Permafrost Poems

Howling Wilderness

Howling Wilderness

windswept
bleak treeless plain
white blanketed mountains
permafrost hardened ground, I am
alone

Frozen Side of The Sun

On the frozen side of the sun lies Svalbard.
A barren, treeless stretch of land
Buried beneath snow and stillness.
Here, the cold doesn’t just bite;
It consumes.

The whirlwind air scrapes skin with surgical precision.
For months each year, the sun abandons the sky.
Svalbard drifts beneath a vaulted night.
Darkness bleeds through permafrost,
Settling in the earth’s frozen marrow.

But beneath this ice-scarred wilderness,
Where avalanche and ash calcify,
A vault lies hidden deep in the mountain’s underbelly.
It cradles the future;
A womb of waiting seeds,
Asleep in rows of glass and steel.
Hope, suspended in time.
In this tomb of preservation,
Life isn’t gone.
Just waiting with a promise of rebirth.

And when the sun returns,
Brushing marigold hues across glistening glaciers
Like a kiss upon Snow-White's lips,
Those seeds will stir with life.
They will remember the sun.
They will rise.

Open To Interpretation

It's there in the darkness
of Indigo red
Starlings streak the skies
in vapor trails of gold

Winds whistle familiar tunes
as the moon placates the sea's
Time hangs motionless
beneath the permafrost

Revealing what can't be known
The dogs lay silent
in fields of emerald green
and we choose to speak in tongues.

decluttering

connected by a net of misconception
venomous spider’s webs
spun a murky vapour 
synapses raged and festered in a Self
frozen on autopilot with anger and regret

an endless loop of thoughts and feelings
simply refused to thaw and forgive
permafrost allowed no seasons
subglacial lakes slushed an underworld
of resentment in nervous fear and self-pity

irrevocably he had always been a hoarder
collector of trivia banality and serious gloom
icicled intransigence frostbitten mind
so much that hellfire appeared
to be a welcome proposition

he had ingested incorporated inhaled
so very much nonsensical rubbish
there hardly was a tiny space 
for respite and inspired respiration
he nearly suffocated on himself

out he breathed out from his lungs
his spirit soul and desperation
and there was just a small fog of warmth
that graced his near expiring Self
a meltdown of considerable strength
mist of recovery and heat of the moment
that he promised himself to live
reside in the here and now
one day at a time

A Vine in Winter

The sky never complains about the storms,
but homes clusters of things we’ve lost~
    to form a canopy of comfort,
amidst electric threads, suffocating in silence.
When cold is the air ~ tender and crisp,
cradling the gold within jinxed jasmines,
aching for a rosier rise of the sun, 
as clouds sigh reveries, tinged with tears,
wreathed in memories,
of how love was once an orchid in summer,
now this heart trembles, frozen in numbness,
    like a vine breathing in winter,
seeking tendrils of truth from soils of promises~
a quiet verse in a permafrost sonnet, 
sealed with thistles ~ settling into nothingness,
but will the snow moon, 
ever taste the hope within solitude,
that rests upon my tongue?
Or am I to remain a paradox of petals,
floating through flurry lakes of space and time?

Tundra of the Soul

I am the tundra barren cold and numb
A frozen wasteland where no light can reach
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.

In icy silence where no whimpers humb
My thoughts like glaciers grind, erode, and breach
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.

The Amazon within once vital thrumb
Of life and hope now withers out of reach
Between these poles my insatiate self-succumbs.

Anxiety a howling blizzard's sumb
Entombs me deep a creature bleached of speech.
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.

Depression creeps permafrost of my slumb
While echoes of lost joy my soul beseech
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.

Yet in this waste, where all seems overcome
A seed of strength cracks ice defies the leech
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.

CESSATION

CESSATION

That pain is like treading on bottle tops
Or stumbling into some hidden caltrops
Suddenly, as when some lightbulb pops
The welcome relief when it finally stops
Like making big gains on currency swaps
The blood pressure and heartrate drops
Yet is thought so typical of all milksops
With a false sympathy everyone adopts

Once ended, one hopes it never returns
Not just pain, but embarrassment burns
Yet that is only one of several concerns
How to grin and bear it, one soon learns
To hold your breath as the jury adjourns
It is more a prize of resilience one earns
But recall how much the stomach churns
When it’s never over, if one so discerns

Some sort of final line must be crossed
Ideas of permanent pain must be tossed
No wonder that one may then feel lost
As if buried deep within the permafrost
Like being frozen stiff without a riposte
Or see one’s ongoing destiny embossed
But with a better ending than a holocaust
Just seeking cessation at almost any cost

Where are We Going?

