price the night?


After a four decade career in the law, both as a lawyer and as a juvenile court judge, James Cronin is enjoying his retirement pursuing literary studies and creative writing.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Image source: Connect the Dots

Don’t tell me there isn’t any pattern.
It can be seen over and over. Here
It is: divide  and conquer, us and them,
Left and right. An agenda based on fear
Of who the others are, could be, might do...
Creating dread that everything could crash
If its own system is not stretched -- here to
There -- to shield the modern world from the rash
Interests of that post-modern other (which
Has no interest in the universal,
Does not like the status quo, is not rich
From global loans, and does not care, at all,
About you). The pattern’s clear: it connects
Those dots of doubts it makes while it protects.

 
Juleigh Howard-Hobson has simultaneously written literary fiction, formalist poetry and genre work, along with non-fiction essays and articles, purposely blunting the modern ‘brandable’ concept of artistic obligation to any single form or movement. Her work has appeared in such venues as The Lyric, Trinacria, The Flea, The Raintown Review, The Best of the Barefoot Muse (Barefoot Pub) and Caduceus (Yale University). She is the Assistant Poetry Editor of Able Muse.