Know your enemy

You are holding a time machine in your hand.

You are looking at the future, not the past.

Every report you read about what happened

is a premonition of what's to come,

yesterday's carnage tomorrow's news today. 

As you prod this glowing rectangle

to receive updates about the latest disaster

you are your future tapping yourself on the back. 

Put it down. Turn around. Look yourself in the face. 

Flourish

"Welcome to Glasgow, delegates.

Here is our Glasgow coat of arms.

See, the bird, the tree, the bell, the fish? 

And we have a story to tell about each,

but none that you might already know,

nothing about saints and kings from long ago.

We've updated them for contemporary relevance, 

so: here is today's bird that never flew

because habitat change overtook it;

today's tree that never grew

but burned down in a wildfire instead;

today's bell that never rang,

because there was no point, 

why would you ring an alarm 

when we've ignored every other warning; 

and the fish that never swam, but perished 

in oceans swollen by melting ice, crimson with algae, 

and turned acidic by our industries' exhaust fumes.

While you are here please give us a new tale to tell,

about how you solved what we don't need a saint to fix,

because none of us are saints, after all, 

and it really doesn't take a miracle

to write a story about birds that fly and trees that grow

and fish that swim and bells that ring in celebration 

of a future in which we let the whole world flourish."

Horizons

What horizons do you see, o bird, 

bending your blue sky high flight

around the curvature of the Earth?

We sit on a flat picnic blanket world

stretched between the cardinal points

of an inconsequential conversation

navigated with compass kettle

and sandwich map until evening,

its edges horizon enough for us 

until we fold the world away,

abandon the sunset and retreat home.

What worlds do you weave

for the Moon and stars to rest upon

between your horizons, bird? 

We lay a launch pad on the Earth,

and substitute a rocket for the kettle.

It punctures the sky and skewers the stars. 

We ride it and have our picnic on the Moon, 

see an azure world rise over a grey horizon, 

watch a thousand sunsets 

blushing with wildfire ash

curve around the red meniscus of night 

from our perch in orbit, and talk about life.

The swift pursues the insect. 

The hawk interrogates the meadow

until it gives up the rodent it was hiding.

We use the world entire for target practice now.

What horizons do you see, o bird? 

Storm in a tea cup

A lord, over a cup of tea,

of crisis and emergency

in his morning paper read

and "storm in a teacup" said, 

to diminish its significance,

and justify indifference,

but while he stirred his tea and sipped,

the climate curdled, seasons slipped,

cyclones swirled, tipping points tipped, 

and forests burned down to the ground

while frightened people looked around

for second chances, but time was up, 

and somewhere, from a larger cup

a dark lord of inestimably higher rank

deep draughts of dire disaster drank.