“It needn’t be tinder, this juncture of the year” Conor O’Callaghan – January Drought
I – Hand-wringing…
Tinseltown they called it
The Hollywood sign above it
On mountain and canyons covered
With scrub like gasoline tinder
Rich palaces of dreams rendered
To which many young locusts aspired
But Santa Ana winds have burned
Those houses to naught but ash
Chimneys only gravestones to the cash
Will Angelinos now have learned
Money, for Nature is no match
Challenge it and there’s a catch
Will L.A. be a lesson to us all
That Damocles’ sword’s about to fall…
II – Thunderbolt slinging…
“Come friendly bombs and rain on Slough”
Quipped English Poet Laureate
Enough with all this rational debate
No one heeds “We the People” now
Let Mar-a-Lago flooded be
With Trump inside preferably
Let insurance baulk at rebuilding
The Palace-ades of rich and famous
And let’s see what Trump really does
When Global Warming’s truly a thing
So unlike wise old King Canute
The science is no longer moot
And yes, for sure we all will suffer
Till Nature trumps the monstrous duffer…
Andrew Wilson, 2025
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft invites us to write a Palinode in which two verses take contrary views and around a quotation relating to the New Year. I chose the Conor O’Callaghan one which seems almost prescient to the L.A. fires that are occurring so early in the New Year…