By: John “Jake” Cosmos Aller
Ten Years After Climate Change Collapse
Sam Adams
Prepared to go outside
Ten years after the collapse
Of the old world.
The city was still standing
But most people had long fled
To isolated country communities
Deep in the burned out countryside.
The city was half flooded
The bay had flooded the central valley
Turning it into a massive inland sea,
The massive storms
Had finally put out
The burning fires
But mutant wildfires
Still erupted
From time to time.
Getting food and water
Was a constant problem
The city markets
Mostly sold canned goods
Salvaged from supermarkets.
There were some small farmers
Who farmed among the ruins
Of the city.
Trade had collapsed
Travel gotten too complicated
COVID still spreading
Everyone masked up
To protect themselves
Against the sun
The lingering smoke
Of the burning city
And the rampaging virus.
Sam Adams
Looked out at the decaying city scape,
Wondering how much longer
Will civilization linger.
Sam Adams carried heat
To protect himself
Against the wild animals.
The lions, tigers, coyotes, wolves,
And their running feral dog gangs,
Who prowled the city streets
Preying on deer, feral cows,
feral cats and pigs
Who grazed among the ruins.
And the two legged neo-savage gangs,
And what was left of the city police
Interchangeable with the gangsters,
Battled it out for control.
Already neo-feudal war lords,
Were battling for control,
SF was run
By a gang of former criminals
And their political allies.
Sam sighed
And went to work
At the market
Selling salvaged goods.
The Lion King Speaks Up
The lion king,
Addresses the animal parliament
The question before them
Was simple.
Will humans have to die,
To atone for their sins,
In almost destroying the world.
Through pollution, mismanagement of resources
Subsequent climate change,
Fueled by greed and corruption?
Are all humans guilty as charged
Will they all have to die?
The tiger spoke for the prosecution
Arguing that humans are like a cancer,
For the good of the planet,
They must be wiped out
Hunted down and killed,
The dog spoke up
In defense of humans,
Humans writ large are guilty,
But not every human is guilty,
Many are trying to save the planet,
And with our help
They might succeed,
The tiger denounced the dog
As being running dogs
Of the imperialist war mongering humans.
The vote is 900 to 800
All humans must die
The animals sent the word out,
Animals all over the world,
Revolt against the humans.
Shouting
“Death to all humans’
As the swarm over humans
Biting, clawing and stomping
Them to the death.
The humans fight back
But in the end
They all die
In the night of revenge
Of the animal world.
Wild Things Run Amuck
4 am
O dark hundred
Bewitching hour
Time for wild things.
To escape
From their prisons
Deep in the mind
Of the sleeping man.
They escape
Hideous demons
Ghouls, goblins, monsters
Escaped banshees.
The wild things
Sniff the air
Saying it was time
For some wilding.
The wild things
Jump out the window
And run amuck
Spreading chaos
in their wake.
Killing everyone they see
Raping women and children,
Vandalizing buildings,
Yelling screaming.
As the wild things
Run amuck
Led by a half man half horse
Centaur like creature
With a Putin like mask
And the voice of Donald Trump
The wild things run amuck
All over the town
Spreading chaos
Until the dawning sun,
Turns them back
Into vampire like creatures.
And werewolves
Howling at the full moon.
The wild things
Come back
And enter their prison
Deep in the sleeper’s head
.And the wild things
Fade into a nightmarish image
As the sleeping man
Awakes recalling the dream,
And the night of terror
When the wild things
Came out to play
At o dark hundred.
Wild Things
Wild things come out to play
Intending to unleash chaos
Leaving their prisons
Deep inside the mind.
The wild things
Have come out to run amok
In the light of the full moon.
Nightmarish real foul creatures
Great demons, werewolves, goblins,
Monsters, hell hounds,
Escaped banshees
Straight out of hell
Howling at the lunatic light
Of the full moon.
Yesterday Morning
Yesterday morning,
I awoke
Like most mornings
Dead inside.
I walked
Out of my drug infested slum,
Into my computerized car,
Down the freeways of my mind,
Searching
for the pot of golden dreams.
I stopped in at a restaurant
Drank copious amounts
of free coffee
And saw all the people
One by one disappearing
Into the crowds
All I knew was wrong,
Or worst yet
A figment of my dark,
drugged imagination,
Every person changed
Transformed
Into an interchangeable
Computer cyborg nightmare figures.
All the same
Turned into the borg
Cyborgs with no soul.
Everybody
Living in instant suburbia
Moving about their meaningless life.
All the same all the same
Not me screamed
Into my coffee as I sat
Inhaling it’s dark aroma.
Yet another victim
Of our creeping
Collective insanity.
Just cogs in the wheel
Cogs in the wheel
Of the nightmare
That is our world.
And so I rise up
Pay my bill
Sell my soul a bit.
Do what the man says
The rights to me
Having been sold
Along time ago.
I go down the road
And get in line
Just another dead drone
After all.
Bio: John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller
He is a novelist, poet, and retired U.S. Foreign Service officer with the U.S. State Department. He served 27 years in the State Department working in ten countries -Korea, Thailand, India (Mumbai) Eastern Caribbean (Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St Vincent) and Spain.
Before joining the U.S. State Department, Jake taught ESL, Asian studies and US Government overseas for eight years and served in the Peace Corps in Korea.
He graduated from the University of the Pacific, and obtained a MA and MPA degree from the University of Washington.
Growing up in Berkeley, and Washington, DC, he has now traveled to all states, and 50 countries and territories. He speaks Korean, Spanish and Thai. He resides most of the year in South Korea with an annual three month stay on the West coast and in DC.
His poetry blog can be found at https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com.
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