Best Populations Poems
The apostate looked out his window, and started to believe
As genuflecting pylons sent ramifications through the trees
Chaos questioned reason, hoping for an early plea
but the world was too far gone, so began the killing spree
The Crier rang his leper bell: “Our town’s a godless apparition”
Filling hearts with envy of a once-dreaded condition
Now the King prayed for calm, in a pagan act of contrition
After his son died at birth, he had proscribed all religion
Atheists came from all around, excommunication filled the air
Roots faced horizontal, trying to feed off despair
Anxious to leave town, fallen gargoyles block civic square
Steeplejacks grow disoriented, looking up at their disrepair
“That hole’s not deep enough,”winked the jester to the knave
He could never resist a shortcut, even digging his own grave
As the madness continued, hermits set fire each other’s caves
Shedding light on the void, by burning alive its willing slaves
With the apocalypse gathering pace, populations slowly died
Some genius came forward a real madman in disguise
Said, “We need a scapegoat—a martyr, an ultimate sacrifice”
He was crucified for being too clever; they much preferred no advice
And whilst writing this story, that apparently makes no sense
The queen was in her chambers, hanging herself from suspense
Children butcher themselves gaily, having learned how to fence
As for putting fear of God in us, the wicked come crawling to repent
At last when heaven reopened,
an eclipse tried darken that day
Never to see man overcast again,
sun went nova, boiling all life away…
How much of life do we catch
as we walk briskly past windows
behind each a drama unfolding
How much of life do we miss
as we speed past tenements teeming
with primal emotions, like downed power lines
alive with passion and angst
How much of life can we know as
as we fly across continents
spanning time zones of populations divers
running the gamut from AI-creators and
manipulators to prep cooks, no-counts and killers
How much of life would have enriched us if attention were paid
to the windows on the journeys that you and I've made
On the streets of sin city, on the high roller's main drag,
Known as the Las Vegas Strip, a gentlemen phantom
Does stroll dressed in all black attire, striding forth with his golden Cain,
Flipping a silver chip into the air, and mocking at its power.
The devil's agent of deception is he, retaining a list of names
To collect upon, this gentlemen bandit of the forsaken.
He is here on the dark master’s behalf, ready to claim on
The I.O.U's signed by the greedy, and innocence fallen.
Quietly, moving amongst the crowded venues, he waits
Until his lord calls the name of the unlucky, to be reposed.
Dance do the neon lights, flashing towards pleasure dens of iniquity,
As ladies whom belong unto the night itself, offer their
Tokens of favor, for a working man's paycheck.
Black jacks twenty-one, cut those cards, and pass them out
The first timers dumb luck, will deliver him unto evil,
On this walkers dead man's list tonight.
Against the loaded dice, no soul is left unsanctified,
On the sacred green velvet altar, the wheel of fortune
Spins out of control, then hitting the baccarat tables
Wooden wall, someone screams snake eyes.
Then all is lost, faded are the dreams of illusion, melting away
Into the harsh desert soil, along the road side leading to sin city.
Beneath the arid sandy duns, lies the grave yard
Of the unknown unidentified, a missing persons
Smorgasbord of the rich and infamous, lying right
Beside, the unreported poor man corpse.
This is the Grim Reapers play ground, taunting
And tormenting, those begging for redemptions
Last chance to gain a reprieves pardon.
But when tapped by his golden cain of death,
Your life's essence has wagered it's last bet,
To the winner goes the spoils, and now you
Belong unto the devil.
People say what happens in Vegas stays
There, and rightly so will he agree, with his blackened
Heart and soul, for after all is this not
The capital of hell on earth, known as
Sin City, Las Vegas, Nevada.
The populations of the undead just added
Another’s names tally and the gentlemen
Dressed all in black, is sent a wandering
Again amongst the crowed streets, to claim
Another victim in the dark master’s wrath of
Vengeance.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
We forced her into menopause well ahead of her time.
Mother Nature’s prematurely changing and we’ll regret our crime.
We cut off her tresses that once bushed across her land,
polluted her oceans and soiled her golden sand.
Moody and unpredictable her volcanic eruptions flows,
fed a daily diet of plastics, pesticides and GMO’s.
