Whirled

This is a poem that I wrote about a week back, and then performed two nights ago at the Narellan Poetry Slam in Harry Hartog - and I came second! :D So I said I'd put it up. Here you go.

This world is a tortured place.

Tortured by us; and it’s hard to count the ways

In which we’ve managed to make it worse

Than it was - we’ve become this planet’s curse.

Whether it be plastic in the oceans, or smoke in the air,

Or things just dying - we seem to not care

About what’s happening around us, we shut our eyes

To the evidence that’s so clear, we believe the lies

That say it will sort itself out. We don’t need to worry.

The earth takes care of itself. Well I’m sorry,

But that might be true if we weren’t so good

At beating it within an inch of its life! You would

Think that we’d have more sense than to kill

The very thing that sustained us, but history will

Testify that this is clearly not the case.

There’s no greedier species than the human race.

And race it is, because we just can’t stop,

We have to go faster, we have to get to the top,

No matter the cost, no matter the pain,

It’s always about the little we can gain,

And we don’t really care what we do to get there.

But, if we can pause for just a moment, can you please tell me where

Do we go from here? What’s the plan?

Do we just use up what we have, and

Hike it off to the moon, or Mars, and use up those too?

Are we that parasitic? Is that really true?

Or is it possible for us to turn around

And heal this world? Heal this ground

That has grown us, and shaped us, and made

Us who we are. The hand that we’ve played

Are not the only cards we’ve been dealt.

We just think they’re never good enough, we’ve felt

That we’re worth more, and so we keep pushing for more power,

More strength, more of everything in this hour.

And the thing is, we are worth more.

But more doesn’t mean burning the floor

Just to get an inch ahead of the rest -

It’s about working with this planet that we’ve been blessed

With, not against it. Because as much as we think

That we are stronger than Nature, in a blink

We could disappear if we keep going this way.

That’s how strong she is. And we try to push her away.

But together, think of what we could do -

Rather than torture, remember that it takes two.

We were given a gift, but instead we destroyed.

But if we stopped - if we employed

Even a modicum of the brains that we’ve been given,

And did something good. Maybe then, we’d be living

Well.