Sanctuary
Do you remember when the world was young
And apple trees grew all around
In great chunks of beauty?
Do you have memories of lilac fields
Swaying in morse code for the god's to read,
With sunlight cascading from their heads?
Can you picture all the sanctuaries this earth offered then
When light was refused nothing,
And only the trees were asked to stand?
Laura Stephenson
The greedy and the needy
The greedy and the needy
Both live on Mother Earth
The only separation is
The randomness of birth
But which of them is lucky
And which of them is not
For who is truly happy
With everything they’ve got
The greedy and the needy
Both live on Mother Earth
The greedy know the asking price
The needy know the worth
But which of them know nature
And touch the tender stem
When both can buy so cheaply
then wastefully condemn.
For humanity to flourish
On the planet of its birth
The greedy and the needy
must treasure Mother Earth.
James Pocklington
Dot
Can I ever make a difference?
See, I’m just a little dot.
But, even though I’m little
Lots of little makes a lot.
Bob Bowe
Frightened Jack
I want to turn back, said a frightened Jack,
I’m worried the Earth will die.
I read in the paper that, sooner or later,
Carbon will carpet the sky.
As the carbon expands we’ll lose all our land,
As the ice caps just melt away.
We need to do summats before the Earth plummets,
We need to do more than just pray.
But what can we do, said a frightened Sue
We’ve only got one pair of hands,
It’s the leaders we need, to forget about greed
And help us to treasure the land.
You’re right about that, said a frightened Jack
There’s more they can do, that’s for sure.
But we’re leaders too, so let’s start, me and you,
And help make the future secure.
But we’re just one of a few, said a frightened Sue
We’re helpless and hopeless to boot.
Whatever we do, we’ll never renew,
The Earth is a huge rotting fruit.
There’s people out there who don’t really care,
They’re living their life in a bubble.
They worry about money, which is kind of funny,
When cash is the cause of the trouble.
Well now that’s a fact said a frightened Jack
We all want to be better off,
But the price is too high, if the heat in the sky
Turns our glorious valleys to troughs.
There will be a way to extend our days,
But the path has yet to be trod
By the many who need to rein in their greed,
And care for the life giving sod.
The future is clear for those that can hear,
To change how we live right away.
Stop consumer excess, use energy less.
The Earth needs our action today.
James Pocklington
Live Life, Don't buy it.
Walk, or go on your bike,
Meet people and talk as long as you like.
Hear the birds, feel the rain.
Whistle a tune, skip down a lane.
Sing a song out loud and proud.
Lay calm on the floor,imagine a cloud.
These things cost little and give you a lot.
This earth is forever, shopping is not.
Nick Vowles
Yellow and Green
Spring begins at winters cease,
Sunlit fields a patchwork peace.
As days, now longer than the night,
Bring bolder colours into sight.
For nature wakes to make a claim,
On every spot that holds the rain,
Taking ground with every day,
Shutting out the shades of grey,
Yellow and green become the view,
Bright and vibrant, fresh and new.
Then sheltered on a hillside still,
A young girl sits and forms her will,
To cherish every daylight change,
To love the elemental range,
To understand the earthly scheme,
To treasure this land of yellow and green.
James Pocklington |
The Good Life
Wave your wand and click your heels
Test tube apples and vacuum sealed
Four legs good and two legs better
The televised revolution beckons
Grab what’s yours and bolt the doors!
If you stay inside it will be
(better)
Spoil yourself the fairies say
You’re faceless without a face
You’re worth it
Only when you B O G O F
Paint your face your life by numbers
Only then will it be
(better)
The fairytale of limit free
Is pleasant to all in conformity
Rev up your gear and big up the bling
If yours isn’t newer
It might . just. Be
(better)
Our milk and honey need not be
A den of anonymity
A tale of first person fat and dying
Buying and buying
2nd person stuff, 2nd person people
2nd person space.
This open space of land and talks
All person people, All person love
All person life
Might just be
(better?)
Anisha Ayappa
Ecology
Ploughing four furrows wide and warped
Across the wheat stubble,
Tilthing for the super-harvest,
Heedless of the hungry hawk
And hearing nothing,
The urgent man possesses the plains.
Rooting the earth, narrow and strong
In the open field
Working for the wild harvest,
Famine conscious and hungry,
Hearing the lark sing,
The wild boar is the falcon’s brother.
Flowers bloom from the boar-rooted soil
Providing bee food
And a ladybird larder:
Granting continuity
And web-welded beauty,
The pig is the friend of the primrose.
Peasants ploughing with bent sticks
Gently scrape the earth,
Communing with working worms
Long before the urgent man
Came into being
Before disappearing in a cloud of weeds.
Pigs learned to plough for butterflies,
Feeding primroses,
Providing food for the world
And preserving the peasant:
Friends of each other
Before the falcon fell contaminated,
Poisoned by a hoard of urgencies.
Anthony Weedon
The armchair revolution
Thunk on pink plush carpet;
the stout wooden legs to arms.
This is the call, time to tip the evening paper
(and Jack Russell) on the floor
Time to plump up the upholstery
and dust off the pipe ashes
This is the armchair revolution!
So many years these forgotten,
sat on creatures have suffered
Heaving under the weight
of elaborate monologues
Puffed through cigarettes
spat though cold coffee
About The World, The State of It
and How Its All Gone Wrong
(And of course What Should Be Done About It)
They have agonised behind rantings
Creaked as Atlas to his globe
with all the stories of gore and violence
Of stabbings shootings In All the Wrong Areas.
Of Genocide and Cats stuck up trees
Then back to the morning cup for tea
(spilt on the newly dusted arm of course..)
And 9-5 what’s for dinner and
maybe the cinema tomorrow night?
Well from chintz to checks
these fixtures have had enough.
If the human race consists of
stationary backsides with talking mouths
Sapping the entire Amazon of coffee beans
in their quest to rant the world a better place
Then the armchairs are uprising
Colonising, Mutinising
And revolutionising
There will be armchair outreach
– to all the broken and cracked legs
There will be armchair international aid
– to put some stuffing back into those deprived cushions
There will be regular armchair sponsored tree plantings
– to ensure no armchairs are exploiting the worlds’ furnishing resources
And of course not forgetting
a National Society Against Cruelty to Armchairs
- a broken armchair is still a valuable one!
We need you!
Anisha Ayappa
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Found at Ecofest, Solstice 2009.