We sweated out her edges and turned her temples gray,
while her hot flashes melt the glaciers that dissolve more each day.
Her skin is dry and arid as she blazes across her earth,
destroying crops and animal life, unyielding, no longer giving birth.
We ravaged her Amazon where green algae and flora once flourished,
only two days shipping while populations starve and many undernourished.
Waken with a splitting headache as earthquakes and tornados roar,
we have become her burden with our excessive cries for more.
Gas emissions have choked her and left her in a daze.
The damage is done, too late before we change our ways.
She is like a bridge as our weight has caused her back to bend
with greed, corruption and the unconscionable conscience of men.
How will humanity survive when Mother Nature has no more to give,
what will become of our children, where will they have to live?
This is a time of urgency, but we have been fore warned.
Her end is rapidly approaching, for “hell has no fury like a woman scorned”.
Environmental ramifications
Will far exceed current tabulations
And surely cause widespread consternation
For resentful future populations
No hopes will be pinned on legislation
Look to intergalactic migration
Flight from a world beyond reparation
As the last chance for mankind’s salvation
We can but pray new colonization
Will not be hindered by trepidation
Species continuing procreation
Might see our flaws through magnification
Offering their youth the explanation
That we were the Earth’s worst generation
I tell a tale of younger days
When I was just a kid
I went to school in war time
As many others did
We would collect the shrapnel
From the big guns overnight
Most shells missed their target
But would still cause aircrews fright
Maybe on our way to school
A house a smoking wreck
We were not allowed to close
To see we'd crane our neck
The bombers came in waves at night
We didn't get much sleep
Scant room inside that concrete box
Jammed like a mob of sheep
The all clear goes it's back to bed
And then to rise again
The German aircraft overhead
And down the bombs would rain
I lived in Highbury at the time
Where guns fired to the sky
Both sides tried to kill or maim
I often wondered why
Even now I'm older
I still don't understand
Why humans are so agro
And can't live hand in hand
Is it just the Makers way
To make our numbers fall
We have no other predators
It really is our call
I hope that when I've left this earth
Intelligence will reign
We will control our populations
And not need war again
There will be no little children
With gas mask in a pack
See such death and destruction
On their way to school and back
sunset explosions
wandering butterfly swarms
windblown rose petals
bird populations
animals of many kinds
autumn leaves swirling
prestorm dark gray clouds
the world assortment of fruits
bouyant rainbow skies
The year is 2310
Humans still inhabit this earth
When they view all around them
It hardly seems worth
For their ancestors before them
Never heard what was said
If they continued to abuse her
In two hundred years she'll be dead
As they look out their windows
And view as they say
As they scroll through their histories
The world their ancestors knew in their day
They lived at the time
When their world was at lush
Where animals were still with them
Some demised to a hush
The Polar circles were threatened
By mans carbon emissions
They never heard what was said
About common sense missions
Their populations exploded
As they struggled to feed
Their richer got richer
Conglomerate greed
The life of their planet
Continually plundered and raped
Rain forests destroyed
Barren lands now drape
Conflicts were rife
Guerrilla warfare the norm
Pales into significance
From the 90's Desert Storm
As they look out their windows
And view as they say
As they scroll through their histories
The world their ancestors threw away
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/life-5.php
After the quiet we all have to go
Dragged and carted by the Sonderkommando
To be dumped in pits covered by lime
A race to dispose by it's Human slime
Auschwitz, Buchenwald & Dachau slaughtered
Many a son, many a daughter
Experiments on children women and men
Some aged 90, many under 10
In 45, their end was near, how many alive would reappear
As Russians, British and US troops
Chased the Hun to their German roots
Each camp reached showed it's sordid past
Where millions of me, were massively gassed
In Auschwitz, to this present day
Birds don't fly, no animals play
The reminder is all for there to see
Those terrible days what happened to me
It's 1948, our Nation is born
From histories past, populations torn
To all who survived I wish you well
And our new born world, called Israel
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/war-2.php
Once read that a kangaroo can't jump
Unless its tail is touching the ground
I've tried it and I couldn't jump either
I too was literally earthbound
Heaviest land mammal is the elephant
Weighing close to 8,000 pounds
Me mum-in-law comes in a close second
Those booms are her walking around
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge
A dime has only 118 grooves
Bet you'll be able to sleep well tonight
This information tends to soothe
A whale's heart beats only 9 times a minute
Faster when they're having sex
Imagine the picture you guys are seeing
Afterward, smoking a cigarette
It's a little-known fact that baby robins
Eat 14 feet of worms a day
The heartburn these guys must be having
Need lotsa Pepto Bismol I'd say
If you decide to walk all the way to the sun
It would take you bout 2000 years
If someone started back in 18 A.D.
