I Don’t Like Crickets ~ Oh No! - Donald Keyman

The scaly cricket is an ugly critter
It likes to live amongst organic litter
It’s not as rare as you might think
They swarm around on beaches that stink
And where on earth would you suppose
You’d find smelly beaches such as those
They’re all up in the north you see
Covered in the spoils of our industry
That prehistoric looking beast
Of all our worries is the least
Is it a dilemma that should be faced
If we need somewhere for inert waste
Surely it’s worth a few more insects less
To get rid of all our building mess?
And so controversially to you I say
Tip the stuff into that bay!

Donald Keyman

Security Leak - Lyndon Queripel

With the atomic bomb
Man created his own destruction
A contradiction in terms
With fullest instruction
Now nuclear power
Is the spirit of the age
From behind the bar code
Of a computer cage

There are wars now
And rumours of war
The sorrow of tomorrow
Never known before
Buildings will crumble
And mountains will shake
The sky will fall
And the Earth will quake

With a shadow on the Sun
And tidal wave seas
False prophets will cease
To promise you peace
At the expense of defence
People will starve and cry
As fields burn out
And rivers run dry

Violence is not the answer
For the poor and weak
Or a last resort
To the turned cheek
The Earth is the inheritance
Of the blessed meek
And this is all due
To a security leak.

Lyndon Queripel

This Ecosphere - Kathy Figueroa

Bow to the might of the Pangolin and Bat
Leave them undisturbed in their wild habitat
Tremble before Creation in its glory
Know that Humans are but part of its story

Instead of plundering to ruination
Let Humans protect this wondrous creation -
This ecosphere, this world, this garden in space
This most marvellous home of the human race

Kathy Figueroa

Do Days Have Names Anymore? - Trudie Shannon

I wonder do days have names anymore
Or are we left to loll in Sundays.
Each twenty four hours rolls sedately into the next
No markers, no appointments, start times, finishing times
Buses, boats, trains or planes, to catch,
No irate fuming in traffic queues
No circling frantically for parking places,
No screaming at kids to get out of bed, eat breakfast
Get in the car.
Just a seemingly endless stream of hours all piled together.
Time to breathe, time to think, time to appreciate.
Our hearts are beginning to pulse to a gentler rhythm,
The fluidity of day followed by night, followed by day.
We rise to the dawn and go to rest
To the setting sun.
For now, we can discard all clocks
And if we are in need of markers, names
To own and pass the time
There is of course
Today
At least for most of us.

For there are those who continue to rise each day, exhausted
And work all hours to care and nurse the sick unflinchingly selfless.
There are those who daily, care for the elderly, the needy, the isolated
There are those who make their way to the factory floors
To prepare food and pack it away into tins and boxes
And there are those who drive the lorries to collect the food
And distribute it far and wide
And there are the dockers who load the ships
And there are crews who voyage to bring the goods to port
And there are those who staff the supermarkets, the pharmacies, the post offices
And there are those who clean the streets and the hospital wards
Every one, every single one heroic
Who rise to the same dawn same as most of us
Yet their days are filled to capacity to bring life, nourishment, love
and solace to others.

I wonder do days have names anymore
For now, we can discard all clocks
And if we are in need of markers, names
To own and pass the time
There is of course
Today and
We need to be thankful and remember
That we are the fortunate ones

Trudie Shannon

Life Before Hummus - Joan Etoile

Imagine life before hummus
No olives and flatbread
No tapas or leaves
Nor ready cut veg

Fruit in their season
Then made into jam
No salami or chorizo
Just tins of spam

No more macchiatos
Back to dried tea
From India or Sri Lanka
Ceylon formerly

Tinned pineapple appeared
But just for the Queen
Mangoes and avocados
Had seldom been seen

Those were the days
When the planet was young
Was it our greed that
Made it all go wrong?

Joan Etoile