A Poem by Steve Hood

 

Hell

Bake a pie in a cracked kiln,

stare at the bright glory hole.
Arizona asphalt, sizzling hot,
vacation in Pakistan.

Pay the ferryman’s toll to cross

toxic river Styx.
Desert cities run dry as
cactus thirst in fine sand and
jellyfish numbers explode.

Spherical drought planet turn,

smoke billows in wind.
Crayons melt in a parked car,
in a new record-breaking heat.

Phytoplankton dies rapidly,

as sea levels rise, splash.
Solar panels lie unpacked,
crops fail in the South,
oceans fall silent, acidified.

As all life goes extinct,

steamy ruins of skyscrapers.
Leaky boils of a chemical burn,
sulfuric acid rainy day.

As skin wrapped in ambulance

bandages, priceless art removed
from museums to safer locations.
Scream in fiery lava bright,
pitchforks push us down.

Steve Hood is an attorney and political activist living in Bellingham, WA. His work has appeared in Waterhouse Review, Crime Poetry Weekly, Tenement Block Review, Windfall, Washington Free Press, and Whatcom Watch. He has published a chapbook entitled From Here To Astronomy, from Pudding House. One of the poems in his chapbook won an award from the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association.