They're just about to burn up, I fear
In Turkey, back in the 16th century
Drinking coffee could get you hanged
Imagine if they killed you for that today
Populations would drop with a bang
Every 8 seconds, a new baby is born
Every 14 seconds there's a death
Suggest we all stop having sex every night
Coz there won't be any space left!
Let me be clear from the beginning
any honest discussion of peace
begins by staring into the face of evil
Not the cartoon mask of villains
but the slow systematic evil
Evil that traffics children like cargo
it teaches hatred until it feels like normalcy
until neighbors become executioners
Ordinary hands commit extraordinary horrors
Indifference calcifies to stone
and thought itself
collapses.
Marcus’s story does not end in triumph
At seventeen he was shot outside his high school
not because he joined a gang
but because he refused to
His funeral was filled with teenagers
They understood that sometimes peace
is a luxury they cannot afford
One in four women beaten
One hundred million displaced
Philadelphia streets— my streets
where children fear to play
rival war zones
in their statistics
And then the litany of mass shootings
Columbine. Sandy Hook. Pulse. Las Vegas.
Parkland. Buffalo. Uvalde. Grand Blanc.
Not distant tragedies
but the lived reality of families I serve
The young who ask me
“Why should I plan for a future
when someone can decide to kill me
while I buy groceries?”
Children conscripted as soldiers
Women sold like cattle
Populations vanished by decree
Young men with weapons of war
end dozens of lives
in minutes
Viktor Frankl, survivor of the camps:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of human freedoms—
to choose one’s attitude
in any given circumstance.”
I see the aftermath
I sit with the grief
I listen
to the questions
that have
no answers
Every abolitionist knew this mathematics
Every civil rights worker knew this equation
Every protector standing between trafficker and child
They fought forces with more money
more weapons
more power
than they could ever possess
They fought anyway
Not because victory was guaranteed
but because surrender
was unthinkable.
They seem so joyful
in their morning flight,
a wing flick above the reach
of waves, riding wind
sweeping up
from the Southern Ocean.
Seabirds are magicians
in turning turbulent air
into pure grace.
I watch them, wings
catching the morning sun,
agents of float and freedom
in a world of wind and water.
They seem masters
of the moment, buoyed up
and held in the “now”.
I love them,
feel a sadness slowly well
from what I know.
In a few months,
most of these birds
will be dead. The virus
once confined to northern
climes has finally
reached the south.
If only they could stay
locked in the joy
of this moment, this day,
this poem - not venture
beyond into time future -
to celebrate what they have
now in the bright,
sun soaked air -
to fly above me,
above the dark shadows
of what I know and fear
and in their wide freedom,
show me how to live.
Note.
Australia, up until now, has been free
of Bird Flu H5 that has devastated bird
populations in the Northern hemisphere.
Migratory species have finally breached
the continent's isolation and the first
cases have occurred along the southern
coastline. Significant impact on bird
population is expected.
