We Three

inspired by The Declaration of Interdependence

We are the rainbow of oil slick

Floating chest to chest at the inlet

Where our vertebrate apartment blocks

Climb for a view.

We are at home on the head-spikes

As crows among the thickets

Hold our clever wreckage to the light:

Hungry breathing slice the wake - migratory meat

Twitching on the thinnest end

Of ice blanched wedge.

 

We are the halogen heartache at the helm

Illuminating bones of tensile mothers

In metal jackets. Our hot flowers draw

A skyline framed with electric limbs -

Plucking the white pulse from

Elephantine still-born:…

        wet mass thumps on dirt;

Mohammad’s mountain flat-lines

In a trembling glow of street lamps

Avalanching over ledge.

 

We are tomorrow’s gloom today

Looming in the breakfast eggs  

Rooming with the black fractured root of Eve

Picking off the children’s fruit buried long at sea.

Look into your neighbours eyes, moist with

Diesel by the dollar - we are the overharvested.

We are the vacant sands where

Once the coursing tide of fish rinsed their gills

Beneath astonished skies as yet

Untorn…

Author's Note

The Declaration of Interdependence was put together back in 1992 (seems like so long ago, yet not long enough). By Tara Cullis and David Suzuki et al. Do yourself a favour and check it out: it's amazing how it sounds like it was written just yesterday.

Reviews

[Beccy]

We are everywhere aren't we, invading every corner of this beautiful place.

'We are just one of thirty million species.' A humbling thought.

Beccy.

[Dave Brown]

tomorrows gloom today
All too real
nice poem, bad vibes

[andrew mitchell]

Your imagery is just sensational charlie. Very good

[charlie]

Thank you, andrew

[Nisreen]

This piece has so much edge to it

[charlie]

Lol, yeah - wedge and ledge and such

[Nisreen]

i just realized i am the only one who posted 8 words to explain it lol

[charlie]

no explanation needed, friend.

[Tam Warink]

"we are the overharvested" ... why yes, yes and in the most fundamental of ways too. I see this as a sort of sketch, charcoal, rough, symbolic - meant to engage the parts of existence that are here and now. The style of this piece favors a contemporary movement of nuanced, graphic rebellion. Its seems to say "the lines are there, see them... but, they're not my lines. I just live here." But, we must have a care with symbolics. They do not always (perhaps never) mean the same thing to everyone. One can only hope to reach a few minds that resonate on a few notes. Personally, I would welcome resonance with even a single note. You've struck a chord; dissonant, personal yet aloof. (Thankfully there are the Author's Notes.) Let's see what the echos look like upon return.

100 astonished skys

[charlie]

That is astute, Tam. This is another half-baked poem (and WC makes it so easy to share the half-baked goods), and it is arguable that one might only ever hit chords with the 'already in-tune' (or, preach to the converted, if you will). Divisions do define us before they destroy us, don't they?

[Tam Warink]

If divisions define us before they destroy us ... well that would be really sad. I'm going to try looking at it from a different angle. I admit they define us and also provide a clear framework for those aspects of human nature that need work. Here's to labor with a bit of love (whatever means).

[Tree]

I'm going to have to give that DOI a read, Charlie. As for this piece, it put this reader in a place of deep contemplation. It doesn't take a genius to see that we have wounded this planet, have created deep and profound scars onto its surface, infected her waterways and plowed her forests, polluted the air given us, even read somewhere that our orbit (space) has become essentially a junkyard... I'm not a bleeding heart, but I can see a simple truth. My hope is in the children, the youngest generation. Now 12 and under. They will inherit this mess, but with a difference. They will be endowed with a spiritual maturity (not obsessed with fondling greenbacks) and will have the will and the tools (technology) available to them, to make a real difference. I truly believe that. Believe, in them..

Thank you for sharing this piece, Charlie.

Diego

[charlie]

Thanks for the time, Diego.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

a very interesting write, charlie.

i feel something in this that would make me sing "we three kings of dis-orient are..."

"we are tomorrow's gloom today" great line...and who knows what is going to happen down the road...another twenty years from now...i don't want to be around...
greed is ruining us and the crows our waiting to pick our poor bones.

[charlie]

Funny you should mention that: just as posted this and decided on a title, that tune came to my mind also. (Is it a pity that I don't know the words?)

who knows twenty years from now?