Miroslav Vaidic for openphoto.

net

This poem is dedicated to my critique buddies at Bloor West Writers. Maaja

Coming Second (after W.B. Yeats) By Maaja Wentz Turning and turning in a plastic gyre The Garbage Patch grows silently. Things fall apart, degrading into plastic pills and Floating Barbie heads are loosed upon the world. The plastic-dimmed tide concentrates in filter feeders. The innocence of tossing bone over shoulder Should have died with the Neanderthals. The best want more stuff, while the worst Slave hopelessly, for the same petroleum dreams.

Surely this thing should make the papers? It's bigger than the Second Coming! But the Second Coming is fodder for series novels, Televangelists, and lame excuses. When I close my eyes to sleep, the ocean pours in and My head fills with bleached coral, flotsam and decay. Headless, eyeless and without pity for sea birds, Trash vortexes are here to stay.

The darkness should be my refuge but, Hundreds of years of industry Have born this nightmare, hid from us By Commerce, who puts Nature second, That rough beast performing miracles Daily, of air and water and sustenance.

Who could sustain the guilt we should feel?

Who, but the Greens, give a flying dodo? When in hot water, Flat Screen Man will 'reset,' Invoking some planetary cheat code Like easy-peasy carbon sequestration. We play with Earth as if any day, A new one could be born.