Fire season

Dim, bleary orange smudge, not even round
just hints the sun's position in the sky.
In parody of snow; hot ash drifts down;
from day to day, we live by AQI.
No glint of older starlight's getting through;
this pressure cooker's lid's been torqued down tight.
The mind denies that skies had once been blue,
when all the palette's sepia, and white.
The atmosphere of Mordor sears and chokes,
as if Orodruin were belching forth
particulates and noxious plumes of smoke,
this time not from the East, but from the North.
Four seasons filled the sum of my desire;
this fifth's a crock of ashes, smoke, and fire.

a leaf in the wind

So cold and numb, the hailstrikes scarcely hurt;
their relative velocity's quite small.
Ten thousand meters off the Aussie dirt,
Wisnierska wasn't piloting at all.
Unconscious baggage in convection's blast
her glider--packed with snow--persists to fly.
Her life-force on the wane, and fading fast
the mystery is that she didn't die.
Where Gadd and Castle opt to sit one out,
she takes the meethead's word the day looks good.
Subordinating any private doubt,
'though now, she might repent that, if she could.
Mere gossamer within the stormhead's suck
she lives to fly again, through dumbest luck.

Experience

Wiśnierska's famous 'cause she didn't die
past thirty thousand feet, where air gets thin.
The meethead deemed the weather fit to fly;
to scratch the task would mean she couldn't win.
Convection carries energy aloft;
excited molecules each take more room.
Despite appearances, that cloud's not soft;
the white room's dark between each flash and boom.
Competitors--too oft--subordinate
their own good judgement to that meethead's call.
The race is on! And those who hesitate
can't add a shiny trophy to their wall.
While Gadd and Castle opt to sit one out
a lesser pilot can't admit to doubt.

gambit

The Finns remember rolling Russia back,
and coach Ukrainians to snipe from trees.
In dead of winter, patriots attack,
while Putin's conscripts snivel, drink, and freeze.
On Christmas Eve, we crossed the Delaware,
and took the Hessians roughly from behind.
Their London masters sniffed "that's scarcely fair!"
But no one pays those poofters any mind.
In asymmetric war, we give no pause;
invaders would just use it to re-arm.
The Kremlin's violated 'stablished laws;
they're not the side that's suffered grievous harm.
The empire Romanovs and Stalin grew
outlived its age, but losing here, it's through.

Heat Dome

half idaho's ablaze; its filth's spewed wide;
particulates too small to settle down
from Puget Sound to Continent's Divide
paint skies like Mordor's many shades of brown.
All outdoor sports events must be deferred;
asthmatics struggle for their every breath.
A year of pulmonary wear's incurred
for every week we're casting dice with Death.
Each photon intercepted overhead
destroys the lapse-rate soaring pilots love.
Black-body shifted down to bleary red
the atmosphere's still warmed, but from above.
Grim legacy from when the West was cool/\
presents a terrifying pool of fuel.

Endurance

The Kaiser crushed the Belgians, French, and Dutch;
the Tzar groped towards the exit of this war.
A world away, one captain's out of touch,
ice-bound and drifting farther from the shore.
To lead in combat takes both skill and nerve,
and some part--we conjecture--is innate.
Unsatisfied in peace, each chose to serve
unknowing what adventure'd be their fate.
The purpose missing in so many lives
is not revealed in stars, or dice, or cards
Not individuals, but teams survive,
when challenges are other-worldly hard.
His ship's a loss, but with all personnel
Sir Ernest Shackleton walked back from Hell.

passages

Pristine white landscapes, stark in ice and snow
grow messy as the weather turns to mud.
It's necessary as the seasons flow;
The skiing can't be prime as fruit trees bud.
I'm not so trim myself as once I was;
The abs that once stood taut, now lurk within.
My chin bears shrubberies, where once was fuzz,
and everywhere I'm wearing too much skin.
The caryatid crushed beneath her stone
that Heinlein wrote about so movingly,
looks different now her fate's more like my own;
old texts transformed by our maturity.
My muddy, battered boots dry in the sun;
another metamorphosis, begun.

"unusual weather we're having, ain't it?"

Untimely Spring as snow dissolves in rain
While Aussies suffer unremitting heat
The Polar Vortex won't stay in its lane.
Al Gore was right; we've joined him in defeat.
The WeatherService can extrapolate
the patterns that were normal years ago.
But greenhouse-gases broke the steady-state
and salt-flats crack that should be under snow.
Next week, the powerlines may all contract
and stress the phonepoles as they all draw tight
winebottles spit their corks out, or just crack
as Arizonans shiver in the night.
Miami doesn't even have to freeze
Before iguanas thud like hail from trees.

1066

All history's contingent; day by day
each choice makes universes twin, and fork.
Olde England might have gone another way
had Hardrada not left his mail at York.
For Edward's heir, both battles came too late;
the fyrd that watched the straits perceived no harm
October found few souls to share his fate;
the conscripts served their time, went home to farm.
The French domesticated their own Norse
they drank more wine than beer, these quondam Danes.
But Norway kept the war-blood hot, of course
full-armed they'd devastate the Northern Thanes.
Whole empires hang upon a change of wind
and whether popes opine one king had sinned.

charlatan

This hurricane we're warned is bigly wet;
the Carolinas brace to take the blow.
Pat Robertson insists he'll turn this threat,
but those who aren't stupid pack, and go.
Delusional, to think he'd stop a storm
but true believers lavish him with cash.
The powers that no man of woman born
could bring to bear, they want to think are Pat's.
Coercing scripture to mean what he'd please;
 for years, his exegeses have seemed odd.
but now he wants his donors on their knees;
he really seems to think himself a god.
The bible says such warlocks must not live
but some think heaven's theirs, if they just give.