THE BLUE PLANET
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
This beautiful blue planet that we call earth
No one really can confirm its origin or birth
Some declare it was shaped by a powerful being
Others state the result of a cosmic unveiling
It just seems to be a tiny body in limitless space
With the right conditions to beget the human race
Orbiting at the right distance from a giant star
Allowing flora and fauna to propel exemplar
Giant creatures once roamed the face of the earth
But a cataclysmic event caused their dearth
Doom for the giants was a boon for the small
Leaving crevices and oceans learning to crawl
And so after millions of years we arrive at now
We’ve nearly conquered the why and almost how
Yet we still have questions that surely remain
Is there a will to cease our destructive reign
The Danube was once blue now a brownish pink
The elusive snow leopard is nearly extinct
Most lakes, rivers and even the smallest rill
Are polluted with toxins and chemical spill
Fish caught in streams and canals are taboo
Not to be eaten too much mercury in them for you
Drinking water once availed from natural sources
Are now mostly dependent on commercial choices
The rainforests of Micronesia and the amazon
Sadly, in a hundred years they will all be gone
These sources of oxygen and absorbers of co 2
So essential in sustaining the me and the you
The trends are apocalyptic needing repress
Difficult decisions and actions may render success
Problems are exacerbated by human concentrations
Rapidly expanding and demanding, teeming populations
As resources erode and demand constantly increases
Harbingers of the agonies awaiting the human species
The answers are clear but politically unheard
Populations need reductions, a thinning of the herd
The world spins kaleidoscopic, a whorl of color in revolt.
Oceans quake malleable, molding into fissures of tectonic hunger,
ravaging the deep, stirring the primal need depressing
populations’ unseen to the denizens of land, disregarded in man’s wake.
From the diatom, to the whale, from the single cell to the open hand
from the sun, to the stars, to the mushroom bomb, we’ve light.
Within the orb of eye, retinal flares of light,
an inside-out, upside-down, yin and yang revolution
juxtaposing wealth with poverty, as throngs rise asking for hand
outs, aching with a human need to know, hungering.
Childhood has ended, the tell-tale snake does wake.
Death’s rattle will subside, as the head eats the tail of depression.
Communication will become the global antidepressant.
Natives in aboriginal huts and Inuit in igloos will see the light.
There will be no holding back the tide for hand in hand, each cell wakes.
No longer can knowledge be withheld. “Phone home,” a revolutionary
cry, the tit will not be ripped from the lips of hungering
humanity, the tyrant and the saint juxtaposed, their time at hand.
Instant communication, shall scrape the barnacles of blight handily.
The stroke of finger tip to key shall depress
and ignorance will flee, freeing the hungry
for the way out ,the way up, the key, light-heartedly
heads bowed in prayer, we shall revolt.
Let tyranny be eaten, and righteousness wake.
On the egg of earth, we float in celestial wakes.
Solar tides stir the shards of glass raising death’s hand.
Round and round the top spins each revolution
forced by the pumping thump of rods depressed
rods magnetized and charged with lightening
for we all hunger.
Each evolution a revolution, each thirst quenched brings new hunger.
Repression will never depress the desire to wake,
nor, will the fisted hand ever bring the light.
The Wakening World
A new world spins kaleidoscopic, a whorl of color in revolt.
Oceans quake, molding into fissures of tectonic hunger,
ravaging the deep, stirring the primal need depressing
populations unseen to the denizens of land, left in man’s wake.
From diatom, to whale, from single cell, to open hand
from sun, to star, to mushroom bomb, we have light.
Within the orb of eye, retinal flares of light
an inside-out, upside-down, yin and yang revolution;
juxtaposing wealth with poverty, throngs rise asking for hand-
outs, aching with a human need to know, hungering.
Childhood ends as the predestined ouroboros wakes.
Death’s rattle subsides, as head eats the tail of depression.
Communication becomes the global antidepressant.
Aborigines in Australian huts and Inuit in igloos see the light.
There will be no holding back the tide, for hand in hand, cells wake.
No longer can knowledge be held. “Phone home,” a revolutionary
cry, the breast will not be ripped from the lips of hungering
humanity, tyrant and saint will be juxtaposed, their time at hand.
Instant contact scrapes the barnacles of blight handily.
The stroke of fingertip to keyboard or keypad depressed
sends ignorance fleeing, freeing the knowledge hungry;
showing the way out, the way up, the key. Light-heartedly
heads bow in prayer, the we will rock you will revolt.
Let tyranny be eaten, and righteousness wake.
On the egg of earth, we float in celestial wakes.
Solar tides stir the shards of glass raising death’s hand.
Round and round the top spins each revolution
forced by the pumping thump of nuclear rods depressed,
rods magnetized or charged with lightening
will energize the populous for we all hunger.
Evolution brings revolution, each thirst quenched brings new hunger.
Repression will never depress the desire to wake,
nor, will the fisted hand ever bring the light.