Hunted, gathered,
Now, humans reign,
Produce emissions -
CO2, methane,

Absorbing heat,
Driving storms,
Breaking all the
Climate norms.

Glaciers retreat,
Ice declines,
Ecosystems
Intertwine.

Coral reefs die as 
Tipping points are crossed - 
Mass extinctions, 
Thawing permafrost.

Collapsing currents, 
Can't count on
The rainforests of
The Amazon.

Infectious diseases,
Food and water scarce,
Should have honored
Agreement of Paris.

That's where we're going
But I have no fear.
My kid can worry.
I won't be here.

Credible education
To tell us how.
Behavior, policy - 
The time is now.

Love Inferno

Emotion
Permafrost
Tundra heart

In your lured fire
My glacier soul
Smolders into
Desire ember

My blazing yearning
Dances with your flame
Conjoined lust ash flies
In sensual sky
From love inferno

A Guide On Being Cold

The chill in my bones is familiar
Like the icicles grasping my skin
I learned I was cold blooded at five
When the universe told me my sin

The first thing to gather is paint
To aurify your skin with each stroke
When gilded they'll think you're just metal
So they won't be surprised when you're cold

The second task is the boiling pot
Learn to cook yourself over the flame
(If you boil the chill our of your soul
Are you sure it is you that remains?)

When that doesn't work you need to scream
Loud enough to get Their attention
When They all tell you there is no curse
Consider your ice with clear tension

Your permafrost sealed your inner chill
Yet hardened against all sharp objects
I'm sorry you boiled bruised battered bones
But definement rallies through progress

Soft Tissue Attached

After thousands of years
due to global ice melt in the permafrost
my carcass has been unearthed.

Not surprisingly I was hairy and
proto-Slavic.

Some idiot named me ‘Derick Specimen 974.2’,
My spirit watched as they soaked me in warm water
then froze me up again.

How many times must my remains
be poked about like this?
For centuries I have been interned,
exhumed, washed away
and bulldozed into dust,
leaving my genetic footprints all over
their dumb brains

and now some fool
looks upon my preserved remains
and names me ‘Derick’!’

Just wait until I dig one of you up
ten thousand years from now.

I won’t care how bald and scrawny looking you are,
I’ll name you: Aphrodite
even through your flaccid popsicle of a scrotum
is clear for all to see.

Fervent Flare

In my arctic heart
perennial permafrost
freezes fragile emotions.

In your flaming fervor
glacial desire turns cinder 
in the inferno of love.

In my blazing yearning
searing crave swirls 
with fervent flare of fire.

__________

January 8, 2023
For Brian Strand Contest No. 1167

Pacifonics

probiotic peoples
potentiate permafrost
personalities ply
pleasure pious pretenders
promoting primal puss

Our Beautiful Blue Planet

Our beautiful blue planet is in pain;
Rebuffing failed attempts to put things right,
climate change but exacerbates the strain.

The Earth will never be the same again,
and because Man claimed it as His birthright;
Our beautiful blue planet is in pain.

Destruction was wrought for so little gain,
mountains leveled, and forests set alight;
climate change but exacerbates the strain.

Earth's oceans were raped, its wildlife was slain,
and due to Man's greed and lack of foresight;
Our beautiful blue planet is in pain.

Melting permafrost releases methane
as the arctic ice fields reflect less light;
climate change but exacerbates the strain.

Earth's rivers and lakes, thanks to acid rain,
empty, as clear as glass; no fish in sight.
Our beautiful blue planet is in pain;
climate change but exacerbates the strain.

Global Warming Is No Myth

we've seen
               signs of it.
           global warming
        is as real as it gets,
               no doubt.

              spring-like,
             the weather.
            in mid-winter;
      icebergs of Antarctica 
                melting.

                 oceans
              keep rising
           and permafrost
    of the North Pole thawing
                  yearly.


Date written: 07/05/2022

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