omens

Thus hurricane, we're warned, its bigly wet
whole towns will flood, some houses will be lost.
Insurers have already made that bet;
no individual need bear that cost.
But actuaries only see the past
not all things are as constant as they'd seem.
Our climate's changing, and it's changing fast.
Tomorrow's not regressing towards the mean.
South Florida's subsiding in the sea
and Bangladesh will be too wet for rice.
Saskatchewan may grow more grapes than wheat;
but that's conjectural--we're casting dice.
The Fermi paradox has been explained;
they've each flushed their own biomes down the drain.

summer storm

Coy virga leave the ground unsatisfied
it's hot, thick breath's been wasted on thin air
the gust-front kicks around what laid there, dried
but all its moisture's carried off, elsewhere.
The desert flora specialize in dearth,
but every year or two, still need a storm
delivering redemption to the Earth
in places where to desiccate's the norm.
Bright scarves of rain, dark veils of steel-grey sleet
with thunder syncopating melodies
still leave this courtship dangling, incomplete
nine times in ten, it's just a dry-run tease.
When wadis gush, and grabens inundate
each Blue Moon sees this drama consummate.

booming

Monsoons graze California in July
arroyos that lay dust-choked race, and churn
But where coy virga leave the surface dry,
the desert vegetation's prone to burn.
Convection that a pilot rides all day
can over-do it with a  frightful jolt.
It's time to fold our fragile wings away
before the valley greets that lightning bolt.
Mulholland stole their river for his town
and Owens farmers still revile his name.
Now, what was orchards' all sage-green and brown
and episodic'ly consigned to flame.
Firefighters don't appreciate the joke;
the empty Owens Lake's now filled--with smoke.

postage stamp

A Winter wardrobe strews the sun-scorched sage
while specks of Dacron dance the bright Spring air.
His club-mates mark his spot, but not his rage.
Their lamb for Wanda, girt in underwear,
has been accepted! Their day's just begun.
they've miles to log as lift and luck allow
before the glory of the driving sun
is blotted out by towers of rumbling cloud.
The driver drops some beers, but dares not wait;
his radio can't reach past line-of-sight.
For dawdling to pack up, he'll marinate
in bitterness until sometime tonight.
By breakfast, as the exploits get retold
he'll feign to sympathize that they got cold.

the fault is not in our stars

Orion stalks us from the Southern skies
no quarry can escape his sword, and bow
laid bare beneath the huntsman's twinkling eyes,
where there's no figleaf, and no wisp of snow.
High season, when we ought to be on skis
our storms are pounding Florida, and Maine.
The drought that's beating Capetown to its knees
has San Franciscans praying for more rain.
The Winter snows and rains that used to fill
our reservoirs to bridge the Summer dearth,
now flood one state, but give another nil
as we disrupt the cycles of our Earth.
The stars can't sigh; they know this plot too well.
It's how such species make their worlds a Hell.

glimmers

Fresh snow-melt churns and scours the turbid creek
and crocuses thrust leaves and flower-buds forth
this February thaw may prove a freak
rebirth seems imminent, here in the North.
While Florida, and Texas suffer snow,
our Winter's preternaturally mild
caressed by the warm, moist Southwestern flow,
the grumpiest is presently beguiled.
Tomorrow night may bring another frost,
the jetstream that had veered, perchance will back.
Untimely vernal blossoms may be lost
like sunset's colors winking into black.
Dark months before the skiers' final fling,
imagination grasps at straws of Spring.

changes

leaves skitter on the duckpond's frozen face
the trees re-clad in snow before they're bare
the seasons whirl at an abnormal pace
it's Winter before Autumn's fully here.
the GulfStream wavers, Iceland holds its breath
without it, what could keep the cold at bay
can geothermal spare them from slow death
if heat's transported somewhere far away?
More moisture's carried in the atmosphere
as heat's trapped by exhausts from car, and cow
old vegetation patterns, year by year,
seem ill-adapted to the here-and-now.
Trump still thinks Climate Change may be a hoax; 
his talking points are written by the Kochs.

Disaster

To waive the Jones Act, Trump's unhesitant
when Texans or Floridians want help
but Puerto Ricans have no president;
he thinks those islanders eat poi, and kelp.
No part in what he thinks would make us "great"
too healthy-looking for his orange tribe
restoring services would have to wait
until he get a kickback, or a bribe.
What profit's in it, if a foreign boat
alleviates their suffering, or loss
'til Puerto Ricans get the right to vote
they're barely citizens to the big boss.
An island sinking in a sea of debt
is something Donald wishes we'd forget.

Red Line

Barbuda and St. Martin took the hit
as Irma, thunderously came ashore.
Trump's mansion on the latter's blown to shit;
it isn't fit for livestock anymore.
Next, Mar a Lago's in the whirlwind's path
Trump's corporation stands to take a loss
his title can't avert the tempest's wrath
the atmosphere acknowledges no boss.
He's safe; insurers won't contest his claim.
They want his favor in the healthcare fight.
No matter what the cost, they'll find no blame
remuneration's easy if you're White.
But island neighbors' equity's cast down
in Hartford, no one loves you, if you're Brown.

insular

This week in Bangladesh dwarfs Texans' loss
the county's at sea-level, built on mud
but somehow, International RedCross
seems wholly focused on the Houston flood
four hundred cable channels, who can choose
for special-market sectors of all sorts
no two Americans agree what's news
'though hearts all beat as one for broadcast sports.
Yet no report arrives from past our shores
we're told the viewing public just don't care
we only go abroad when waging wars
attention doesn't linger over there.
When "foreigner" defaults to mean a foe
it's hard to love the neighbor you don't know.